‘Who painted them?’ the soldier asked nervously. ‘Why paint pictures here in the darkness?’

‘No one knows, soldado. Perhaps it was for their religious ceremonies.’

The sapper cast his torch uneasily round the cave, lighting stalagmites and bare rock. ‘But there is no way in here,’ he said uneasily.

Bernie gestured to a jumbled pile of rocks in a corner of the cave. ‘See, perhaps there was an entrance there once, and it became blocked.’

‘And these have been in darkness for thousands of years,’ Vicente whispered. ‘Older than the Catholic Church, older than Christ.’

Bernie studied the paintings. ‘They’re wonderful,’ he said. ‘It’s as though they were painted yesterday. Look, a woolly mammoth. They’re hunting mammoths.’ He laughed at the wonder of it.

‘I would like to go now.’ The sapper turned, clattering back to the entrance. Bernie cast a last beam of light over a group of sticklike men running after an immense stag, then turned away.

Outside the sapper and Vicente went to talk to Molina. A guard gestured with his rifle for Bernie to return to the prisoners, still standing in ragged lines, many shivering now in the cold damp air.

‘¿Que pasó?’ Pablo asked Bernie.

‘Cave paintings,’ he said. ‘By prehistoric men.’

‘¿De verdad? What are they like?’

‘Amazing. Thousands of years old.’

‘The time of primitive communism,’ Pablo said. ‘Before social classes formed. They should be studied.’

Vicente rejoined them, his breath rasping like sandpaper as he crossed the uneven ground.

‘What did Molina say?’ Bernie asked.

‘He’s going to report to the comandante. They’re moving us round the hill, they’re going to blast somewhere else.’ He coughed and more sweat stood out on his brow. ‘Agh, I feel as if I’m on fire. If only I had some water.’

A soldier climbed to the cave mouth. He crossed himself, then stood at the entrance, guarding it.

THAT NIGHT at supper Vicente was worse. In the dim light of the oil lamps Bernie could see he was sweating heavily, shivering. He winced at every swallow of the chickpea gruel.

‘Are you all right?’

Vicente didn’t answer. He laid down his spoon and put his head in his hands.

The door of the mess hut opened. Aranda appeared, followed by Molina. The sergeant had a hangdog look. After them came Father Jaime, tall and stern in his sotana, thick iron-grey hair swept back from his high forehead. The men at the trestle tables shifted uneasily as Aranda faced them, his expression stern.

‘Today at the quarry,’ he said in a ringing voice, ‘a discovery was made by Sergeant Molina’s detail. Father Jaime wishes to address you about it.’

The priest nodded. ‘These scribblings by cavemen on rock walls are pagan things, made before Christ’s light shone on the world. They are to be shunned and avoided. Tomorrow fresh charges will be laid in that cave and the pictures destroyed. Anyone who even mentions them will be punished. That is all.’ He nodded to Aranda, gave Molina a look of disfavour, and swept out again, followed by the officers.

Pablo leaned across to Bernie. ‘The bastard. They’re part of Spain’s heritage.’

‘These people are like the Goths and Vandals, eh, Vicente?’ Bernie nudged the lawyer.

Vicente gave a groan then slid forward, his head striking the table. His tin plate crashed to the floor, bringing a guard rushing over. It was Arias, a carelessly brutal young conscript.

‘¿Que pasa aquá?’ He shook Vicente’s shoulder. The lawyer groaned.

‘He passed out,’ Bernie said. ‘He’s ill, he needs attention.’

Arias grunted. ‘Take him to his hut. Come on, bring him. I’ll have to go out in the cold now.’ He pulled his poncho over his head as he complained.

Bernie lifted Vicente. He was light, a bag of bones. The lawyer tried to stand but his legs were shaking too much. Bernie supported him out of the mess hut, the guard following. They went across the yard, stumbling through puddles where ice was forming, glinting in the spotlights from the watchtowers.

In the hut Bernie laid Vicente on his pallet. He lay semiconscious, covered with sweat, breathing heavily. Arias studied the lawyer’s face.

‘I think it is time to call the priest for this one.’

‘No. He’s not that bad,’ Bernie said. ‘He’s been like this before.’

‘I have to call the priest if a man looks as though he is dying.’

‘He’s just ill. Call Father Jaime if you like, but you saw what mood he’s in.’

Arias hesitated. ‘All right. Leave him, come on. Back to the canteen.’

When they trooped back to the hut after the meal Vicente was awake again, though he looked worse than ever.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Did I faint?’

‘Yes. You should rest now.’

‘My head is on fire. It is full of poison.’

In the opposite bunk Establo lay watching them, his yellow scabbed face monstrous in the light of a tallow candle. He called across. ‘¡Ay, compadre! You saw the paintings, the prehistoric men. What were they like? Fine men, eh? Primitive communists.’

‘Yes, Establo, they were fine men. They were hunting furry elephants.’

Establo looked at him sharply. ‘How could elephants be furry? Do not mock me, Piper.’

NEXT DAY was Sunday. There was a compulsory service in the hut that served as a church, a white cloth placed over a trestle table for an altar. The prisoners sat through it as usual, many dozing off. Father Jaime would have told the guard to jab them awake but Father Eduardo was taking the service and he let them sleep. Jaime’s sermons were usually full of hell fire and vengeance but Eduardo spoke of Christ’s light and the joys repentance could bring, with something almost pleading in his tone. Bernie studied him carefully.

After the services the priest was available for anyone who wanted to talk. Few ever did. Bernie hung back as the prisoners filed out, then muttered to the guard. The soldier looked at him in surprise, then led him to a little room at the back of the hut.

Bernie felt embarrassed going into the priest’s room. Father Eduardo had removed his robes and was dressed once again in his black sotana. His plump face looked young, a scrubbed child’s. He smiled nervously at Bernie, gesturing to a chair before his desk.

‘Buenos días. Please sit. What is your name?’

‘Bernie Piper. Hut eight.’

The priest consulted a list. ‘Ah, yes, the Englishman. How can I help you, my son?’

‘I have a friend in my hut who is very ill. Vicente Medina.’

‘Yes, I know the man.’

‘If he could have a doctor, something might be done for him.’

The priest shook his head sadly. ‘The authorities will not allow a doctor here. I have tried, I am sorry.’

Bernie nodded. He had expected that. He went over the words he had rehearsed during the service.

‘Sir, do you believe forced conversions are wrong?’

The priest hesitated a moment. ‘Yes. The Church teaches that a conversion to Christianity that is not genuine, a form of words, has no validity.’

‘Vicente is an old Left Republican. You know they are strong atheists.’

Father Eduardo’s face set. ‘I do. My church was burned by the mob in 1931. The police were ordered to do nothing; the Left Republican Azaña said all the churches in Spain were not worth one Republican life.’

‘Vicente can do you no harm now.’ Bernie took a deep breath. ‘I want you to let him die in peace when the time comes. Don’t try and give him the last rites. With his beliefs that could only be a mockery.’

Father Eduardo sighed. ‘You think we press dying men into forced conversions?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘How bad we must seem to you.’ Father Eduardo looked at Bernie intently. His thick glasses enlarged his eyes so they seemed to be swimming behind the lenses. ‘You were not brought up a Catholic, Piper?’

‘No.’

‘You are a Communist, I see.’