‘I do. And he analyses what I tell him.’

‘Still on the quarry detail?’ Pablo asked, changing the subject.

‘All this week. I’d rather be on the cookhouse with you.’

The guard blew his whistle. ‘Come on, finish up. Time for work!’

Bernie spooned down a last mouthful and rose. Establo was scratching the crusted skin on his wrist, his mouth twisted with pain.

THE PRISONERS assembled in long lines in the yard. The sun was above the bare brown hills now and it was a little warmer, the ice in the puddles starting to melt. The gates were opened and Bernie’s party stepped out, standing in a long file as guards with rifles took up positions every few yards. Sergeant Ramirez walked slowly down the length of the crocodile, his face sullen, staring at the prisoners. He was a fat man in his fifties with a straggling grey moustache, a red face and a drunk’s bulbous nose. He looked decrepit but he was dangerous, a churning volcano of hatreds. He was an old professional soldier and they tended to be the cruel ones, the conscripts generally preferring a quiet life. Under his greatcoat the bulge where his whip was tucked into his belt was visible. He reached the head of the queue, blew his whistle, and the prisoners set off into the hills.

It was a three-mile walk. The Tierra Muerta was well named; it was bare and stony, a few fields sheltered by dwarf oaks scraped into hollows between the hills. They passed a peasant family labouring with an ox-plough at the stony soil. They did not look up as the crocodile passed; it was a convention that the prisoners were invisible.

A little further on they crested a hill and Ramirez blew his whistle for a five-minute rest. Vicente lowered himself on to a boulder. His face was pale and his breath came in jagged rasps. Bernie glanced at the nearest guard and was surprised to see it was Agustín, the man who had made that strange remark after his visit to the psychiatrist the week before.

‘I am bad today, Bernardo,’ Vicente said. ‘My head feels as if it will explode.’

‘Molina will be back next week – he’ll let you have it easy.’ He leaned closer. ‘We’ll work together, you can rest.’

‘You’re good to an old bourgeois,’ the lawyer said with an effort at humour. He was sweating, moisture standing out on his wrinkled brow. ‘I begin to wonder, what’s the point of battling on? The Fascists will kill us all in the end. That’s what they want, to work us to death.’

‘They’ll be beaten yet. We have to hold on.’

‘They’ve won everywhere. Here, Poland, France. England will be next. And Stalin has made his non-aggression pact with Hitler because he is so afraid.’

‘Comrade Stalin made his pact with Hitler to buy time.’ It was what Establo had said when the guards told them of the Nazi–Soviet pact. Bernie couldn’t swallow the idea that this war against fascism had now to be called a war between imperialist powers. That was when he had doubted the party line for the first time.

‘Comrade Stalin.’ Vicente laughed, a hollow laugh that turned into a cough.

Far away, where the Tierra Muerta sloped down into the hazy distance, Bernie saw an extraordinary thing. Above a layer of white mist was a cliff and set into its side were houses, sunlight sparkling on their windows. They seemed close, floating on the mist itself. It was a trick the light played here sometimes, like a mirage in the desert. Bernie nudged Vicente. ‘Look there, amigo, is that not a sight worth staying alive for? You don’t often get such a view as that.’

Vicente peered into the distance. ‘I can’t see, I haven’t my glasses. Can you see Cuenca today?’

‘You can see the hanging houses themselves; they look as if they’re riding on the mist from the gorge.’ Bernie sighed. ‘It’s like looking into another world.’

Ahead, Ramirez blew his whistle. ‘Move it!’ Agustín called. Bernie helped Vicente to his feet. As they moved on Agustín fell into step with them. Bernie saw the man was studying him, though pretending not to. He wondered if he was after his arse; such things happened in the camp.

The quarry was a great round gash carved into the side of the hill. For the last few weeks they had worked here every day, hacking out lumps of limestone and breaking them into smaller chunks that were taken away in lorries. Bernie wondered if the story about Franco’s monument was true; sometimes, like Vicente, he wondered whether the quarrying was just an excuse to have them worked slowly to death in this wilderness.

Agustín and another guard built a fire outside the lean-to hut that had been erected at the front of the quarry but Ramirez didn’t head for the warmth as Molina would have done. He went and stood on a pile of stones, watching with his hands behind his back as one of the guards set up the sub-machine gun. Other guards distributed picks and spades from the lean-to. There was no chance of the prisoners using the tools as weapons and charging them – the machine gun would have cut them down in a minute.

Bernie and Vicente found a heap of limestone blocks to work on, partly hidden by a projecting rock buttress. Bernie set to work with his pick, letting Vicente sort the broken rocks into smaller pieces at a snail’s pace. They would work here, with only a short midday break for food and water, till sunset. At least now the days were getting shorter; in summer a work day lasted thirteen hours. The clang and crack of stone against metal sounded all around.

An hour later Vicente stumbled and sat down heavily. He blew his nose again, smearing his sleeve with a thin trail of the pus-like discharge, and groaned with pain. ‘I can’t go on,’ he said. ‘Call the guard.’

‘Just rest for a bit.’

‘It’s too dangerous, Bernardo. You’re supposed to call the guards if someone’s ill.’

‘Shut your bourgeois mouth.’

Vicente sat, his breath coming in gasps. Bernie worked on, listening for a footfall behind the buttress. His feet hurt in his cracked old boots and he had reached the first stage of the day’s thirst, his tongue ceaselessly moving round his mouth in search of moisture.

The soldier appeared without warning, coming round the stone buttress too quickly for Bernie to call Vicente to his feet. It was Rodolfo, a grizzled veteran of the Moroccan wars.

‘What are you doing?’ he yelled. ‘You! Get up!’

Vicente hauled himself shakily to his feet. Rodolfo rounded on Bernie.

‘Why are you allowing this man to shirk? This is sabotage!’

‘He was taken ill, señor cabo. I was about to call for you.’

Rodolfo pulled his whistle from his pocket and blew it fiercely. Vicente’s shoulders slumped in despair.

There was a crunch of booted feet and Ramirez appeared. A moment later Agustín ran up behind him. Ramirez glowered at Vicente and Bernie.

‘What the fuck is happening?’

Rodolfo’s arm snapped out in the Fascist salute. ‘I caught the abogado sitting doing nothing,’ he said. ‘The inglés stood by watching.’

‘Please, señor sargento,’ Vicente said. ‘I felt unwell. Piper was about to call the guard.’

‘You felt unwell, did you?’ Ramirez’s eyes bulged with anger. He slapped Vicente hard across the face with his gloved hand. The sound echoed across the quarry like a rifle shot, and the lawyer went down in a heap. Ramirez turned to Bernie.

‘You were letting him slack, weren’t you? Communist English bastard.’ He stepped closer. ‘You’re one of those who’s not beaten inside your head, aren’t you? I think you need a day on the cross.’ He turned to Rodolfo, who smiled and nodded grimly. Bernie set his lips. He thought of what a stretching would do to his old shoulder wound – it ached badly enough after a day out here. He looked into Ramirez’s eyes. Something in his look must have angered the captain. Faster than the eye could follow he pulled out his whip and lashed Bernie across the neck. Bernie cried out and staggered, blood welling up between his fingers.