On the path to the quarry the prisoners squelched through clinging red mud; each day the snowline on the distant mountains descended a little lower. That morning it was raw and damp. The work detail stood in lines by the quarry, stamping their feet to keep warm as a pair of army sappers carefully placed sticks of dynamite in a long crack running the length of a twenty-foot rockface. Sergeant Molina, back from leave, stood talking to the driver of the army truck that had brought the explosives up from Cuenca. Bernie thought about Agustín. A few days before he had gone on leave. He left during morning roll-call; Bernie saw him walking across the yard, kitbag over his shoulder. Agustín met his eye for a second before quickly turning his head away. The gate was opened and he disappeared up the road to Cuenca. ‘That is a big charge,’ Pablo muttered. Bernie’s fellow-Communist was on the quarry detail with him now. He was an ex-miner from Asturias and knew about explosives. ‘We should stand further back, there will be splinters flying all over the place.’ ‘They should have got you to set the charges, amigo.’ ‘They’d be afraid I’d set them under their truck, like we did in Oviedo in ’36.’ ‘If we could get our hands on it, eh, Vicente?’ ‘Yes.’ The lawyer sat slumped beside them on a rock.
