Soldiers in the Fog
By Antonio Soler, The Clapton Press, £12.99

THIS Spanish Civil War novel was first published in 1999 in Spanish, under the title El Nombre Que Ahora Digo (The Name I Now Call Out) and was awarded the Premio Primavera de Novela.
 
It is, however, not a historical account of events that took place at that time, nor is it about the international brigades. It plunges us head first into the horror and squalor of war on a purely human level.

It is written in a lyrical prose style which certainly captures atmosphere and that sense of chaos that all wars engender. I felt, however, that the civil war is used here merely as a convenient backdrop for a human interest story and that the author has little interest in casting new light on that significant historical event nor whether he has an opinion on the rights and wrongs of that conflict.

The story is set during the Spanish Civil War, and is quite simple: a young soldier, Gustavo Sintora, arrives in Madrid after Franco’s rebel forces capture Malaga. He is posted to the Republican army’s mobile entertainment unit which is billeted in a mansion on the city’s outskirts and puts on shows for those fighting on the front line. In Madrid he meets Serena Vergara, a seamstress who is destined to become the love of his life.

As the war becomes darker and more intense, Sintora’s unit is sent into action on the Ebro front. Faced with the horrors of the battlefield and the inevitability of defeat, the unit gradually disintegrates, and the soldiers go their separate ways. Sintora rushes back to Madrid, desperate to find Serena.

To give a flavour of the novel’s politics or lack thereof, here are three instances that take place in the novel. Firstly, in one of the opening chapters the chief protagonist, the young private, Gustavo Sintora, arrives at a Russian army camp in Republican Spain. They were “blind drunk”, he writes, and there he witnesses how a Russian airman executes two of his compatriots in cold blood for alleged “treason.”

Second, Stalin is lampooned among the Republican soldiers, even though it is Stalin’s Russia providing the only aid to the Republic. And third, one of Sintora’s troupe is “a communist” who, as a sideline business, captures aristocrats or priests whom he then ransoms in order to stash away the cash so that he can survive in style after they are defeated and the war is over. Such things are unlikely to inspire a raw recruit like Sintora. 

The narrative is interwoven throughout with excerpts from Gustavo Sintora’s notebooks which, according to the story, he had handed over to the narrator’s father towards the end of the war. On the basis of these fictitious notebooks, the narrator has, as he says, “pieced together the story that took place many years before I was born... Sintora wasn’t thinking of any particular country or any particular army or even any particular flag. His true motherland was embodied in a woman,” the author writes. This sets the tone of the narrative.

Soler’s novel could, in essence, be about any conflict. The reader is provided with little context apart from the fact that it is clearly set in Spain and a war is going on. There is a general air of cynicism or detachment among the protagonists and a certainty of defeat pervades their outlook. The reader is none the wiser about what they are fighting for or whether they have or had any ideals or visions for a democratic Spain. The author merely paints a picture of human frailty in time of war and conveys its misery and senselessness and how it tears families, communities and relationships apart.

Not a book I would recommend to anyone who wishes to gain knowledge or deeper insights into the Spanish Civil War.