Chapter 1

Historical Note

When King Alfonso XIII assumed power in 1902 he inherited a Spain deeply divided. Spanish society was being squeezed between the pressures of modernisation and a lagging, anachronistic Conservatism. The constitutional assembly, the Cortes, had only limited authority. Not unlike the Russian Dumas in Tsarist times, it could advise the Monarch, but not overide his decision.

Spain had once been a great empire, but the 19th century saw it reduced to a shadow of its former self. Rather than move from an economy based on the exploitation of her colonies and a society dominated by the precepts of a Tridentine-style Roman Catholic Church, Alfonso was unwilling to countenance any liberalisation.

Slowly his rule began to unravel in the years leading up to the 1st World War as he repeatedly blocked any attempt at agrarian reform or democracy. Inevitably, this gave fuel to the growing number of radical political groups whose only avenues of dissent were sabotage and assassination. Eventually, his chaotic rule was brought to an end by Miguel Primo de Rivera, an Army General, in 1923.

Vowing to rule for only 90 days; long enough, he claimed, to root out corruption and pave the way for Democratic reforms; in fact his dictatorship lasted until 1930. By then Spain was bankrupt through financial mismanagement and little had been done to free up society. Eventually he was forced to resign and allow elections.

That election in 1931 was characterised by widespread electoral fraud, which saw an overwhelming victory by the right wing Catholic Party, the CEDA, and the 'peasant's Party, ' the Radicals. The Left was badly fractured, with one of the leading groups, the Anarchists of the FAI/CNT, calling for a voter boycott. CEDA promptly began to peel back the few liberal reforms of the Primo de Rivera Government. Spain's economic problems deepened.

For the election of 1936 Manuel Azana of the Socialists, the PSOE, organised a 'Popular Front' of all Left Wing parties save the Anarchists. The Right promptly coalesced into the 'National Front' under Sanjuro, a General. The Nationalists had the support of the 'Falange Espanole, ' the Fascists, led by Primo de Rivera's son. Their anti-Catholic rhetoric made them uneasy bedmates with the CEDA but their ultra-nationalism and violent anti-communism attracted the attention of those interested in Spain's spiritual rebirth as a World power.

The Popular Front won by a close margin. One of their first measures was to outlaw the Falange and exile an outspoken critic of reform, General Francisco Franco, to the island of Minorca.

Rumours of a military coup if the Popular Front won had been circulating for months. Franco had been implicated along with the Fascists. Azana attempted to head off trouble but he merely accelerated the timetable.

In June 1936 Franco secretly travelled to Tetuan in Morocco and raised the Spanish Army of Africa in revolt. Rebellions broke out on the peninsular led by groups of army officers and in desperation the Government provided arms to their Left Wing supporters. This included the FAI/CNT who successfully defended Barcelona against an attack by rebel units.

But Franco had allies in Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.

August 2005, outside Vladivostok, Russian Federation.

The Kamov Ka27 helicopter fluttered just 500 metres above the cold waters of the Northern Sea of Japan. Visibility was limited to no more than a kilometre by a low, grey mist. The two pilots had their eyes fixed on the central consol, and the pulsing screen of the search radar.

"Kamov Victor Alpha this is Poltava," the headset crackled, "have you a visual?"

"No, not yet, Poltava," replied the Kamov's senior pilot, "I have her on radar 4 kilometres East of our position. It's very thick out there."

"Roger, Kamov Victor Alpha. Switch to channel seven and tell them you're friendly," Poltava instructed, "we don't want any international incidents."

"Roger out." The pilot clicked the radio dial a few notches. "Te Kaha, Te Kaha," he said in English, "this is the Russian Navy's helicopter Kamov Victor Alpha. Do you read me?"

"Loud and clear, Kamov Victor Alpha. We have been tracking you for ten minutes," came the reply, "just like old times, eh?"

"Yes, Te Kaha," chuckled the Kamov's pilot, "except we wouldn't be guiding you into our Naval base."

"Rather the opposite, I think. I'm Lieutenant Rashbrooke, 1st Officer."

"Welcome to Russia, Te Kaha, an historic occasion. The Guided Missile Cruiser Poltava is waiting behind us to guide you in. My name is Brian, by the way."

The bridge Officers on the Te Kaha looked at each other with mild consternation. They weren't sure whether they were being put on. "Brian?" remarked Lieutenant Rashbrooke, "not a common Russian name, Kamov Victor Alpha?"

"Is because I'm a Kiwi, like you," came the reply from the Russian chopper. The New Zealand Naval Officers looked at each other in surprise.

Early 1937, near Madrid, Spain.

John watched the old man urge his donkey down the middle of the cement road on the other side of the hedgerow. The animal carried a stack of hay twice its height. A military lorry rolled up behind, a Tatra, clattering and steaming from its overworked engine. The militiamen shouted and cursed until the old man moved the donkey to the side. John watched the exchange of gestures, 'universal' he thought, chuckling.

Two men played cards under the wing of a parked Mosca. The plane was covered in shrubs, except for its long nose. There, the fat German mechanic laboured under the hot sun, the cowling peeled back, and his oil-stained torso buried deep among the bank of cylinders.

"Hey!" 'Oz' Calaghan called from the card game, "'Shagger, ' we need ya dingle!"

"Na!" John shouted back, "I'm broke."

"We'll take ya scrip, eh Roly?" he winked at his partner. The Pole 'Oz' called 'Roly' raised his eyebrows knowingly. John was adamant, however, those two knew how to relieve a mug of his pesetas, that's for sure.

John leaned back against the wheel of his 'kite' and pulled his battered straw hat over his eyes. This was siesta time and most of the Spaniards were snoozing somewhere among the trees and revettements. Only the foreigners were wandering about or working. 'Mad dogs and Englishmen, ' John thought, but it could equally apply to the Aussies, Kiwis, Poles, Yanks, Germans, Czechs, Russians and half a dozen other nationalities in Alcala. 'This is fuckin' mad, ' he thought, 'Spain is fuckin' mad and all those who chose to come and fight here are fuckin' mad too.'

He closed his eyes but couldn't sleep. The Spaniards, he reckoned, could sleep anytime, anywhere. He reckoned they could sleep standing up and flick the flies of their faces while doing so.

Two years ago he hadn't considered joining a war, let alone a Civil one. He'd been scratching a living dusting fields from an Avro 504k, superphosphate, tons of the shit. He'd then seen in a newspaper that the Spanish Republic was recruiting pilots. Well, he hadn't been overseas in his life, not even to Australia, and Spain seemed exotic, ancient, like some living museum.

The Spanish liked the 'Internationales.' John's blonde hair and Anglo-Saxon features stood out in the streets of Madrid. His first day there, he recalled, he was practically flattened by the exuberance of a large well-wisher who plastered him with alcoholic kisses.

The passion of the people in this country intimidated John. At one, extraordinary hospitable and generous, then a careless remark could set off an argument that could envelop the whole street. Is there any wonder, thought John, that such a society, long confined by rigid conformity, should explode into such extremes of violence?

Near Madrid, in the Republican lines bordering the river Benares, Benin sat propped against the wall of a bombed out cottage. The remnant of the roof provided scant shade and she longed for an olive tree and green grass.

Nearby, two militiamen peered attentively through a loophole knocked in the stuccoed wall. Benin idly watched them as they tried to pick out a Nationalist Officer a little way off in the enemy lines.

"Over there," one said, "he'll poke his head up again, you'll see!"

"Who? 'El Gordo'?" the other replied.

"Yeah, the fat bastard! When he shows again I'll blow his fucking ear off."

Benin listened to the snipers laying bets as to who would shoot the enemy officer first. She smiled to herself, wondering wryly whether it was entirely proper to gamble over the death of a human being, albeit a Falangist. She'd seen men bet over a spider race. Nothing surprised her anymore.

Their position had once been a fine villa with frescoed walls and marble tiles. Yague's artillery had demolished the place before being withdrawn North to the Ebro front. The Falangist militia had then replaced the Foreign Legionaires and Moroccan Zouaves. The Blueshirts proved to be brave but incompetent when advancing under fire. The militiaman of the Duretti Column had inflicted many casualties.

'BANG! KA POW!' The snipers fired practically in unison.

"Ha ha!"

"Did you get him?"

"I blew his fucking cap off. Can you believe that? Right off his head, I can't believe it!"

"You hear that, Benin?"

"Tell me when his head is in it," she told them.

"Next time, comrade, next time!"

She was tired. Tired of the boredom, the routine, the dirt, flies, rats and, above all, the nerve snapping tension of spending day after day in the front line.

To relieve the strain, the militiamen gambled or made jokes; grim humour about death and disease. To them these things were the mundane, the everyday, so they made jokes about them.

She thought about the days in Barcelona. It seemed an age ago when the women called Perdita and Conchita arrived at the sweatshop where she worked. They called themselves 'Mujeres Libres, ' the Free Women, and they came in under the banner of the CNT, the Anarchist Trade Union Federation.

Perdita told the webstering and wool spinning women and girls that their liberation was in their own hands. Freedom from wage slavery and poverty, from the oppression and exploitation of the bosses, was there for the taking.

The women all stood in confusion, until one of them, a young girl called Maria reminded them all of what the Boss, that pig, had done, and what continued to do to them.

She meant, 'that which was not talked about.' How the young girls were taken into the office on the mezzanine floor, one by one, day after day. How they then came back sullen, shamefaced and silent. How those that refused were sacked and cast out onto the street. How the manager of the Cloth factory was an evil lecher who preyed on the young, the innocent. How he turned the factory into his private whorehouse.

Benin had waited for the tap on the shoulder, had concealed a bodkin in her knickers for when the time came.

But Maria had woken them all up and now rage gripped them. The manager was hauled out of the closet where he'd hidden, stripped naked and chased down the street by his screaming employees armed with dressmaking scissors and cries of 'neuter him.' Afterwards they broke into his liquor cabinet and held a party.

'En Masse' the women of the Cloth Factory enlisted in the Mujeres Libres. A few, like Benin, joined the Anarchist Brigade's Barcelona Column as they set out to lay siege to Saragossa.

'And now, ' thought Benin, 'the fascists were at the very gates of Madrid and the Popular Front was turning in on itself.' In the North, General Franco's Nationalist Forces were closing in on Bilbao. In the South, they were advancing on Valencia threatening to cut Spain in two. Trouble was brewing in Barcelona between the Anarchist CNT/FIA and anti-Stalinist, Communist POUM on the one hand and the Moscow backed Communists of the PCE and the Catalan Nationalists of the PSUC on the other.

In Spain's fledgling democracy the politicians had yet to learn the art of compromise and conciliation. Each faction, each party was determined to have their own way no matter what. The very fabric of Spanish society had torn apart irrevocably in an orgy of violence and destruction.

But here, on the banks of the Benares, there was only the empty bravado of the opposing militiamen as they masked the terror each one of them felt across the brown, shallow waters of the river. Benin picked up her Labora sub-machine gun and moved at a crouch to somewhere where she could empty her bladder.

At the airfield in Alcala the peace was shattered by the banging of the gongs.

"C'mon, boys!" shouted 'Colonel' Vestuptivich, with his thick Russian accent, "is formation over Toledo heading this way. Please, we must fly!"

John woke with a start and struggled to his feet. The Colonel's quaint phrasing always amused him. "Please, we must start engines... Otto, you must put that fucking cover back now!" the Colonel continued.

Alcala broke into action as engines coughed and wheazed. Smoke drifted from the exhaust stacks and airscrews began to rotate. From around the perimeter men came running, groundcrew and pilots heaving their parachutes and flying gear. Within 5 minutes, the first of the stubby fighters was clattering and banging towards the taxi area.

The Polikarpov I16 Mk 10 fighter, nicknamed 'Mosca, ' (fly), by the Republicans and 'Rata' (rat) by their enemies was the best monoplane fighter in operational service in the World when it began to arrive in Spain in late 1936. It was more heavily armed, faster and better in every way against the Italian supplied Fiat CR32 of the Nationalists except in the turn. Republican pilots learned not to get into a close dogfight with the Nationalist biplane. They made their attacks at full throttle, at a speed the Spanish and Italian pilots couldn't hope to match.

Russia supplied 300 of them to the Republican airforce, all smuggled through the ports of Bilbao and San Sebastion past the somewhat porous blockade of the 'Non Intervention Treaty partners.'

One by one the little fighters bounced down the dusty field and into the air. Above the base they formed into their 'flying V' formation and headed south.

In the Republican lines on the Benares, Benin looked wearily into the sky as she became aware of the droning aeroplanes. She saw seven fighters in formation, monoplanes, with red-tipped wings.

"Ours," she told her comrades, matter-of-factly. The others shrugged.

"Hey, who's that?" one asked, pointing down the slope behind them. Benin followed his finger to see a group of men running, doubled over, towards their position. She was instantly on alert until she saw the red and black scarves around their necks and the black berets on their heads.

The newcomers fell into the ruined villa and took cover. "Fuck off," the first one said, "you're relieved."

"Says who?" Benin snapped.

"Who cares?" one of her companions said, grabbing his rifle and kit. Benin looked suspiciously at the relieving militiamen before following her friends down the hill.

At the bottom of the low hill was a ruined village that the militia used as a rest area. A large red and black flag flew from the pole in front of the rubble that used to be the post office. Below the CNT flag was a smaller one, the red, gold, blue tricolour of the Republic. A dozen or so Militiamen lay snoring in the shade offered by the broken walls.

Benin went through the gap that used to be the front door. A section of the former roof had been resurrected into a rough shelter. Beneath this was what passed for a headquarters with a map table, chairs and a couple of 'staff officers.'

In the Anarchist Brigades, such positions were elected and carried little real authority. The 'Commander, ' too, was elected by the militia and was expected to convey the unit's view up the chain of 'command.' Curiously. the system worked well, even during relatively complicated operations.

"Hey!" Benin yelled, "why did you pull us out of the line?"

"Calm down, Benin," the bearded commander replied, arms up placatingly, "we just thought you needed a break, that's all. Go into town, get drunk and have a fuck, my advice."

"Sure," one of the 'staff' added, "let me accompany you. We could get drunk together and afterwards..."

"I'd rather fuck a pig," snapped Benin.

"Can I watch?" laughed the man.

"Go on, piss off, Benin. Let your hair down. You've done your bit for the present." Glaring at the two men, Benin walked slowly out towards her waiting comrades. Already they'd commandeered a donkey cart. She tossed up her gear and jumped on.

A little way down the road towards central Madrid they came across a column marching towards the front. "Hey," one of the column called as the donkey cart waited for them to pass, "that's a pretty Labora, comrade, let me have it?"

Benin clutched her machine gun protectively. She'd spent months when this gun was the most important thing she possessed and she was reluctant to part from it. "C'mon," the man persisted, "I've only got this old piece of shit and five rounds." He showed her his ancient rifle. Benin doubted that it would fire. The rust was obvious around the lock.

"Here," she said after a long pause, "take it... and these," she added, shedding her bandoliers and cartridge boxes. The man beamed with pleasure and fingered the silver grey mechanism of the Labora. "Use it well, comrade," she told the man as they set out again.

"Why did you do that?" one of her comrades asked, "why'd you give that guy your Labora? Rare around here, those guns. Fuck, I wouldn't hand it over."

"You want that boy to fight Franco's dogs with his bare fists?" she told him.

"Rather him than me."

"That's not the proper revolutionary attitude," his friend said.

"No, but it's common sense," he grinned.

Benin got herself comfortable amid the bags on the cart and dozed with the jolting, rolling motion of the cart.

John Greenhaugh banked his stubby aeroplane slightly to see the jagged lines of scratched red earth. He thought it looked like some giant had drawn a stick over the drab, olive-coloured landscape. It reminded him of a child's first attempt with a wax crayon. Back from the trench line were once dotted Yague's artillery pieces. Now, their empty positions looked like doughnuts from the air. Across the river, the Republican positions were concealed with thick brush. One had to squint hard to find any movement there.

White bursts of smoke erupted a few hundred metres away. 'Flak 40s, ' John thought. He'd noticed a steady increase in anti- aircraft fire from the Nationalists, all, no doubt, supplied by their Nazi German friends. He was glad they were in the hands of the Blue Shirts and not the Foreign Legion. The regular units were much better shots.

Although the little aircraft carried radios, the Republican pilots had learned that the use of them brought swarms of enemy fighters. Instead, they relied on hand signals from the lead plane, one reason they maintained such a tight formation, so they all could read them.

John saw the hand raised with the finger pointing to the right and upwards. As one they climbed, banking roughly towards distant Toledo. John swallowed with apprehension. The enemy bombers were almost certainly escorted by the new German fighter on the scene. Flown by regular German Luftwaffe pilots, supposedly 'volunteers, ' they'd heard they were called Messerschmitt Bf109s. They were at least 50kph faster than the Mosca and superior in both climb and dive.

The cart bumped over the cobbled streets of the Madrid suburbs. The juddering woke Benin. She opened her eyes to find out where they were.

Across the street was a burnt-out church, it's wooden pews dragged out and smashed in the street. The stained glass windows lay shattered across the stone steps, their fragments gleaming like spangles under the noon sun. Benin hoped the priest had been inside it when the vandals came. She noted with grim satisfaction the letters 'CNT FAI' scrawled in red paint across the blackened stonework. She looked up at her two comrades. One grinned and nodded towards the ruined building.

Two Civil Guards watched them pass with looks of contempt. Benin was reminded that there were many in the Republican cause that despised the Anarchists as much as any of Franco's soldiers.

"Hey, Benin," a comrade said, "where do you want to go?"

She hadn't thought about it. "The clinic," she said on impulse.

"What, you sick?"

"I have a friend working there."

"Get drunk with us?" the other suggested.

"The clinic," she emphasised. The man shrugged.

By 1937 many of the Mujeres Libres women were working in hospitals, women's health clinics (the first ones in Spain), schools, where they taught the young women of the poor who would've normally remained uneducated, and in the supply trains and rear depots. Even the idealistic Anarchists had not fully grasped the idea of women's liberation and, in some of the columns, women were compelled to leave the front line. Of course the men of the regular Republican army were outraged at the thought of women fighting alongside the men. Spanish society was still intensely patriarchical.

One of the woman forced out of the fighting units was the famous Perdita. She was born Consuela Maria de Cisneros, a daughter of one of Spain's leading aristocratic families. Educated in Paris of the 1920s, she returned having been subjected to the radical ideas current in the West Bank Bohemian quarter. In Barcelona the Mujeres Libres were campaigning in the interests of the working women of the poor for better health and education and freedom from the utter control of men. Perdita instantly signed up, it was a cause she felt was worth fighting for.

There she met Conchita, Maria Martinez, one of the early founders of the Anarchist women's movement in Catalonia. She was then in her forties, an ex-nun, whose fierce passion for the interests of her fellow women ignited many to the cause. Within a few months, Perdita and Conchita had become lovers and the spiritual leaders of the Mujeres Libres.

To join the Mujeres Libres meant leaving your past life behind. It was as much a spiritual rebirth as any fundamentalist Christianity. The women took on new names, minus family names. That signified ownership and, after all, a maiden name was changed when a woman got married to signify 'change of ownership.' Such things were anathema.

From the time of the overthrow of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in 1930 and the beginning of the Republic, the CNT steadily came to control much of Barcelona. Its members dominated the public services and heavy industrial workforces. The CNT could close down the city anytime it liked.

Formed in 1911, the FAI, (or Federacion Anarchistas Iberias), espoused its own brand of Feodor Bakhunin's Anarchist ideas. When merged with the older Syndicalism of the CNT (Confederacion Nacionale de Trabajores), a French idea from the early 1840s, it became Anarcho-Syndicalism.

Society was to be decentralised and classless. Production was to be run by worker collectives with a rotating system of representation to ensure no-one was corrupted by having too much authority. An Anarcho-Syndicalist community operated on a simple barter system with all major decisions taken on a free vote of its members. Such communities were to be self-contained and autonomous, sending representatives to regular planning committees at regional and national level. Such representatives, of course, were regularly rotated.

Along with the Anti-Stalinist, Communist POUM and the pro-Moscow, Communist PCE these political movements all had their militias in the event that they would need to defend themselves against a hostile Government. When parts of the Spanish Army revolted in June 1936 the desperate Popular Front Government in Madrid ordered the Militias to be armed because the they couldn't rely on the loyalty of their own army.

Spain's armed forces were divided in two, the Army of Africa based in Spanish Morocco, and the Army of the Peninsular. Much of the Peninsular Army remained loyal, except for about 5000 Officers who defected to Franco and his General, Sanjuro. The Peninsular Army, however, was considered the poorer, the least trained and equipped. Nevertheless, with the aid of the armed militias, the rebellion was put down, except for Morocco and the Balearics. The insurrection was left with merely a toehold on the Iberian peninsular, centred on Algeciras, the Ports of Cadiz and El Ferol, and some territory adjacent to the Portugese border. The rebellion was rescued, however, by Nazi Germany who supplied transport planes to fly in units of Franco's Army of Africa, from Ceuta, Morocco.

Benin was deposited outside the clinic, now used as a hospital. A line of men sat along the pavement outside, bandaged, some playing cards and others dull-eyed in shock.

Perdita, her fine aquiline features now ravaged by strain and overwork, moved to embrace her friend with the relief of someone rescued from a desert island. To Benin, she was her mentor, her Mother Superior, who had guided the youngster from poor working class girl to a politicised defender of her people.

"Come, comrade," Perdita said with moist eyes, "we'll have a drink and catch up." The older woman put an arm protectively around Benin's shoulders and drew her inside.

The seven Moscas carefully stalked the enemy bombers to gain the advantage of the sun. They were a typically mixed group, Fiat Br20s and Junkers Ju52s escorted by around half a dozen Fiat Cr32 biplane fighters. John scanned the sky until he spotted what he was looking for, six black dots well above them.

"Bandits, 6 o'clock high," he reported urgently, there not being any point in maintaining radio silence any more.

"I see them," crackled the headset, "let's get in and get out, fast."

"Roger." John banked towards the enemy, pushing his throttle past the gate. The Mosca vibrated, the noise of the M25a Radial engine and roaring airstream over the semi-enclosed cockpit assailed his ears.

The M25a aero-engine was a Russian copy of the American Wright Cyclone. Russia had acquired a licence for it way back in 1930. It was impeccably reliable, simple to maintain, rugged with a useful amount of power for the time. Just the qualities the Russian Ministry of Aircraft Production was looking for.

As they closed the bombers, streams of smoke from tracer bullets told them they'd been sighted. Focussing on the lumbering bombers, fast growing large in his gunsights, John tried to put out of his mind the Messerschmitts peeling into a dive above them.

John's Mosca streaked down on the enemy, firing bursts from his four machine guns at anything in his path. It was an exhilaration hard to communicate to someone that hadn't experienced it. To zoom through an enemy formation, throttle wide open and guns blazing. Time seemed to stand still. Action rarely extended longer than 10 minutes at best, yet most pilots swore they'd fought for a half hour or more after a dogfight.

Within seconds, the hovering Messerschmitts had dived on top of the attacking Moscas. John was through and diving straight down when he became aware of a shadow on his tail. He jiggled the stick to upset the aim of the enemy fighter behind him. He'd already worked out in his mind what evasive tactic to use. He plunged straight at the ground below in a deadly game of chicken.

On the edge of the plain lay the river Guadarama as it made its way to join the Tagus. The river lay in a valley cut deep into the land and was an important navigational feature for pilots. John had flown along this valley before in an I15 'Chato.' So low, in fact, that the fixed undercarriage of the biplane had water reeds wrapped around the wheel struts. At least that's what was rumoured.

John flattened out some 50 metres above the dusty earth. He saw the Messerschmitt was just above him and gaining. 'This guy's good, ' he thought, 'doesn't waste ammunition. Just waits until he's close enough for a clear shot.' John jiggled and swerved, but the maneuvring merely slowed him down, so he made straight for the river valley.

They roared over a village. The square was packed with Nationalist soldiers and they looked upward, white faced, as the screaming fighters shot over their heads. John knew exactly where he was, but he doubted the German was that familiar with the countryside.

He hollered as he pushed the stick down and to the left, 'ee ha.' He flattened out so close to the water that the prop sent misty spray high into the air around the little fighter. John looked behind. The Messerschmitt had overshot and was circling around to his right. Before it could resume the chase, John had gained a kilometre or more and was weaving down the river valley. It was altogether too much for the enemy fighter and John was relieved to see it disappear.

A half an hour later the Mosca was gingerly touching down on the bumpy airfield of Alcala. He looked around at the parked aircraft, counted them to see who had returned and who was missing. It was part of the job he hated. To lose friends in such circumstances was the hardest thing to bear.