A Broken Land Read Online Free PDF

the track-and-field stadium, yet right at that moment it came home to him how little he really knew about them, and that extended to names. He had remained semi-detached to that in which they were involved, partly through a disassociation from their politics, added to a lack of interest, more through being too busy with his own pleasures.
    ‘Vince tells me some of you want to get involved.’ He needed to put up his hand to kill off a murmur from several dozen angry throats and the odd shaking fist. ‘I can understand how you feel and I think Vince will tell you that I am experienced at this sort of thing …’
    He had to stop then, there being nothing he could add which did not risk sounding boastful, so he turned to Florencia, who, unusually for her, had remained silent, albeit with a fixed pout, while he had talked with Vince, who was not going to be forgiven for the way he had not only ignored her, but cut her off from her man.
    ‘Florencia, we need to find out what is really going on, not just rumours, and we will need your help if we contact anyone in authority. What I am saying is we need you.’
    The pout disappeared and her eyes flashed as she responded. ‘You’re going to fight with us?’
    ‘We’re not going to just sit on our arse and do nowt, sweetheart,’Vince growled, good-humouredly and with a smile. ‘Of course we’re goin’ to fight.’
    Cal Jardine was used to Florencia suddenly leaping to throw her arms and legs around him, then showering him with kisses; Vince was not and it showed in his rapidly reddening face, especially when the act was accompanied by a whole raft of whistles and whoops from the athletes, and more especially, his young boxers.
    ‘Right, boys,’ Cal yelled, over the din, looking at feet in an array of unsuitable footwear, in fact a lot of plimsolls. ‘Get back to your billets and collect your kit and shaving gear, a change of clothes, especially spare socks and the means to wash them, a knapsack if you’ve got one and a blanket, even if you have to buy it. If you have boots, wear them and don’t load yourself up with things you don’t need. You might not be coming back to where you are now sleeping, so bring any money or valuables you have as well, and everyone has to have a hat.’
    He paused, watching as that sank in, looking for signs of doubt; there was not one who did not seem still determined.
    ‘Back here in an hour and be warned – I will inspect you and chuck in the gutter anything I think you don’t need. Some of those who came to the Olympiad will want to get out, so ask them to gather here as well. This will be our rendezvous point till we find out how the land lies.’
    Taking Florencia by the arm, he headed back towards the centre of the city. Vince, professional as he was, had already got together the kit he knew he needed and was on their heels.
     
    The crowds were no longer just milling about; as an indication of how serious matters had become many were busy building barricadesand doing so with an impressive professionalism. Instead of just a jumble of various artefacts hastily thrown together, they were being constructed with care, a bus or a truck the centrepiece, the paving stones ripped up from the streets not just thrown in a rising heap, but laid carefully and angled, so that any shot striking them would ricochet upwards and over instead of smashing them to pieces, with rifle slots at the crest, offset for aiming right and left to protect the men who would use them.
    Florencia explained, when Cal expressed his admiration, that such skill was honed by experience, Barcelona being a city well versed in the mechanics of revolt, not least in an event they called the Semana Trágica – twenty-five years past but still a beacon for socialist memory – when the government, the army and the Civil Guard, using artillery, had crushed a major uprising.
    The workers would not make the same mistakes of shoddy construction now as they had made then; the