Doves of War: Four Women of Spain. Paul Preston

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СКАЧАТЬ had dinner with the prominent British Conservative, Arnold Lunn, a Catholic and an old Harrovian, who was in Spain writing articles about ‘Red horrors’. Lunn was one of the English pro-Nationalist propagandists who had been involved in supporting the cover-up of the bombing of Guernica. For Pip, the main thing about being with him was to be able to eat ‘good food with the right amount of knives and forks’. When Pip got to Épila, she luxuriated in her ‘first bath for more than two months’ and in the opportunity to relax in comfort with her friends. Ataúlfo took her to recover her car, which she found minus windows, number plates, tools, papers and her passport. General Kindelán’s driver fixed her car. Of course, what she valued most about this period was to be clean, warm and well fed. She was able to go to the hairdresser and also went shopping with Últano Kindelán. A greater change from the horrors of her unit could hardly be imagined. The combination of uninterrupted nights and cleanliness made for ‘a short piece of heaven’. In the Grand Hotel in Zaragoza, she met two aristocratic acquaintances, Alfonso Domecq and Kiki Mora ‘who were both tight as usual and had just bought a large white rabbit and a white duck’. After chasing the two animals around the hall, Últano caught the duck and tied string around its neck and wings so that he could take it for walks. The sense of wild release after the tribulations of the front left Pip disorientated – ‘I have never hated anything more in my life than the idea of going back to the equipo. I don’t want ever to see a hospital again in my life.’⁸⁵

      Nevertheless, she did return to her unit, which had now moved south to Morella in the harsh and arid hills of the Maestrazgo between Aragón and Castellón. The return was a rude shock: ‘How I hated the jerk back to this life, stretchers being carried in dripping blood all over the front doorstep, the smell of anaesthetic, the moans and shouts. I have gone all squeamish in my few days away.’ Her depression was perhaps linked with the fact that she was laid low by an illness which saw her confined to bed with a raging fever. She was finally diagnosed with the beginnings of paratyphoid – a fever resembling typhoid but caused by different bacteria.⁸⁶ In consequence, she was allowed a few days’ convalescence in Épila. She drove there in her car and it was severely damaged along the way by unmade roads. Princess Bea was back from the recently captured Lérida. As part of her work with Frentes y Hospitales, the relief organisation which provided welfare for the old, women and children, she would enter occupied areas with the Nationalist forces.⁸⁷ Still very weak, Pip was able to stay because her car was not ready for the return journey. She managed some relaxation, gossiping with Princess Bea, playing cards and ping pong with visiting German and Italian aviators. She even had an evening out in Zaragoza with Ataúlfo. They went to a sleazy cabaret in ‘an old theatre with semi-naked women who came out on stage and who could neither dance nor sing. A fair smattering of peroxided tarts and swarms of dirty, tight and noisy soldiers all singing and shouting lewd remarks at everyone.’⁸⁸

      During her stay at Épila, Pip met Juan Antonio Ansaldo, one of Spain’s most famous aviators. Ansaldo was a monarchist air ace and playboy who had once organised Falangist terror squads. He had piloted the small De Havilland Puss Moth in which General Sanjurjo had perished on 20 July 1936 when leaving Portugal to take charge of the military uprising.⁸⁹ Ansaldo now commanded one of the two Savoia Marchetti 79 squadrons of the First Brigade of the Nationalist Air Force (Primera Brigada Aérea Hispana) while Prince Alí commanded the other. Ansaldo’s wife Pilarón was both a flyer and a nurse who had just been asked to work in the Ciudad Universitaria on the outskirts of Madrid. On the very edge of the besieged capital, it was the most dangerous area and women were not usually allowed to work there. Pip hoped to find out how to volunteer to go too.⁹⁰

      Inevitably, after the pleasures of Épila – ping pong, music, decent food, whisky and even a flight in a Luftwaffe aircraft – the return to hospital duty was depressing: ‘Morella is the lousiest, most boring place in the world, and not a thing to do all day.’ She felt low because she was still suffering from paratyphoid. She was pleased, however, by the possibility that she and Consuelo, for their gallantry under fire, would both be proposed for the Cruz del Mérito Militar con Distintivo Rojo, the highest award for bravery that could be awarded to a woman. It was eventually awarded in May 1939.⁹¹ She was also cheered by a letter on 5 May from her mother who was delighted by some articles about Pip in the British press. Margot promised her a new car and a full bank account when she returned home and announced an imminent visit to Spain. In fact, Pip, always her best when the going was most difficult, perked up when the hospital got busy again about a week later. A stream of wounded saw her attend fourteen operations in thirteen hours. She was irritated by the petty jealousies among the nurses and felt put upon by the hostility of Captain Ramón Roldán, the hospital chief surgeon. As a Falangist, he deeply resented the aristocratic origins and monarchist connections of both Pip and Consuelo. Just as she got the news that her mother was arriving on 19 May, the entire hospital had to move with the advancing Nationalist forces nearer to the province of Castellón, to the village of La Iglesuela del Cid. When her martyred car got there, she and Consuelo were billeted by Ráldan in the most dingy dungeon just off the operating theatre. However, on the following day, 23 May, she was able to go on leave to see her mother who had arrived with her brother John at Princess Bea’s home in Épila.⁹²

      Margot was obliged to wait until Pip was ‘disinfected and de-loused’ before she could see her. When she remonstrated with Princess Bea about the horrors being experienced by Pip, the Infanta replied, ‘I promised you, dear Margot, that I would look after her as my own daughter; and if I had a daughter she would surely be at the front.’⁹³ Pip spent ten days with her mother in Zaragoza with daily visits to Épila. One evening, she met Peter Kemp, the Englishman who had volunteered for Franco and was now a lieutenant in the Spanish Foreign Legion. He told her a gruesome tale about the sadism of his colonel. An Englishman had crossed the lines claiming plausibly to be a sailor who had ended up at the front after getting drunk in Valencia. When Peter Kemp requested permission to set him free, the colonel ordered him to shoot the sailor. When Kemp stared unbelievingly, the colonel shrieked, ‘What is more, shoot him yourself or I will have you shot.’ He duly took the man into the countryside, they shook hands and he was shot. Pip commented, ‘A nasty thing to have to do.’ Her account implies that Kemp shot the man himself⁹⁴ There was a standing order from Franco that all captured foreigners be shot. This was rescinded on 1 April 1938 when he needed prisoners to exchange for the 497 Italians captured at Guadalajara.

      On her return to her unit, still weak from the paratyphoid, Pip was driven by the constant humiliations to which Captain Roldán subjected her and Consuelo to contemplate leaving. Once more, her mind was taken off the problem by her work. She took part in an operation on a twelve-year-old girl who had been playing with a hand grenade that had exploded –

      I think I minded seeing her being treated and operated on more than anything else I have seen so far. I can’t bear to see children hurt. She was blood from head to toe, her whole body one mass of burns and superficial wounds, both her knees had to be operated, one arm amputated above the wrist as her hand had been blown clean off, the thumb of the other hand (or what was left of it) amputated and two holes in her forehead and all one side of her face sewn up. Apart from which she is temporarily blind in one eye and permanently in the other. She is getting on quite well now but moans and shouts all day as she is in awful pain. I had a terrible quarrel with Roldán yesterday evening to get him to allow her aunt to stay with her all night.

      To Pip’s horror, Roldán planned to leave Consuelo behind when the unit made its next move. However, Pip was prostrated with a fierce attack of the paratyphoid that had afflicted her for the previous two months. Left behind, СКАЧАТЬ