Crossing the Ebro

Pillars of grey-blue smoke rose into the deep blue sky of autumn, dotted with its clouds that wandered hazily to the sea, joining into a thin screen of smoke that shifted with the wind along the river Ebro. Quiet flowed the river, quiet after the long summer, where the burning heat had extirpated water from its banks and reduced it to a thin trickle of what was once a raging stream. Along its banks, in the dry grasslands, in the scrub and the plains of golden wheat, burned fires, while the occasional dull thumping of a canon dissipated in the sullen air, the sound daring not to leave the steel muzzle. Sharper crackles of rifle fire joined the air, ragged percussions, an orchestra that marched along to the tune of the machine guns as their buzzing and sawing rent the air, the streams of hot brass pushing into the soil to leave behind cindering bushes, grass, and shrubs. Occasional sounds of explosions, booms shaking the air, could be heard - a few seconds after the firing sound of a heavy gun with its deep bass roar, or after the screeching dive of an aircraft, as it sortied from the deep blue sky into a descent to unleash its chain of deadly steel eggs onto some position, troops waving their helmets and cheering every time one appeared. A steady stream filled the sky... steadier than the river. But quiet it did not flow, and one day the river would flow towards the sea when the aircraft had long since themselves fallen silent.

José Sanjurjo's headquarters bustled with the sound of radio transmissions, the scratch of pens and pencils on paper, the coming and going of courriers, the barked orders of commands by officers. The sound of modern war, of this war where everything was marked on charts and papers, where reports came in at the speed of lightning from the front, where war had become bureaucrat and professionalized to the extent that one could almost feel like one was in one of the new offices so distant in Madrid. But one could hear the sounds of war even here. It wasn't the same with every general, but José Sanjurjo liked to keep close to the front, close to the action, not in some château so far from the front line that it would take a day on the road for an automobile to traverse the winding paths to where the soldiers fought. Far enough away to be out of the range of the regular fighting, close enough to be in contact, daring the enemy bombers to find the camouflaged tents and to try to launch their bombs.

He was a heavy set man, plain of face, with a shock of a mustache, bristly and a dark black. His short hair sat close to his head, brushed back, showing grey at the edges but still healthy and full, without a trace of balding. Around his eyes were creased lines, from too long of squinting into the sun, and his skin had the paperish and olive complex of a man who had worked for long years in the desert, in the hot wastelands of North Africa. The eyes attested to it too - cold eyes, cold despite the warmth. His voice had the steel of it from a man used to shouting commands - a man used to being obeyed. A group of the officers were gathered around the table, over a map, laying out lines for the advance, charting the progress made, when a messenger entered the room and stood to attention.

Sanjurjo raised his head, his eyebrows rising. "Yes, soldier,?"

"General, we have reports from the front that a car has appeared under a white flag of truce, and asked to meet with the nearest general, which is you sir. Our skirmish lines let them through, and they are provisionally on the way here."

"I see soldier". Sanjurjo's brow furrowed for a second, creased with thought. Then he laughed. "Gentlemen, what a story it would be if they were about to surrender already!" An obligatory chorus of merriment rose from the assembled soldiers. He turned back to the messenger. "Soldier, report to the sentries to let the vehicle pass, and that they are to be welcomed under the rules of war to our encampment."

The messenger saluted smartly. "Yes sir!" An about-face, and he was gone, and the men returned to looking over the map, over the drawn isometric lines of geometry, as the plains gave into the mountain, as the river Ebro, this stream in this time of heat which divided northern Spain, promised to fall behind them, on their march in the Basque country.

The messenger arrived again, saluting once more, half an hour later. "General, the staff car has arrived."

"Thank you soldier." Sanjurjo rose, brushing out the creases in his uniform, and donning the visored military hat. The envoy held open the door for him as he passed, once more into the brilliant sunlight. The staff car was just rolling up, leaving a small plume of dust that puffed into the hot air to land behind it, its engine purring with the sound of a well-oiled machine or a pleased cat. It was painted in brilliant gold and red, open-topped, two flags on the front - each one the same, a white field with two diagonal crossing scarlet red lines, jagged stripes of blood against the purity behind them. A larger pure white flag, dirtied slightly by the dust but still luminous in the air, flapped as the car rolled from its flagpole next to the driver's seat, and then fell to a halt in the limpid air when the car ceased to roll. The driver jumped out of the car as it came to a halt, and a man got out, crossed to the other side, and opened the other door, holding out his hand as a woman stepped down. And then he turned to the assembled Spanish soldiers, walking forwards with an almost jaunty pace.

A thin man, of regular height, slightly taller than the woman. His face was eagle like, with a thin mustache, and piercing black eyes. Carefully combed hair, slick and brushed back, had a sheen to it in the bright sun - but most of it was covered by a beret, set off almost playfully on his head, a tassle running down its side. A dark blue jacket, doubtless hot in the burning heat, fitted over his slight frame, golden buttons running down the front in their two rows. Dark white trousers, and black boots on his feet, with only the faintest dusting of dirt upon them. An interesting uniform - perhaps some would recognize from when it came, from the trenches of the First World War, from distant Belgium, but most would know not its providence. A sword hung at his waist, in a scabbard, swaying as he walked forwards. The woman - his wife? wore a modest dress, fashioned about her waist with a thick leather belt, blue and light, a white bonnet perched upon her head while the black hair ran down her neck behind her, a fleur-de-lis perched upon her breast and a simple golden necklace around her neck, her hands clad in black gloves. The driver unloaded the staff car of a small box, standing respectfully there as a sentry bustled over to examine it.

Silence filled the camp as the two advanced, until almost right in front of Sanjurjo. Then a smile crept onto the face of the man, and his voice burst out.

"Well dear General Sanjurjo, I must say it is quite the pleasure to see you here! How has the front been treating you? Different than the deserts in North Africa?"

Sanjurjo's face lit up with a beaming smile. "Don Javier, it has been too long; I haven't seen you for far too many years! What gifts the good Lord gives us to bring you and the Duchess once more into our company!" The woman smiled and curtsied slightly in reference to her name. "The war, it is war, it is something which us Spaniards are used to."

"Ahh but indeed, we have all grown too used to it all too well." A trace of steel entered the tone of Javier, before the lightness once more stirred. "Please, if I may present some gifts to you as a token of your generosity in letting us through your soldiers?" He turned behind him, and called "Jean". The chauffer walked over, carrying a small box.

"You're damn lucky that you didn't get shot",cautioned Sanjuro. "If you needed to contact me, you should have simple radioed."

"Ahh, not nearly as dramatic, a prince does not simply request an appointment". A silvery laugh accompanied his off-handed remark, and a grimmer tone emerged. "And there are all too many who listen at the air waves".

The chauffer laid the box next to Javier, and opened the top. Javier reached down and pulled out a bottle of golden liquid; like amber in the sunlight, the rays of the sun refracting through it onto the ground, through the crystal glass. "You always did enjoy some cognac Sanjurjo, and I am sure you need a drink in this war! Would you, me wife, and those officers that you would like" - a slight stress on the last part - "be interested in some private conversation?"

Sanjurjo studied the rich bottle of liquor, from the distant town of Cognac in Charentes-Maritime, France, and then smiled once more. "Why yes Francisco", calling him by the first name for the first time during this meeting. "I think I would very much enjoy that indeed".

---

"José, this is the best chance for Spain and for our movement, and you know it".

The light was slanting in in an evening glow, the gold of its light becoming as pronounced as the cognac, as it was magnified once again more as it passed through the jewel-like glasses arrayed on the table. Flickering fireflies of light danced around the table every time a bottle moved, like as if one had thrown upon it a collection of beads to jostle around, golden beads that reflected the light of the sun in shining intensity. The bottles of cognac were mostly empty, and the glasses surrounding were in various states of being drained. A tone of ease had entered the conversation, of things being laid back, calmed, tranquil, despite the seriousness of the topic.

There were 5 of them. Sanjuro, Prince Javier, the legitimate heir of the Carlist movement, his wife Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset, and Sanjuro's chief of staff and his intelligence officer, Emel Guerra and Salvador Seco respectively. Sanjuro, Xavier, and Madeleine had known each for a long time, but Guerra and Seco were new to meet the royalty, but their grizzled and refrained comportement had changed as they drank the delightful cognac. But then, while their knowledge and their understanding of the affair was vital, their loyalty, their absolute and utter loyalty to Sanjurjo, was without question, without doubt. Men who if told to conquer hell, would ask only only if there was some extra ammunition for the pistols they would use to make their foray into that land.

"Yes I do, I know it well." Sanjurjo"s speech was slightly slurred by the alcohol, but his eyes were clear and unwavering."But it does not mean it is easy, or that it will go unchallenged. I stand as a proud Carlist, in the defense of the ancient traditions of Spain, but in the capital, the situation is confused and difficult to control."

Javier leaned forward. "The sake of the nation is in doubt. You know it as well as me. The Americans will ship through their arms, the French have gone insane and are opposed to your regime, the Italians lap around your shores like dogs. You may win, because there are generals like you and these wretched socialists never know how to fight like real men, but it will be a hard struggle, one which will leave our nation ruined. We must act, act not only to cut out the disease as has been tried before, but act as well to preserve the body."

Madeleine de Bourbon-Busset, who had been silent most of the evening, spoke up. "General, you know what is happening in Catalonia. You know about the atrocities that the "Union", this band of heretics; atheists, and tyrants are committing even as we now speak, against god-fearing priests and men. When we ask you to take up the sword in the defense of His faith, it is not as an idle plea for power, but in the name of His defense on earth, in a crusade, a struggle between the forces of light and justice, greater than any which the world has ever seen since the fall of Grenada in 1492. I implore you, I beg you", and here her voice broke, coming down to nearly a whisper, "to choose the side of justice and truth, and to excoriate from this country which I have grown to love these bands of marauders and terrorists."

The general was silent, silent as the seconds ticked on, with barely a sound to be heard save for the rustling of the wind. And then he stood. "Gentleman, gentlewoman. When the future of our nation is at stake, we must do what we must to act. I will write immediately to my comrades in arms, and tomorrow, I shall leave to make our message clear to the government. They have dawdled, tarried, too long about this, have preferred to wallow in their bureaucratic squabbles and to put aside the needed regeneration of Spain that will restore Her traditional glories and power. The path forwards is clear, and let us follow it with unbent shoulders and sturdy hearts, for the salvation of the fatherland. "Long live the king ! " He raised his glass and gestured to Javier.

They raised the glasses, the cognac sweeping around the little glass figurines in its trembling waves, and to the clink of the jewels upon each other, the cry came as if one voice. "Long live the king!"

"Long live Spain!" The cry came from Emel Guerra, the chief of staff.

The echo resounded once more, once more into the cooling air of the evening.

And a final glass was raised, and Javier's lips parted. "And long live, the one true faith"!

"Long live!"

King.
Fatherland.
And God.

The traditional devise of Carlism, which for a century had promised to bring back a fallen people to the light.

For in a nation foundered upon the rocks of misfortune, only the wise shepherd, a wise king, shall lead it through the valley of death to the sunny upland meadows. Under the red cross, under the name of the one true king, would Spain thus be saved from the red flag and the horror of anarchism.

The next morning, the general's plane left for Madrid, escorted by fighters who swept through the cool morning air like swallows, while the guns thundered behind them, while soldiers in their barracks in distant Madrid began to stir, unaware of the reports that their officers had received in the night, unaware of the day to come while politicians remained ignorant of the events to follow.  The hand of fate and the sword of destiny held aloft would extricate from the Gordian knot of chaos into which Spain had fallen their sacred fatherland, and would save the nation in danger. Providence had placed in the hands of the one true king the chance that he needed, and now it would be up to Him and Him alone to determine what was to come.

And behind them, quiet flowed the Ebro. Quiet it flowed from the mountains to the sea, unchanging throughout the course of time, as it rose and fell in the seasons, as it made its way, unabashed, unbowed, to the oceans.