Town of Guernica, Basque Country, Spain.

18 miles from the front line.

Thursday, April 22, 1937.

2300 hours.

Town barracks.

The wait was the worst part.

An inescapable certainty that a few miles away, under the same sky with the same stars and the same moon as you, were a group of people whose sole mission was to end your life. A group of people who eat, breathe, and sleep in the art of tyranny.

The wait was the worst part.

The indisputable fact that they take one step forward every day behind an impenetrable fog of war, and that your only defense is to wait.

The wait was the worst part.

That cold feeling of despair that seizes your mind and soul as you see wave after wave of refugee enter the gates of the city with tales of pain and suffering, hauling the remains of their loved ones behind as a reminder.

A reminder that they have lost everything. A reminder that we were next.

When would they reach our gates to take away our lives? When would they storm our city to harvest our souls?

It was not a matter of If anymore. I could hear the bombs every night. Like a single finger tapping the skin of a drum. Syncopated; without a pattern. Faint, but not faint enough for us to ignore. It was bothering me like an itch that I couldn't scratch.

While my fellow countrymen slept to the background music of pain and misery, I couldn't. That single drum echoing into the night robbed me of any peace I could find. Every time something good came our way, like a piece of good news from the battlefield or a major victory, that drum always reminded me that my happiness was fleeting.

Waiting for death to come was the worst part.

I was just a kid--I wasn't supposed to be worrying about my imminent death. I was supposed to be studying the Classics, like Homer the Bard, whose words have been etched in the eons of time. What would he say if he saw me, a kid with a silver spoon in my mouth, pretending to be a warrior? Would he laugh, or would he cry? Would he regard me with stoic indifference, or would he pity my plight?

But you can probably understand why I couldn't sleep that night. The horizon was painted red, and the drums were pounding away their macabre tune. Other people might sleep through that, but I couldn't--no sane person could. But I was the only sane person in the barracks that night since the rest were sound asleep. That was about to change.

"Goicochea! Echegaray!" Lieutenant Aguirre yelled as he stepped into the dingy barrack.

The sudden sound made everyone stir in their bed, but nobody dared to move too much unless they wanted to be "volunteered" into the night shift at the Renteria bridge, an assignment only reserved to those who earned the hatred of the temperamental officer.

Unfortunately for me, that job was usually reserved for one squad and one squad only: The Handyman squad, which was my squad.

"Up, up, now!" ordered Lieutenant Aguirre.

I wondered what he wanted. Our shift wouldn't start until 0200 hours. Whatever the case, I jumped out of the bundle of hay I called a bed in a flash. I couldn't say the same for Tuerto.

The Lieutenant marched to Tuerto's bed of hay and punted him right on the lower back. "I'm talking to you, Echegaray!" Each new punt punctuated his one and only order. "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!"

Tuerto woke from his slumber with a long yawn. He was so fat and burly that each kick must have felt like a tickle to him. His lack of urgency told me that he wasn't aware that Lieutenant Aguirre was fuming on top of him. Eventually, the Lieutenant managed to make enough damage to make himself be noticed, making Tuerto quickly stand in attention--or at least as fast as his girth allowed him to. His only eye darted back and forth between me and the Lieutenant. I could only shrug.

"We will cut your rations, Private! Your belly is a disgrace to this army. We're struggling to feed the people and you're sitting in a cushion of lard. We can feed the town twice with all your fat!"

"Yessir!" replied Tuerto.

The Lieutenant got on his face, almost touching noses with Tuerto. "Yes, sir, what? Yes, sir, I should cut your rations? Or yes, sir, you're a fat disgrace?"

"Yessir!" answered Tuerto.

The Lieutenant spat on the floor between them. Torturing Tuerto was one of his favorite hobbies. "Goddammit, Echegaray. I thought you lost an eye, not your brain. You're useless as a rifleman and an even worse scout. I swear to sweet Holy Mary that if you weren't built like an elephant, I would use your fat bottom as cannon fodder."

"Yessir!" said Tuerto once again. I doubt he even knew what an elephant was.

Apparently content with his daily abuse, he focused his attention on me. "Alferez!" he yelled, "where is the rest of your squad?! You're supposed to report for duty at the Renteria bridge in three hours!"

I took a look around the barracks. Two soldiers were missing. Great.

"I asked," said the Lieutenant, "where are Loyola and Yarritu?"

"I don't know, sir!" I said. It was the wrong answer.

"God damn you, Goicochea. You have one job and one job only: to make sure your squad is in order. Do you think an officer like you can maintain his rank with your level of reckless abandonment?!"

While I wanted to point out that he was our superior officer and he didn't know where they were either, hence making him as reckless as me, I kept quiet. The best thing was to knuckle under and go with it. "No, sir!"

"I didn't think so!" said Lieutenant Aguirre, spraying saliva all over my face. "Find them and report to the bridge, now! You earned a few extra hours in your shift."

With that, he left, leaving us to track down our missing squad-mates. To be honest with you, I lied--I knew exactly where they were, but I wasn't going to tell the Lieutenant. It was the kind of thing that earned you a trench in the front line around these parts.

I waited for Tuerto to get his equipment before leaving the barracks. The building was a re-purposed barn north of the city. It wasn't much, but it was enough to hold a couple battalions to defend the perimeter. The rest of our forces camped right outside to the east, near the battlefield. Compared to them, we had it easy, if dull. Still, there were jobs that were better than others, like patrolling the city square. The checkpoint at the Renteria bridge was considered one of the worst posts, first, because nobody ever passed through it, and second, if you didn't have good company, it could feel like an eternity.

I can't say that Erramun "Tuerto" Echegaray was a good company to have. He had been one of the first soldiers to fight back against Franco and his revolutionary Nationalist army, but managed to be at the worst place at the worst time when a German bomber took out his whole squad with one bomb. The shrapnel tore out his left eye, hence his nickname, but some of it lodged into his head. He hasn't been the same ever since. I heard he was a great rifleman once.

If these had been times of peace, he would have been discharged, but you know these were no times of peace. The country demanded every man they could get, able or not. Sad, isn't it? The lives of the fine people of Guernica were in the hands of a dim-witted, one-eyed sack of rice.

Anyways, we walked out of the barracks to where our squad mates were. The explosions could be heard more clearly outside, accompanied by shorts bursts of gunfire, probably from a machine gun. You could even see some planes in the distance if you squinted hard enough.

"We're going to The Zurito, right?" asked Tuerto.

"Yes," I answered.

He went quiet for a few minutes while we made our way through the city. It was completely deserted, as expected. When the city of Berriondo fell, about 80 miles from Guernica, the whole town was put under curfew. Only the very dumb--or very brave--dared to roam the streets at that hour of the night. Not that there was anything to do, mind you. Everywhere you looked, improvised barricades made of sandbags and old furniture adorned the facade of every building. School was suspended, and most men were drafted into the Republican Army, lured by some nationalistic spiel about defending the Basque motherland.

Tuerto began slowing down for some reason, almost dragging his feet through the ground. His hands were fidgety and trembling.

"Are you okay?" I asked him.

Instead of answering, he only blushed, shaking his head as he resumed a faster march. He soon overtook me, but quickly stopped again.

"Tuerto, talk to me. We don't have time for this."

He took a deep breath before talking to me, all the while keeping his eyes pinned to the ground. "You think Fatima is there?"

He might have been dumb, but he still had a heart. I smiled at him and answered with a big pat on his back. "Can't think a reason she won't, buddy."

"Are you sure?" he asked, giving me a hopeful stare-down in the process. For a big guy, he could be surprisingly soft.

"She lives there, so yes."

"She could be sleeping," he retorted. "What if she's sleeping?"

"Then you will see her another day," I answered. "But the longer we stand around, the more likely she is to be sleeping. Time is of the essence."

That seemed to make him happier as he began to walk even faster than before with a spring to his step. His stamina was incredible, as we made the one-hour trip in under half an hour.

The Zurito was the last remaining bar in town. They were smart enough to foresee the inevitable collapse of all trading routes from the capital and managed to stockpile a hefty amount of alcohol. The people still need their booze in times of war. Hell, I'll say that people need their booze especially in times of war. Of course, it was mostly watered down wine and rum, but it was something. They also had this homemade beer that was more solid than liquid, but it packed quite a punch. It tasted dreadful.

The absolute best thing about The Zurito was Lula. Beautiful Lula. Kind Lula. She was a sight for sore eyes. Have you ever met a person that was as bright as a sun, but as mysterious as the moon? That was Lula.

Her smile, oh! How many sonnets did I write in my mind about that smile? Full, mischievous lips that danced as her dulcitone voice flowed out of them to drown the sorrows of my heart. And her eyes, don't get me started about them! Ebony ponds that you could get lost in. She was a work of art, I tell you.

Needless to say, I was also a bit nervous about the prospect of meeting that certain lady at The Zurito.

The house that doubled as The Zurito was at the outskirts of the town, right on the western edge to be exact. It used to double as a lodge for weary travelers before the war, but since most roads to the Capital were closed, nobody passed through there anymore. All those empty rooms were re-purposed as...well, let's say that The Zurito gave young girls the opportunity to pursue an extra means of income. Lula was not one of those girls, mind you. She was just the daughter of the owner.

We managed to hear a ruckus as soon as we approached The Zurito. Broken glasses, shouting, all that stuff. I knew exactly what was happening, which was confirmed when the door opened and a man was thrown out of the bar with such a force that his body came rolling down the hill where the building was on.

On any other day, I would've simply ignored it, but I recognized the sand-like hair tumbling down to a halt. We ran to the body, only to see the bruised face of Mikolas "Camarada" Yarritu smiling like an idiot. One less teammate to find.