‘Otherwise, monsieur, you will have confusion, and if you have that, it will fail.’

Dusk was close by the time that task was completed, the front of the east-facing building now in deep and useful shadow. The attack was split into three parts, four if the cannon were included. Vince, with his single sticks of dynamite, took one party down the avenue well away from the exchange; Cal took another in the opposite direction and that included Xavier, both sets of attackers obliged to dodge from doorway to doorway until they were far enough off to cross the road. They would come at the exchange from the sides, using their proximity to the front of those adjoining buildings, as well as their doorways and moulded parapets, to provide some protection.

Laporta had his riflemen aiming at what remained of the roof, to keep down the heads of those watching the attackers’ movements. Any sight of one popping up resulted in a fusillade; that such action presaged an assault just had to be accepted. At the signal, the artillery would take over that task while the rifles were trained on the windows, their orders, which only existed as a hope, being that they would put a series of single shots through each one to suppress the defence enough to provide the time needed to place the charge.

At Laporta’s signal Cal and Vince led their groups forward, backs pressed into stone as the docker-artilleryman aimed the shot, falling masonry another risk that just had to be accepted. The defenders knew what was coming and the first grenade, a proper one, popped out to bounce on the rubble-strewn pavement, really too far off to do serious damage.

As soon as that emerged, Vince’s men went into a huddle in which matches were set to lengths of fuse, the explosion acting as the signal to rush forward and for the riflemen to commence their suppression fire. There was no way to throw those individual sticks through the destroyed windows without stepping back to do so, and that created another risk.

Anyone shot dropping a lit fuse would endanger his own, something which happened immediately. This was an occasion when suicidal courage was admirable: the man shot did not let his dropped stick injure his fellows; twisting, he flung his body on top of the charge, bouncing in the air, his guts blown apart as it detonated.

The other sticks made their targets, exploding inside and below the level of the sills under which the attackers were now crouched, protecting their heads from both the blast which emerged and the bits of stone crashing down from above, some of them big enough to kill. Steady gunfire was coming from the main position as Xavier flung himself into the doorway and with great care lit the fuse. Just as he did so, a second grenade dropped no more than ten feet away from him.

Cal Jardine dashed forward and just kicked it, sending it spinning away before he flung his body into the doorway to huddle beside the miner, who had used his own bulk to shield the charge, cheek pressed against the cold bronze and arm up to cover his face, aware that time was limited; that fuse was fizzing. Thankfully, exploding in the open, the blast of the grenade, now too far away to wound, was dispersed and, as soon as that dissipated, Cal grabbed Xavier and dragged him away.

There was no time left to get clear, the only security lay in using the corner of the building. Dodging into the narrow alleyway, both men hunched down, hands pressed over their ears as the charge went off with an almighty drum-splitting boom. Cal was unable to observe the result, not that he was looking, but when he did open his eyes and look out it was to see a mass of workers, led by Laporta, rushing across the intervening ground, yelling and firing their weapons, to rush through the blasted and now-gaping doorway and into the building. Once inside, there could only be one outcome.

Darkness was upon them by the time the exchange was fully secured, every defender either killed or taken prisoner, mostly the former. The telephonic systems, the stacks of switching gear, housed in the basement, were intact, thus restoring communication not only with Madrid, but also with the rest of the world. It was a dust-covered Cal Jardine that joined an equally mucky and weary Vince Castellano and a delighted, if grubby, Florencia, who gave him a hug.

‘That,’ Cal sighed, ‘has got to be enough for one day. Time to go back to the hotel and clean up.’

It was the look on Florencia’s face that provided the first hint, the words that followed the facts.

‘Querido, some of the soldiers have taken refuge in the hotels. The Colón and the Ritz are under siege.’

‘You did not think to tell me this before?’ As usual, when challenged, Florencia did not look abashed, but defiant, as though it was he, not she, who might be in the wrong. ‘What did you think I was going to do, rush back and see if my luggage was safe?’

‘I told you, guv,’ Vince said. ‘You should have stayed in the hostel with us, not some swanky hotel.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

This time Cal Jardine was a spectator to a siege, and for once he was watching professionals at work. The Civil Guards were the body attacking the Ritz and doing so with some skill; it being dark, they had brought up searchlights and aimed them at the hotel front to blind the opposition and cover their own manoeuvres. No one moved without an order, no order was executed that did not come with a corresponding distraction to confuse the defence.

This was an organisation, near-military in its set-up, accustomed to dealing with civil unrest, and they were trained in the necessary tactics of fire and movement as well as those required to take a static obstacle. The only drawback to the man watching was the fact that one of the windows they were firing at was the corner room he had left in such haste twenty hours previously.

The rest of the city was far from quiet, but all the indications now pointed to it being mopping up rather than pitched battles against the insurgents. With the telephone exchange working again, news was coming in from all over the country as well as abroad, though it was probably being managed to sustain morale. Most important was that Madrid seemed to be safe for the Republic; if the capital had fallen to rebels, it would have been fairly certain the coup had succeeded. As it was, there was some hope it could be suppressed.

Sitting on a wall behind those searchlights, far enough away from the fighting to feel reasonably safe, and after a short but restorative nap, time for reflection was possible, aided by bread, cured ham and a bottle of wine, interrupted only occasionally by the distant blast of a grenade. Vince had taken his party back to the hostel to eat and sleep, while Florencia had gone to her own home to clean up and acquire a change of clothes more suitable for the counter-revolution.

There had been no end to the desire of the various factions to show their colours, usually huge flags on trucks full of armed men roaring around the city to no seeming purpose, which did lead Cal to wonder if the present alliance would hold. The mistrust was not hidden; it was out in the open whenever the various groupings came across each other viz. those Asturian miners.

‘Florencia told me I would find you here.’

It took a moment to realise he was being addressed, and another to turn from English thoughts to spoken French, but no time at all to recognise the voice. Almost immediately Juan Luis Laporta was sitting beside him, looking right ahead at the starkly illuminated Ritz Hotel, this as an explosion erupted.

‘It is like a film, no? Eisenstein.’

‘Does the hero die or survive?’ Cal replied, while he wondered at the reason for the visit. The anarchist leader was an important person and should surely be busy, too occupied certainly for an evening stroll and a leisurely chat.