Orwell by D. J. Taylor

Author:D. J. Taylor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2023-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

It was infuriating. I had been a hundred and fifteen days in the line and had come back to Barcelona for a bit of a rest and comfort; and instead I had to spend my time sitting on a roof opposite Civil Guards as bored as myself, who periodically waved to me and assured me that they were ‘workers’ (meaning that they hoped I would not shoot them), but who would certainly open fire if they got the order to do so.

If this was history, Orwell concluded, it did not feel like it.

To ennui and hunger could be added the taint of suspicion. At the Hotel Continental, where a kind of parody version of smart hotel life precariously survived, ‘various people were infected with spy mania and were creeping round whispering that everyone else was a spy of the Communists, or the Trotskyists, or the Anarchists, or whatever’. The fat Russian cornered people in turn to explain that the whole affair was an anarchist plot. Dinner that night consisted of a single sardine per diner, eked out by a crate of oranges supplied by some stranded French lorry drivers. Finally, on Friday 7 May, the situation started to improve. The crowds at the barricades began to disperse and the black anarchist flag came down from the telephone exchange. The bearing of arms was prohibited and Assault Guards from Valencia, crack troops and the pride of the Republican army, appeared on the streets. Given that the Civil Guards in the Café Moka commanded a view of the Poliorama, what was to be done with the six rifles used in the defence of the observatory? In the end Orwell and a Spanish boy smuggled them back to the POUM building concealed in their clothing.

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