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<1st attachment, "Butterfly and Falcon01.txt" begin>

THE BUTTERFLY AND THE FALCON

   By KATZMAREK

   -----------------------------------------------

   Author's note.

   This is a work of fiction based on fact.  Opinions and interpretations
of events expressed are my own and as such are entirely contestable.

   This remains my property and may not be used for gain without my express
permission in writing.

   -------------------------------------------------

   August 2005, outside Vladivostok, Russian Federation.

   The Kamov Ka26 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 pesos, 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 Henares, 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 Zaragossa.

   '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 Trotskyist 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 Henares, 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 Henares, 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 which 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 based in the Balerics and Spanish Morocco that
had joined Franco 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 of General Miaja and even the
PCE's Communist Militias 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.  Family names signified ownership
and, after all, were 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
1931 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 Trotskyist POUM in Anadalusia and the Communist PCE in
Castile and Asturias, these political movements all had their militias who
trained regularly in the event that they would need to defend themselves
against the Government.  When parts of the Spanish Army revolted in early
1936 the Prime Minister, Azana, ordered the Militias to be armed because
the Government couldn't rely on the loyalty of its own troops.

   The revolt, however, was quickly put down by the Civil Guard and
loyalist forces except for the West, along the Portugese border, and the
extreme South.  Franco's insurrection was rescued, however, by Nazi Germany
who supplied transport planes to fly in units of his Army of Africa,
Spain's colonial forces based in 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 attacking out 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 engine and roaring airstream
over the semi-enclosed cockpit assailed his ears.  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.

   At the debriefing afterwards John was ordered to hand over his aircraft
to a new pilot.  The squadron was going to be rested and the surviving
aircraft handed over to a new intake of pilots, all Russians, fresh from
the USSR.  He took his kit and left quickly, catching a military lorry to
Madrid.

   Pressure had been building for months on Prime Minister Largo Cabalero
and his successor, Juan Negrin.  Fighting alongside the Republican forces
were thousands of members of the International Brigades and their
respective Governments wanted them home.

   These Brigades were a phenomenon, the like of which, had never been seen
before or since.  Thousands of volunteers from Britain, France, Germany,
Italy, the USA, Poland and Canada, to name the main ones, left their
homelands to fight against Fascism in Spain.  These formed the famous
International Brigades with names like, the Washington and Lincoln
Batalions, the MacKenzies from Canada, the Liebknechts from Germany etc. 
The Germans and Italians were mostly Communists but the Brigades also
consisted of Trade Unionists, dreamers, poets, authors, philosophers and
Leftists of every stamp united in the anti-fascist cause.

   British author George Orwell, a Fabian Socialist, fought with the POUM
near Valencia and wrote of his experiences in 'A Letter from Andalusia.'
Many were profoundly disturbed by their experiences, ill-prepared, perhaps,
for the reality of a bitter civil conflict.  The British, Canadian, German,
Polish and American Brigades, in particular, distinguished themselves on
the Ebro front and were regarded by General Miaja as the best soldiers
under his command.

   International pressure to repatriate these volunteers mounted until, in
an attempt to court aid, the Republic agreed to withdraw them and send them
home.  German and Italian volunteers, however, were shipped to France as
they clearly couldn't return to their respective countries.

   John's position was a little different.  He'd enlisted in Spanish
service before the revolt and was not part of any International Brigade but
a serving Spanish Officer.  His status was unclear and, before this could
be clarified, the Republican Air Force Command decided to relieve him.

   Many Russians also went to Spain to fight with the Republic.  However,
these were all NKVD or regular serving Officers of the Red Army, sent as
'advisors.'

   Ironically, no great pressure was exerted on the Nationalist Forces to
send home the thousands of Germans and Italians fighting for them.  The
German Condor Legion of Hugo Sperle, supposedly volunteers, were all
Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe personnel.  The Italians sent at least two fascist
'Black Shirt' Divisions, one being all but anihilated by the International
Brigades on the Ebro.  An Irish 'Blue Shirt' Batalion was raised,
consisting of fervant Roman Catholics, and sent to defend the Mother
Church. The 'League of British Fascists' also sent a few volunteers.

   John travelled to Madrid with mixed feelings.  He was only dimly aware
of the turn of international events and wasn't at all sure why he was being
stood down.

   And what would he do in Madrid in any case?  His life had revolved
around flying and the squadron for so long, life outside seemed like a long
past memory.  He jumped off at an overcrowded hotel and went in search of a
room.

   ---------------------------------------

   "What you need, my love," Perdita told Benin after the first bottle of
wine, "is a good fuck."

   "So I've been told," Benin replied, wryly.

   "And what's wrong with that?  You can hand him back afterwards.  You
don't have to keep him."

   "I don't need men in my life, even for one night."

   "Not every man is a perverted priest, Benin," she told her, gravely. 
Benin looked at her hands folded in her lap.  The wine, the talk, had
opened old wounds long plastered over.

   In the close knit poor suburb of Barcelona he was simply known as the
Father.  He was well over sixty when Benin turned 14 years old and had been
the local priest for over forty years.  The position of a churchman in
fanatically Catholic Spain was unassailable when Benin was a young girl. 
He was God's man on Earth.  To defy the wishes and demands of the Father
was like defying God.  One simply courted purgatory.

   As long as she could remember the Father, as familiar as her own Papa,
had touched her.  It was always with affection, it made her feel special.
He would hug her, pat her hair, always in front of her parents and she
thought little of it.

   One day, a few days before her 14th birthday, she recalled with crystal
clarity his hand drifting down her back to cup her bottom.  She didn't
think much of it at the time and continued laying the table for him.  Benin
remembered how her Mother had panicked the day before finding enough food
to give the Father when he was to call the next day.

   'Barely enough for ourselves,' Benin thought, 'and we would go hungry to
feed that fat parasite.'

   "She must come to see me," he was telling her Mother, "she is growing
up." Benin recalled the knowing looks passing between the adults.  She was
confused and she asked her Mother afterwards why she had to see the Priest.

   "It's because you're growing up and..." she hesitated, "you'll soon be a
woman.  There're things you need to learn if you're not going...  to fall
into sinful ways." Benin was none the wiser, but very curious.

   She thought, however, that it must be something to do with lust, sex and
marriage.  These things that are not mentioned at home but were lambasted
into them at Church on Sundays.  'For a man to take someone as a wife who
was not his wife was a sin.  To look at a man with desire who was not her
husband destined a woman to purgatory.  A man lies with his wife for the
purpose of procreation.' And on and on.  To feel the natural urges of a
girl in puberty was interwined with fear and recrimination.  'No wonder,'
Benin thought, 'that Spain was both fearful and obsessed with sexuality.'

   "Come child," he'd said before drawing her into the Rectory.  The
curtains were drawn, unusually, and the office was dim and intimate.  The
Priest sat on a plush sofa, his back to the thin shafts of sunlight that
filtered past the gaps in the drapes.  Benin stood before him fidgeting,
nervous and confused.  "Now, child, Benin," he continued, "you are growing
into a beautiful woman.  You will make a fine wife for some young man."

   She nodded, managed to make a weak smile at the compliment.  She'd worn
her prettiest dress, the one she'd normally wear to Church.  It had a
bright plaid design and hung modestly down to her ankles.  Over the last
year she'd shot up in height and had grown hips.  Her Mother had told her
she was growing like a weed and her Father would have to work twice as long
to keep her fed.

   Her bust had not blossomed like other girls.  Instead, they were just a
hint of what was to come.  All that height, though, was at the expense of
her waist, for she was a thin as a rake.  "Have patience, Benin," her
Mother had said, "a year or two and the boys will be falling over
themselves."

   "Yes...  very pretty," the Father went on.  Somehow the way he'd said it
made Benin feel more nervous.  This was not the tone the family friend and
advisor, the intercessor with God, used.  There was an edge, something
indefinable and confusing.  "Come closer, let me get a better look at you."
Dumbly she complied.

   She was beckoned closer until she was within his reach.  Then his hands
were on her, stroking her sides, down over her hips and around to her
bottom.  He pulled her closer until she was practically in his lap, his
insistant hands mauling and groping.  "Beautiful!" he whispered, then
swallowed and made a noise as if he was about to choke.

   Suddenly she was perched on his knee and his hand was bunching up her
skirt, his fingers moving up her leg inside the light cotton fabric.  Benin
swallowed in fear and uncertainty.  She could utter no sound, her voice
constricted in her throat.  "Brown eyes," he gurgled, "such depth, such
beauty," as his hand slid higher.  Instinctively Benin squeezed her legs
together, but the Father pushed apart her knees with his hands.

   Too poor to wear stockings, the feel of his rough hands on the delicate
skin of her upper thighs made her want to be sick.  She swallowed down the
rising bile."I must see how you're developing," the Father said with
authority in his voice.  "Pull up your skirt and down with your panties,
please." She couldn't refuse, it would be the same as defying God.

   She stood, shuffled down her panties, and allowed herself to be pulled
down onto his knee once again.  The Father gestured for her to raise her
skirt.  The young Benin complied until she was completely exposed.

   Benin's skin seemed to crawl.  She felt hot, but trembled as if cold. 
The Father's fingers probed and pushed around her young vagina, covered in
a brown fluffy down.  The Priest pulled her leg tight into his crotch until
she could feel his penis, hard, pulsing and intrusive, under his cassock.
He placed her hand on it, pushed it back and forth while gurgling and
swallowing.  She was aware of him breathing hard and dribbling from the
corner of his mouth.  His face had changed to something ugly.  Benin began
to sob until her tears began to run down her face.

   Suddenly he ordered her to stand and get dressed.  He left the room
quickly leaving the young girl to find her own way out.

   "Benin?" Perdita asked, concern in her voice.  Benin became aware she'd
fallen silent for some time.  She felt a little drunk from the wine,
morose, perhaps.

   "I need to go for a walk," she explained.  Ignoring the worried
expression of her mentor.  She got up and walked quickly out onto the
street.

   -------------------------------------------

   Lieutenant John Greenhaugh wandered from hotel to hotel.  Madrid was
full of Officers and Government functionaries and they all seemed to have
grabbed the best accomodation for themselves.  Troops were quartered in
Churches and halls and camped in tents in the grassy town parks and
squares. No-one seemed to have any room.

   He'd walked far into unfamiliar territory.  Carousing soldiers were
everywhere, singing and arguing among themselves.  Hookers, too, beckoned
him from doorways and street corners.

   He passed an alley and spied a group arguing a little way inside.  He
would have passed on by but for the angry cry of a woman.

   "Go away, get out..  bastard!"

   On impulse, John turned back to investigate.  A couple of drunk soldiers
appeared to have a woman pinned against the bricks.  She was small and
slender, giving away at least 40 kilos each to the men.  It wasn't fair.

   --------------------------------------

   Rage consumed Benin.  The two drunks were calling her an 'Anarchist
bitch,' that she was both a whore and a lesbian.  That what she needed was
a good cock from a real man.  She punched the bigger of the two in the
midriff but he scarcely flinched.  Instead, he groped her breasts.  The
other was laughing, egging his friend on, telling him that he was next and
he could've picked one with big tits.  He liked big tits.  Their stale
tobacco and alcohol smelling breath sickened her.

   All of a sudden the drunk's face disappeared to be replaced by the wide
green back of a Spanish Air Force Officer.  She heard a crunch like thin
wood snapping and she watched the drunk cannon across the alley and bounce
off the opposite wall.  He then slid down in slow motion to lie crumpled in
a heap on the cobblestones.  The other drunk turned and ran, his progress
sped up with a kick to his fleeing rump.

   Benin looked up in shock as her rescuer turned and raised his cap in
greeting.  She was struck dumb, her jaw sagged.

   "Madam?" he said, "are you all right?"

   "Yes," she replied, automatically.  She couldn't remember ever being
called 'madam' before.  She should have been outraged at his patronisation.
Instead, she felt like a 13 year old girl who's just spied the new
neighbour's cute son for the first time.

   The Officer was tall, broad across the shoulders, blonde with a guiless,
classically handsome face.  He wore a green, Air Force Lieutenant's dress
jacket complete with pilot's brevet and a row of ribbons.  The pilot was
clearly a very successful one.  One thing Benin remembered clearly from
that encounter was the man's blue eyes, deep and profoundly honest.

   "Madam," he said and tipped his cap.  As he turned to go, Benin thought
he looked German.  Perhaps he was one of the many foreigners enlisted in
the Republican cause?  Certainly, his Spanish was halting, his
pronunciation strange.

   "Are you German?" she asked to his retreating back.  She felt panic,
that this was a moment she needed to seize quickly.

   "New Zealander, Madam," he replied.

   "What...  what is your name?" she asked.

   "John," he told her, "John Greenhaugh...  from Taranaki."

   "Taranaki?"

   "Yeah!  A Province...  in New Zealand."

   "Ah!" She was disappointing herself.  Her voice sounded timid, not
confident and proud of her sex, her class.  This wasn't what Perdita had
taught.  He turned to go.  She watched him disappear around the corner
before she gathered herself.  "Hey," she called, "hey!" she repeated,
louder.

   "Yeah?" He turned back.

   "You want to go for a drink?"

   He stared back at her, his blue eyes flashing like a cat's in the pale
street lighting.  "Yeah," he answered, "yeah, why not?"

   ------------------------------------------

   War accelerates people so they live life as if every breath may be their
last.  Benin and John felt they needed to learn about each other quickly,
lest the moment be lost and the next day they'll be lying dead in a ditch
somewhere along some anonymous road.  They shared a bottle of wine together
at the back of the Montana Cantina, now serving as an Anarchist watering
hole.  Armed Militiamen stood outside to ward off hostile intruders.

   Benin found herself telling John about her life, about the Anarchist
Brigades and Mujeres Libres.  He seemed to soak up every word, every
gesture.  He was only 23, he explained, had been taught to fly by his
Father when he was 15, had been in the air ever since.  John adored his
Father, he'd been in the RFC in the Great War, an air ace, he insisted.

   "I think," she told him, nodding at his medals, "that you take after
him."

   "These?" he replied, modestly, "they give them out to everyone." She
knew it wasn't true.

   He couldn't believe she was only 20 years old.  Her face was full of
fatigue, of someone who'd seen more than was right and proper. 
Nevertheless, her olive face and brown eyes were beautiful.  Her thick
auburn hair fell to her waist when not tied tightly in a pony tail.

   Benin couldn't remember the last time she'd had a normal conversation
with a man.  'The cold fish,' they'd nicknamed her in the Brigade.  'Ball
breaker,' had been another comment.  She much preferred the company of
women, they understood each other.

   In fact she couldn't remember the last time she'd talked so much.  This
big blonde man was relaxing to be around.  He teased detail from her, such
as she'd never shared with another human being.

   At some point in the evening she'd made up her mind to sleep with him.
After all, she could always give him back afterwards.

   "You have a place to stay?" she asked him, matter-of-factly.  She knew
the answer already.

   "Nope."

   "Where's your gear?"

   "Air Force Hostel.  I left it there until I could find a room."

   "Then perhaps you should fetch it?"

   "Yeah...  Ok." He seemed to take awhile to digest the import of what
she'd suggested.  Benin watched realisation dawn slowly in his face.  It
amused her and she began to laugh.  The first time she'd laughed in two
years.

   A Militiaman agreed to drive him in the unit's vehicle, a delivery van
with 'Camel Cigarettes' still faintly visible on its high sides.  A guard
perched on the front bumper armed with a Thomson machinegun complete with
round magazine.  John felt like he was in some Depression-era gangster
movie.

   The Anarchists dropped him at the gates of a girls' Catholic school,
requisitioned as the Madrid headquarters of the Mujeres Libres.  Benin
ushered him past the gates, where two fierce-looking women stood guard.  He
followed her up stairs to a top room.  It appeared to be the former cell of
one of the nuns, a sparse room with a desk and single bed.

   "Here," she told him, unceremoniously, and grabbed his kit bag heaving
it into a corner.  "You mind sleeping against the wall?" she asked.  John
shrugged.  "Not much room," she continued, "but it will have to do."

   "It's all right," he mumbled, "better than a ditch."

   "I've slept so long under the stars," she told him, "that this seems so
strange."

   John undid his jacket and took it off.  It was hot in the cell and it
had little ventilation.  "Maybe we can go out onto the roof?"

   "Yes," she brightened, "help me drag this cot out.  There's a door to
the roof just down the hall." Together they hauled the bed outside, past a
couple of bemused women soldiers.  They found a secluded spot, under the
high narrow window of their cell.

   It was cool, and faintly damp from the humidity.  They squeezed into the
little cot together in their shirtsleeves and underwear.  Benin placed her
Webley revolver under the straw pillow, in case of emergencies.

   They lay there for an uncomfortably long time, each wondering when, or
how, to begin.  She nestled into his neck, looking upward at the stars.

   "What if we lose?" she asked, suddenly, "what are you going to do?"

   "The Poms and Frenchies, maybe the Yanks, will have to come to our help.
Perhaps the Russians..."

   "They won't come," she said firmly, "France and Britain fear Russian
control here.  America won't interfere in European affairs and Stalin is
trying to build an alliance against Fascism.  He doesn't want to provoke
those he wants as allies.  The Government has ordered the dismantling of
the collectives in Catalonia and is giving back farms and factories to
their former owners.  The word is they want to disarm the Anarchist
Brigades to prove to Britain and France they are a moderate, democratic and
capitalist Government defending their so-called democracy against
totalitarianism.  But," Benin said sadly, "it won't make any difference so
long as the Russians are here and they are the only ones supplying arms to
the Republic.  You see the dilemma?  We cannot win because Germany and
Italy have no such constraints.  They will support Franco with everything
he needs to destroy the Republic.  Without Russia we are doomed and that
will happen very soon, I think."

   "I see," John said, thoughtfully.

   "So what will you do?"

   "Go home, I guess.  Maybe wait for another crack at the Jerries and
Eyeties?"

   "Ah," she smiled, "you are an anti-Fascist?"

   "Sure."

   "Then perhaps we might meet again as comrades?"

   "Sure," he agreed.  She smiled and kissed him on the cheek.  He turned
to look into her face and smiled back.  Gently he touched his lips to hers.
She pushed at his questing mouth until they became locked together, tongues
playing.  John felt her body soften, move sensuously against him, until
their crotches were grinding together.  Breathing heavily, she allowed him
to explore her body, run his fingertips over her breasts, down her tummy,
over her hip and onto her bottom.

   A fleeting memory passed and was a gone, the Father's hand groping her
like he was inspecting a prize hog.  But John's hands made her tingle with
desire and need.  Her friends were right after all, what she needed was a
good fuck.

   John parted her shirt and followed with his lips.  Her nipples stiffened
as he suckled them.  She sought him, hard and pulsing, with her hand,
pulling open the buttons of his underpants, and drawing his cock free.  In
response his hand pushed between her legs and inside her panties.  She
shivered as his fingers found her, played with her.  She was open for him,
gushing with desire.

   Benin moaned as John pushed her panties down around her ankles.  They
rolled and maneuvred on the narrow bed until she was lying, legs spread and
exposed, with John lying on top of her propped on his elbows.  She giggled
at the awkwardness of it all.

   His hard cock probed at her waiting pussy.  Sucking in her bottom lip,
she seized him with her hand and guided him downwards.

   "Y'sure?" he gasped.

   In answer, her legs came up and crossed over his thighs.  Her hands
grabbed his hard arse and pulled him into her.  His reluctance disappeared
in an instant and Benin felt him fill her, stretch her deliciously.

   "Ohh," she gasped, and urged him faster.  She pushed at him, grinding
her clitoris against the ridge of his pubic bone.  "Uhh, Ohh, mmm..."

   They rocked faster together.  John grabbed her lower bottom, cheeks. 
The feel of his hands excited her, made her cry out in lust.  Benin had
never orgasmed before on a man's cock, no man had ever touched her deeply
enough, either physically or emotionally.  But Johns beautiful, hard body
stirred her.  From the very moment he'd entered her she was coming, and the
feeling kept growing and growing, spiralling out of control.

   She remembered afterwards the feeling of being as helpless as a rag
doll, of not having any strength left, of howling and crying out.  His dick
throbbed and pulsed inside her, sending fountains of his warm essence to
her very core.  She remembered frantically kissing him as he ground slowly
to a halt, his chest heaving with effort.  She remembered sobbing into his
shoulder as her held her tight with his big, strong arms.

   "Y' right?" he'd asked.

   "Yes, baby...  fine," she told him, before continuing crying.  'The dumb
ox,' she thought, 'thinks he's hurt me.' She kissed him on the cheek before
settling back against his shoulder.

   ------------------------------------------

   They woke the next morning to find the school was surrounded by the
Civil Guard.  Armed women had taken up positions at the top windows. 
Obviously something had happened.

   "Benin," cried one of the women, "the CNT has rebelled against the
Government." Benin stared at her in astonishment.

   After months of provocations, trouble had flared in Barcelona between
the Anarchist, Trotskyist and Catalan militias and the Government.  It had
been coming for a long time, but the catalyst had been the antics of the
Communist PCE.

   Juan Negrin's Popular Front Government had become increasingly under the
control of the Communists.  The PCE, in turn, was being 'guided' more and
more by Josef Stalin's Comintern.  The Republican Government was falling
into an agenda set by the USSR.

   Stalin was a notorious double-dealer who had an uncanny talent for
predicting the next move.  His focus was on the expected conflict between
Nazi Germany and the USSR.  He needed allies in the West and was trying to
build his 'Anti-Fascist Alliance,' to a hitherto luke-warm reception.  At
the same time, however, his foreign minister, Molotov, was in talks with
his German opposite number, von Ribbentrop, with a view to signing a
'Non-Aggression Pact.

   The West, it was considered, was concerned about the 'ill-discipline and
wanton brutality' of the militias.  Franco's propagandists had won the war
of words, having described the militias as 'bandits and cut-throats.' In
truth, the CNT and their allies were no better or worse than anyone else in
that conflict.  But news of atrocities continued to be pinned on the 'Far
Left.' Stalin wanted the Militia's incorporated into the regular army and
subject to military discipline.

   The CNT and POUM, however, knew what happened in the Russian Revolution
and Civil War when the 'Far Left' made common cause with the Communists. 
Their fate, they believed, was to be neutralised and eliminated by the
Communists when it was convenient.  This was a Socialist revolution, they
claimed, but the Communists new line was that it was 'defending democratic
rights.' That the USSR sponsored this propaganda is laughable, considering
the state of democracy in Russia at that time.

   Leon Trotsky claimed that a Socialist and Democratic Revolution was the
same, arguing that Capitalism was not real democracy.  The POUM in
particular, and the 'Far Left' in general, certainly believed the Spanish
Civil War was a Socialist Revolution.

   Communists in the Popular Front pushed the Government to abolish the
CNT's Worker's Collectives.  The next blow to fall was on the POUM.  The
Trotskyist leadership in Andalusia was assassinated by hit squads, claimed
to be Falangist agents by the Communists but in actual fact, they were from
the PCE Militia and Russian secret police, the NKVD.  Then a rumour was
started in Barcelona that the CNT was going to be disarmed by the
Government.  The CNT's patience snapped and the next day the Anarchists had
taken over the City.  The leaderless POUM joined from Valencia and the
PSUC, thrown out of the Catalan Secretaritat, also joined the CNT's
barricades.

   The Communists had overplayed their hand, however.  What they had on
their hands was a mini-civil war within a civil war.  The CNT was still the
major player in Catalonia.  They wanted to neutralise, not go to war with
them.  Even they could see the situation was farcical and would draw troops
away from their precious Ebro offensive.  Weeks of sporadic street fighting
ensued between the Civil Guard, the Army and the Communist Militia on the
one hand, and the CNT and her allies on the other.  Eventually an armistice
was called and wiser heads began to negotiate a settlement.  The CNT,
however, had been mortally wounded and, with news of the fall of Valencia
to Franco, the Anarchists of Catalonia began to drift North to the
Pyrenees, and France.  The POUM, however, dispersed completely and
disappeared from the war.

   The stand off in Madrid was short-lived.  The CNT leadership there took
a softer line and a more conciliatory approach was adopted by the
Government.  The Anarchist Militia was badly outnumbered, was dispersed
thoughout the front lines and so agreed to place themselves under military
authority for the time being.

   The Duretti column of the Anarchist Brigade, in any case, had taken
heavy casualties in the first days of the Madrid offensive.  Beneventura
Duretti himself was killed within hours of the CNT's timely relief of the
beleagured Republican forces.  The Duretti Column, once numbering 40,000,
was only a shadow of its former self.

   But with the revolt of the CNT/POUM/PSUC, it began to dawn on people
like Benin, Perdita and John Greenhaugh that the Republican cause was lost.
The Spanish Civil War still had a year to run, Madrid finally fell in early
1939, but from that moment on fatalism began to replace hope.

   John moved back to Alcala taking Benin with him.  The Mujeres Libres
were finally forced out of the fighting units by Government edict.  The
Government, also, compelled the ML clinics to close, believing them to be
'hotbeds of Far Left propaganda.' Over the next few days, a dozen Anarchist
women drifted out to Alcala and into the protection of the Air Force.

   Only one of the three fighter squadrons at Alcala actually contained
Spanish pilots.  The 4th Escuadrillo were Russians and the 1st, John's
squadron, had seven different nationalities.  The foreigners had an
altogether different attitude towards the women than Spanish men.  Less
laden with chauvinism, perhaps, the foreign pilots were able to practice
their chivalry.  They had no belief, as most Spanish males had, that the ML
women were whores, the ultimate insult.  The women were given room in the
barracks, the displaced men moved into tents or under the shelter of their
aircraft.

   Benin, though, moved into John's 'quarters', a 'fly' rigged over the
wing of his Mosca.  The aircraft was protected by an earth bank called a
'revettement.' During the day, camoflage netting was strung over the
aeroplane.  This ensured they had complete privacy.

   The Nationalists were occupied in the South with the siege of Valencia
and in the North as they strived to secure the Basque country and the
French border.  For several Months, Madrid was spared bombing and artillery
fire, Franco being content to hold the line there.  Guernica, near Bilbao,
was bombed by Sperle's Condor Legion to be immortalised by Pablo Picasso.
In reality, most Republican-held towns and cities were bombed, and in the
case of Madrid and Barcelona, far more thoroughly than Guernica.

   By 1938 Franco's Nationalists and his German and Italian allies had the
ascendancy.  The German Condor Legion had the opportunity to practice
tactics that came to be known as 'Blitzkrieg.' Massed armour, advancing in
front of the infantry, advanced rapidly over ground 'prepared' by tactical
bombing.  Massed level bombers hit strategic targets, roads, railways,
factories and Ports.  New aircraft types were shipped out to Spain to test
them in operational conditions, Heinkel He111s, Dornier Do17s and the
dive-bombing Junkers Ju87 'Stuka,' sent out to replace the Heinkel He59
biplane.

   Speedy German tanks, the PzKw mk 1 and 2, made their debut.  Their
indifferent performance against the Soviet Kv1 heavy tank gave pause to the
German Generals who flocked to Spain to observe.  But the Republican armour
was badly outnumbered and attrition left many on the battlefields, broken
down.

   A week after the fall of Valencia a maelstrom descended on Madrid.  The
Republican lines were bombed day and night by swarms of German bombers.  By
day, Stukas plunged at strong points, sirens strapped to their wings to
terrify their victims.  Alcala suffered two devastating raids which
rendered the airfield unusable.  Half the Moscas were destroyed on the
ground by Stukas.  Replacements and spare parts were unavailable, the
Russians had started to close shop.

   After the aeriel bombing, Nationalist forces launched a furious assault
across the river Henares.  Miaja's Republicans, however, were well
entrenched with reinforced concrete bunkers and well-concealed rifle pits
and artillery.  Nationalists pioneers, using pontoon boats to try and
bridge the river for the armour were mown down.  A week later, the attack
petered out, the Nationalists having made only some insignificant gains.

   But it was only a respite.  After the failure of the assault, Franco
continued with a great encircling movement to eventually cut Madrid off
from the rest of the World.

   Meanwhile, the 1st Escuadrillo de Mosca was withdrawn to defend
Barcelona.  Ever since 1936, the city had been subjected to sporadic
bombing from the Germans and Italians based on Minorca in the Baleric
Islands.  The aeriel attack had now intensified, and Nationalist Forces
were closing in on the city from the South and West.

   The squadron had but 4 fighters left on strength.  Their pilots flew
them to the coast, the support train travelling by road at night.  Along
with the groundcrews, the lorries carried the surviving ML women to their
new airfield.  It was to be at a place called Villafranca Del Penedes.

   The airstrip was a cornfield and had to be cleared, and the furrows
filled, before it could be used for operations.  They shared the field with
two local squadrons who flew a handful of obsolete French types,
Morane-Saulniers, Dewoitines and Bloch's.  All in all, there were fewer
than a dozen fighters capable of getting into the air and none of them a
match for the latest German fighter, the Messerschmitt Bf109C.

   The day came, though, when there was little more to be done.  They all
had done their best, but it was weight of numbers and quality of the
opposition that told in the end.  Villafranca had been constantly pounded
by the Italians flying their new Savoia-Marchetti Sm79 bombers.  Colonel
Vestuptivich called the remaining personnel together and gave them the bad
news.

   "Is finished," he said with tears streaking down his face, drawn with
fatigue, "is no more, I'm sorry."

   The Russians were to be withdrawn by a freighter anchored in the
roadstead.  Vestuptivich's last act as a Spanish Officer was to hand out
Russian Identity cards to his remaining pilots.  He told them he would be
proud to serve alongside them in the Red Air Force.  3 accepted the offer.
One was John Greenhaugh and he took Benin along as his wife.

   -----------------------------------------

   Vladivostok, 2005.

   "So," Lieutenant Rashbrooke asked the Russian pilot, "why did your
Grandfather choose Russia?"

   "Ah!" Brian explained, "he was furious about being on the losing side.
Both he and my Grandmother believed the Fascists would strike at Russia
next and they were determined to be in the fight.  You must remember that
Stalin's Non-Aggression Pact was not explained to the people."

   The wardroom of HMNZS Te Kaha, an ANZAC class Frigate, featured mounted
photographs of New Zealand scenery.  No doubt their purpose was some sort
of tourist promotion for visitors.  One was of a mountain, perfectly
conical, like Japan's Mount Fuji.

   "Mount Taranaki," Rashbrooke explained to the Russian.

   "Ah!  Is where Grandfather was born."

   "Did John ever go home for a visit?"

   "No!  He served as an instructor during the war then went on to teach
crop dusting in the Urals.  Benin was a teacher of languages.  They retired
to the Caspian.  My Grandparents are too old, now, to travel all that way."

   "You must make the journey for him," suggested the New Zealander.

   "Maybe," he brightened, "Poltava, perhaps, will return the visit to your
country I hope.  Maybe visit Taranaki?  See the old place, eh?"

   "Yes," the Lieutenant chuckled, "if the 'old place,' is still there."

   THE END

   ----------------------------------------------
   KATZMAREK(C)

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