Alfaguara press pack for Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel 'Línea de fuego' (September 2020)

On the night of July 24, 1938, 2,890 men and 18 women crossed the river Ebro, in north-east Spain. They are part of the 11th Mixed Brigade of the Republican Army and their mission is to secure a bridgehead in the town of Castellets del Segre, a position defended by half a battalion of infantry, a unit of Moroccan regulars and a company of the Spanish Legion. Over the following ten days, "nacionales" and "populares", people of different ages, places of origin and ideas will fight for every inch of land without rest and without giving in to discouragement. Some are volunteers, seasoned and courageous fighters, convinced of their ideals, fighting for their principles, but the majority are ordinary individuals, many of them painfully young, who have left their lives behind to participate in the bloodiest battle in Spanish history.

However, the 11th Mixed Brigade, Castellets del Segre and the troops entrenched in this town never existed in real life. In 'Line of Fire', Arturo Pérez-Reverte faces his most ambitious work and constructs a choral novel, of extraordinary toughness and humanism, to pay tribute to the thousands of anonymous soldiers from both sides who participated in the battle that sealed the future of the Spanish Civil War. In these characters, built using the experiences and testimonies of dozens of survivors, the memory of our parents and grandparents resonates, and the courage, willpower, heroism, fear, pain, generosity and suffering that they endure come to light. Their names rarely appear recorded as they deserve in the pages of history books.

With the rigorous research to which we are accustomed in his novels and relying on the enormous documentation that has survived to this day (war reports, military reports and the statements of witnesses and main actors), Arturo Pérez-Reverte has recreated, in a vivid and exciting narrative, the true magnitude of this event like never before. Far from partisan speeches and ideologically compromised positions, the most widely read novelist in Spain has written a fairly balanced story about that essential chapter of our common past. This is a narrative that, as in the best fictions, accounts for what really happened as well as reality itself.

12:15 AM. Covered by darkness and crouched in their rowboats, the Republican forces silently cross the river. The Battle of the Ebro has begun. On one side, confident and well positioned, the "nacional" troops supporting general Francisco Franco await, many of them made up of well-trained veterans. They are well equipped and supported by relief divisions, aviation and cannons, but at that time they are not very numerous and are unprotected. Their officers are optimistic. In front of them there are no bridges and the enemy lacks sufficient artillery fire. Only a surprise coordinated offensive in different sectors simultaneously could overcome one of the greatest tactical challenges that exists in any war: the crossing of a river.

The Spanish Republic needs an offensive that restores self-esteem to its army, brings success to the great international democratic powers and relieves the siege that Franco has placed around Valencia. A victory that allows it to reorganize, keep the war open and prolong it long enough for the conflict with Germany to break out in Europe, which at this point everyone believes is inevitable. To achieve this, the Republic launches 100,000 men into battle who will fight fierce battles with the "nacional" divisions. The two contingents will face heat, hunger and thirst, and will see previously unknown brutality and violence. When the fighting ends on November 16, more than 20,000 bodies from both sides will remain on the ground. The total number of casualties would be close to 80,000 in a Spain that in 1936 did not reach 25 million inhabitants. A more bloody and ruthless clash had never been fought on Spanish soil.

'Line of Fire' is a war novel told from the frontline. Arturo Pérez-Reverte, who for years was a correspondent in different wars and conflicts, writes about how the Nationalists and the Republicans fought in the Ebro like no one else has to date. He describes the weapons they used, the effects of the artillery and the crossfire from walls, houses, fences and bell towers; the threat posed by grenades, tanks, aircraft bombardments, interminable assaults on hills and the feared bayonet charges on the enemy's trenches. Throughout these ten days in which the action of the novel takes place, it is shown how rookies who had never seen a dead man and seasoned officers, aware that seniority is a degree but not a bulletproof vest, fought with their bare hands. Here, young and old, troops and officers of both sides survive, fight and die together side by side.

But the author also mentions common aspects of daily combat life. With a successful literary pulse, he makes the reader feel the heat they suffered (that summer had extraordinarily high temperatures), the ravages of hunger (especially among the Republicans, with weaker supply lines) and the thirst they suffered due to the distance from wells or other water sources. Each of them quenched their thirst with what they found at hand: wine, cognac... But on most occasions they just had to endure it and wet their dry lips with their tongue. The only thing that was not in short supply was coffee, or a similar derivative that they improvised, and that they prepared at dawn. There were also mosquitoes and horseflies, which became a nightmare along with the lice bites that infested their clothes due to overcrowding and poor hygiene.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte precisely details the tension of the men before going into action. Its rituals and silences; the minutes in which they write a letter to their mothers or make peace with themselves and think about their wives or children before taking up arms. He explores the different fears that assail combatants, regardless of their rank and experience. "The fear of what is to come is the worst of all," it is said. To calm their nerves, most of them smoke, because in war tobacco is as essential as ammunition.

The desolate landscape in which these units fight does not escape the novelist's gaze. The author tells of the corpses that rot in the sun because they cannot be buried, and how, hidden behind parapets, the soldiers, with dirty faces, red eyes and cheeks stained with gunpowder, smelling of sweat, blood and grease from weapons, see their uniforms reduced to rags as the days go by. All of them wander through a landscape in ruins, dotted with shell casings, bloody bandages, burned bushes, buildings half destroyed by shrapnel and wounded people who they assist as best they can because the medicines are running out, the evacuation efforts are slow, the rearguard is far away and the stretcher bearers do not enjoy safe conduct and they also fall into dejection, like everyone else. During the night, or the few minutes in which the fire ceases, to raise the morale of their own and discourage the opponent, reds and fascists, as they called each other, dedicate insults to each other or sing verses from military anthems.

In this world where rules do not exist and chance is another element of survival, 'Line of Fire' does not forget human feelings. There is the hatred, rage, pain and helplessness that overwhelm soldiers when they lose a comrade, or the settling of scores when victory goes to one of the sides. But in this hostile, fierce and violent territory, there is also room for compassion, and in the most unexpected moments generosity towards the adversary appears. It is a small sliver of light in a black hell. The place where the soul of men appears, men who only longed for everything to end soon so they could return to their homes.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte has left aside the usual heroes of his books, and in 'Line of Fire', a novel that follows the path of 'Un día de cólera' (2007) and 'The Siege' (2010), he weaves a story made of multiple voices that allows us to approach the different points of view that took place in the battle of the Ebro. Through its protagonists, well nuanced and defined by the military, popular, cultured or vulgar language that each one of them use, the author takes us fully into the combat, reveals essential details that defined the confrontation and allows us to know the political, ideological or vital reasons that led many soldiers to this key moment in our history. A range of men and women, of different shapes and sizes, who portray the human landscape of a battle, but which also gives us the opportunity to get closer to the mentalities that predominated in the conflict.

-Patricia Monzón and the group of women from the Transmissions section. Nicknamed  Pato (Duck), she is part of the Transmissions section, made up entirely of women. Courageous, disciplined and with political beliefs located further to the left than her own heart, at the age of eighteen she joined the Anti-Fascist Women's Group, but, like every young woman in the capital, she still remembers the dances at the Las Vistillas area of Madrid and the music from a time when political awareness was not needed. She has not forgotten the dead people caused by the fascist bombings in Madrid and does not feel any pity for the francoist rebels. However, something stirs inside her when she sees their corpses. "Like most of her companions, when forty-eight hours ago she learned that her destination was on the other side of the Ebro, she had her hair shaved for two important reasons: so that it would not be seen from a distance that she was a woman, and to reduce in the next few days, not very favorable for hygiene, the possibility of lice or other parasites nesting. At twenty-three years old, this gives her an androgynous, boyish appearance, accentuated by her unit's hat, her blue overalls, her leather belt with canteen, her Tokarev TT-33 pistol with two reserve magazines, in addition to her Russian boots."

-Ginés Gorguel Martínez, soldier of the "nacional" army. The first "nacional" soldier to notice the Republican advance on the riverside. His town is now inside the red zone, but the uprising surprised him in Seville and now he fights with the rebels. His temper is not exactly made of courage, and he considers that all of this does not suit him. He only thinks about returning to his hometown with his wife and son. He even thinks about crossing the lines and deserting, but the war follows him like a curse. No matter how hard he tries to escape from danger, he always ends up on the frontline, stepping on corpses and empty bullet casings and at the Ebro that seems more true than ever. "Infantry soldier Ginés Gorguel Martínez rolls a cigarette with the tobacco he keeps in a pouch, runs his tongue along the edge of the paper, spins it between his fingers and puts it in his mouth. […] He is thirty-four years old, he knows how to read and write, he knows the four basic rules of arithmetic. In his service record, if anyone has it up to date, his intervention in the battles of Brunete and Teruel will be recorded; but in both events he tried to stay away from harm, an attitude for which he has a special talent. […] In reality, a carpenter by trade, he does not understand politics nor has he ever joined anything, not even a football club; and in that sense, he does not care one way or the other".

-The dynamite experts Julián Panizo Serrano and his partner, Francisco Olmos. Rough and harder to crack than steel, a miner since he was fourteen years old in Murcia, for nineteen years Panizo blasted stone in tunnels for a salary fairer than a tip from a customer. All to feed his wife, his four children and his sick father. He fights for the Republic and shows as many guts as an entire battalion of legionnaires. He is a fighter who knows how to be present when the times are good, but, above all, when things go wrong. A member of the Communist Party, he is now an explosives expert with his inseparable companion, Olmos. Neither of them supports the fascists, whom they contemptuously call "fachistas". "The comrade's name is Francisco Olmos and he is from Murcia, like him, a former miner from La Unión, a communist since '34, when you cound count card-carrying members on one hand, before becoming a decisive force [...]. Both Panizo and Olmos are veterans of almost all the raids since the fascist uprising: improvised dynamiters at the beginning, shock sappers later, they have not missed almost any of them: Madrid, Santa María de la Cabeza, Brunete, Belchite, Teruel... A pretty good résumé".

-Santiago Pardeiro Tojo and the 3rd Company of the 19th Flag of the Legion. Competent, thorough, with tactical intelligence and, as the position in his Tercio demands, with bravery, integrity and a sense of duty. He is a recently-made officer in the Legion and in his head he keeps turning over what the veterans sing: "provisional second lieutenant, in effect a corpse". The worst thing is that he knows it's true. In the first skirmish, half of them fall. And on this occasion at the Ebro, there is plent of giving and taking to be done. A man of order, defender of proper work, he joined the force to defend a nation with values ​​against the disorder brought by the "rogelios", as he calls the reds. A leader in retreat and an example of courage in attack. In his pocket he carries an unfinished letter to the family. Just in case... "Santiago Pardeiro Tojo, almost twenty years old, accidental leader of the 3rd Company of the 19th Flag of the Legion, receives from a liaison the order to move the unit towards Castellets to establish there, along the road that crosses the town, a defense position. […] He doesn't know what's really happening, and he doesn't know what he'll find when he gets to town. In any case, his responsibility is great: until a year ago he was a Naval Engineering student at El Ferrol, he was a provisional second lieutenant and was in command of the unit due to the captain's discharge".

-Faustino Landa and the 11th Mixed Brigade. As his people say, he is one of those who live and let die. He is a lieutenant colonel of the 11th Mixed Brigade, one of those who contemplate war with binoculars and from a distance. He gives orders, but not exactly in the trenches. One of those responsible for the Republican offensive. He knows what his duty is and is compliant. A prudent and temperate talent, he distrusts trouble, likes the press and enjoys general Enrique Líster's trust. He is not very fond of verbal excesses or high-pitched discussions, especially if there are political commissars of the Communist Party around him. "Militia Lieutenant Colonel Faustino Landa, head of the 11th Brigade, promoted in rank just a couple of weeks ago [...], is forty years old and has a broad chest, with the hands of a worker and the eyes of a clever pirate. […] Lively, lover of good food, […] less republican than communist, like almost all the commanders and commissioners of the Ebro army, former cinema hall usher and early member of the Socialist Youth, he went to the Party with the people of communist leader Santiago Carrillo".

-Emilio Gamboa Laguna, aka Gambo, and the Third Battalion of the 11th Mixed Brigade. Conscientious, serious and with impeccable courage. He is a pure communist. A soul with ideals as well as political convictions, but with a gaze clear of spurious ideological indoctrinations. Colder than ice, he is a born fighter, one of those who sell their skin dearly and who does not flinch when things come hard, and they often come. He is very demanding of his men, who are among the best the Republic has, all convinced communists. He has a reputation for being honest with them and sometimes too clear with his superiors, which can sometimes be very costly. "The commander of the Third Battalion of the 11th Mixed Brigade looks at the sky with even more concern than at the river. […] Like most of his people, and although he is only thirty years old, Gambo is a seasoned fighter: the son of an Asturian bricklayer, the youngest of eight siblings and the only one in his family who went to school, a bellman in a hotel in Oviedo , joined the Party at the age of eighteen, organizer of the Various Trades Union, imprisoned twice before fleeing to the Soviet Union […], upon his return to Spain he was an instructor of the Anti-Fascist Militias, defender of Guadarrama in the summer of '36".

-Captain Juan Bascuñana and the soldiers of the Fifth Battalion's Baby Bottle Replacements. He is in command of the youngest recruits, the so-called baby bottle replacements, and is responsible for breaking down the nationalists' hardest point of resistance. In short, he had to dance with the ugliest one. Left-wing official through and through, but questioned by political commissioners. He is a man who has seen a lot of war, enough to question many Party slogans. "Being a soldier of this Republic and thinking is not a comfortable combination," he says. Disbelieving, with a sad aura on his face, but sturdier than an oak, he looks reality in the face, without getting any illusions, but without getting afraid. He appreciates his young recruits and always stays by their side. "He wears his cap tilted very far to the right side, with a touch of virile cockiness, and on his belt is a Unionist Star. He is a handsome man. Fine hands, not very proletarian. About thirty-something years old. Despite signs of fatigue, his face has a friendly air. Sad eyes above a child's smile. […] There is a fatalistic, lucid resignation in them. […] The look of someone who has no illusions about the present or the future".

-Corporal Selimán and the Regular Moroccan troops. They gave him forty duros a month, a can of oil and some espadrilles, and he signed up for the war in Spain. He belongs to the Moroccan tabor, the feared Moorish unit that the nationals have brought from Africa as frontline cannon fodder. The Republicans know very well what they are capable of and he is aware of what the Republicans are also capable of if they take their own people alive. Among a lot of "iallah", "handulilah" and "mektub", he is a survivor who knows how to dish it out. Brave, unscrupulous and more dangerous than a razor blade, he will become Gorguel's companion in a thousand tasks. He fights the "red abastards", as he pronounces it, for not believing in God and considers Franco to be a saint. "The Moor who is to Gorguel's right also peeks his head and the two look at each other: an unshaven brown face, with premature wrinkles and a few gray hairs in his mustache, under a dirty tarbus with a gallon of rope sewn into it. About thirty-something years old. "If we have crazy rifle, not single one will escape," says the Moor, with the air of someone who knows what's what. "Crazy rifle"? "Machine with a lot of bang-bang". The Moor moves a finger in the air, as if repeatedly squeezing a trigger. "Almacheengun."

-Oriol Les Forques, Agustí Santacreu and the requetés of the Tercio de Montserrat task force. Friends since childhood, Les Forques and Santacreu will find themselves at the spearhead of the nationalist counterattack. They are people of proven courage and deep Catholicism, who feel a deep hatred towards communists and separatists. Like many of those who are with them, they cut their teeth in "the street fight against the anti-Spain of Azaña, Negrín, Largo Caballero and Companys", and although at first, after the uprising, they came out badly, now they are there on the front line. Republicans know about their guts and fear them. When they show their red berets, they are not amused. "Shocked, Corporal Oriol Les Forques –dark and pleasant face, very short hair, good posture–, who was dozing leaning on the shoulder of a companion, is about to fall to the ground. […] The owner of the shoulder against which he was dozing also opens his eyes and rubs them with his fists. He is skinny, has blonde hair and wears Zumalacárregui-style sideburns. His name is Agustí Santacreu and, like Les Forques, he is a native of Barcelona, ​​born and raised like him on the Rambla de Catalunya. […] They are twenty-one years old […] but they are war veterans with a lot of shooting in their eyes, good memory and instinct".

-International newspaper reporters: Phil Tabb, Vivian Szerman and Chim Langer. They are the envoys of the foreign press. Editors and photographers. The names of Robert Capa and Gerda Taro resonate with them. Although they come to the front with permission from the Republic and their vision is impartial, they are not deceived or under any illusions. The reality is too crude and his look at Spain is lucid, loving and lacerating at the same time. With them the world of war correspondents enters the story, and also some of the most accurate conclusions and reflections on the Spanish Civil War. "Vivian Szerman believes it right away, because the 'New Worker' correspondent has a quick eye for such things: she has been in Spain for two years and has seen everything. […] Tall and thin, with skinny legs and hair a little longer than normal, slow in his movements and as serene as if he had just left a London club, that's Phil Tabb. Vivian gets out of the car. […] Redhead, petite, her hair is cut to the nape of her neck and she has light-colored eyes that turn from blue to gray depending on the light. Although she is not pretty, her eyes, the freckles on her nose and cheekbones, the shapes suggested above her belt and under her shirt are a kind of safe conduct among Spaniards, and not only among them. Chim Langer […], short and stocky, quick hands, nervous eyes of a distrustful Central European always on the lookout. The broad back of a fighter under a suede jacket, dirty with the dust of some battles. His very black and messy hair curls over his bovine forehead and narrow, wide nose, flattened at gyms and boxing rings."

-Saturiano Bescós and the 14th Flag of the Falange of Aragon. A countryside man. Earthy, resistant and quiet. Until he was recruited, he took care of goats in the mountains. Although he is very young, he is used to the sun, the cold and the rain. He sharpened his aim by defending the flock from the wolves that were stalking him. And now he doesn't miss a shot. He has a brave character, one of those who does not back down from gunfire, and not even a wound makes him stay at the field hospital. But he is also simple, humble and with a temperament inclined to kindness. "Obediently, the Falangist Saturiano Bescós sings with his companions while he walks loaded with his equipment, his helmet hanging from the strap. Blond hair, strong character, shepherd by profession, illiterate who barely knows how to scribble his name, he has just turned twenty years old, although his large, stocky physique makes him look older. Under the blue Elizabethan cap with a red strawberry tree sewn on it, the sweat drips down his face and makes his shirt wet."

The Battle of the Ebro was fought with unusual ferocity. This was due to the presence of highly ideological units on both sides. In the Republican Party there were numerous card-carrying communists and who participated in the conflict voluntarily and whose militancy and willpower was beyond any doubt. Among the nationalists, the equivalent would be the requetés, the Falangists, who knew no mercy if they were taken prisoner, and the Moorish troops, famous for their atrocities. But the bulk of both armies were made up of soldiers and officers who only wanted to return home alive. They are the innocents trapped between those two acrimonious positions. Men who came to consider desertion or crossing over to the enemy, who only thought about their families and tore their graduation badges from their shirts when they glimpsed defeat or, as 'Line of Fire' very well reflects, tore up their membership cards to escape possible execution if they were taken prisoner.

In 'Line of Fire' one of the reasons that led to the defeat of the Republic is depicted. The nationalists, unlike their enemies, knew how to stay united despite their diversity. They shared a common motive: they had to beat the reds. One of the characters expresses it clearly: "We do not seek to revolutionize the world, just to throw out those undesirables... And then, when we have won, we will see who disappoints us and who doesn't." Instead, the Republic was bleeding from internal political divisions, purges, mistrust and suspicion. In the novel we can see the political commissars of the Communist Party and their discipline exported from Moscow that suggested that anyone who did not advance could be shot and that if a soldier did not achieve his objectives, it happened for one reason only: he was a traitor.

They are represented by the Transmissions section. They have made progress in freedoms, rights and education and they fear that these achievements could be lost if Franco wins the war. They know that the word "miliciano" grants prestige, but that its feminine counterpart, "miliciana", does not. In fact, the opposite occurs. At first they used them as propaganda for the cause: those photographs of women with ponytail hair, overalls and cartridge belts that illustrated the covers of the magazines. But they have already waged a lot of war and have paid a price for that magazine image. Now they want to be next to their colleagues, but not as nurses in the rear, but at the front, to show what they are worth.

The last major combat they fought in was at the Battle of the Ebro. Here their ranks suffered countless casualties. Their will was already very broken and their hopes were decimated. They came to Spain to stop fascism, but they soon understood, as George Orwell did, that dreams are fragile and break extremely easily. 'Line of Fire' offers a bitter and true portrait of these units, both idealistic and selfless, who faced their last days with more resignation than faith.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte highlights how young the soldiers on both sides were at the battle of the Ebro. But above all he highlights the youth of the so-called "baby bottle replacements". In 'Line of Fire' he dedicates an emotional description to them: «In my company I have one hundred and thirty-four children of seventeen and eighteen years old who a month ago were still at home: Catalans, Valencians, Murcians... They were ordered to present themselves at their barracks with a spoon, plate, blanket and shoes. Some mothers led them by the hand to the door with sandwiches wrapped in newspaper leaves. All these boys, many of whom have not yet known what love is and have never shot a gun themselves, will find themselves involved in combat without knowing what to do, cowed by their lack of experience and their poor education. An unfortunate fate for the generations that, in principle, were supposed to be the future of an entire country."

The author collects several examples of the fraternization that occurred during the Battle of the Ebro, one of the least known aspects of the confrontation. At different times, the two sides came to agree on truces to collect water from the wells, exchange tobacco and other small items that were scarce, and that, although it did not tip the balance of the battle, at least did serve to better cope with so much fatigue and discouragement. On occasions the enemy was also allowed to help their wounded. And all this happened because, as one of the protagonists of the novel says: "That's the bad thing about these wars: that you hear the enemy calling for his mother in the same language as you."

The protagonists of 'Line of Fire' know the front, but also what happens in the rear. A Republican states: "I have seen many people murdered. And not for revolting against the Republic, but for having voted for the right. Children shot for being from the Falange, women who were shot after being accused of being fascists and raped... I have seen criminals released from prison, dressed as militiamen, go to kill and rob the judges who convicted them." Another of the characters in the novel, the Falangist Saturiano Bescós, has also seen how this same rule is applied in his ranks and how his people euphemistically call it "purging of disaffected rear personnel."

They risk their lives to gather information. They know very well, as they say, that "a reporter is never killed in a war. They die, that's all. They kill them at work." The 'Line of Fire' journalists reckon that of those men and women at the frontlines are the only ones who are there because they want to. They have also assumed that conflicts, by nature, are "criminal." With this in mind, they cover the battle of the Ebro. They do not ignore the risks and accept them. With them comes not only the voice of a profession and the risks that are taken when exercising it, but also the vision of a divided Spain that sacrificed the best it had on the battlefields. As Saturiano Bescós concludes: "So much pain among families, girlfriends, parents, wives, children... How much strength, intelligence, work capacity and promises for the future, absurdly ruined."

Through his literary career, Arturo Pérez-Reverte has taken us from the Middle Ages to the 20th century with a collection of stories that have shown us what battles were like in the past. But with these stories he has also discovered to thousands of readers the motives and mentality of the men who participated in wars. In 'Sidi' we discover not only a hero, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Cid, but also the thoughts of those frontiersmen who abounded in 11th century Castille. In 'Captain Alatriste's series he outlined those soldiers of the Tercios who fought for pay, but who were also faithful to a king and a religion, although in exchange for their efforts they only obtained indifference; In 'The Hussar' he drew a picture of the dreams of fame that surround the military and that pushed more than one deluded young man to take up arms for Napoleon and discover for himself the reality that military glory hides; In 'Un día de cólera (A Day of Wrath)' he masterfully outlined the uprising of a Spanish people blind with rage who longed for independence and wanted to expel the French invader; and, in the novels of the 'Falcó' series, he provides a new reflection and attests to the cynicism that permeates the moral creeds of the 20th century and how loyalties no longer correspond to values ​​or principles, but to the wallet and who pays the most money. In 'Line of Fire', the author reflects, without taking sides, the different mentalities that converged in the 1930s and the Spanish Civil War.