The Deserter
Odd Olive lay between me and Written Script, as three Germane bomber griffons came in low over the hills. I awoke from my short, unruly rest when the humming from their wings exploded into incredibly loud noise as they passed above us with amazing speed.
The morning sun was reflected in their flight goggles and they flew so low that we could see their faces. They didn’t see us and went right past us, out over the olive grove.
It scared Odd Olive greatly anyway, and the stench hit me even though I had drilled my face into the red gravel.
Written Script cursed in his Crystal-Equestrian and hammered his hoof into the shoulder of the little Spaniard who began sobbing.
Written Script was a long, skinny unicorn with bony hooves whereas one of them became sickly pale as he clenched onto his rifle, hard. With the other hoof, he was hammering into Odd Olive’s shoulder and cursing him into the deepest pits of Tartarus.
Like all other Crystal-Ponies he had an odd, almost transparent texture. His fur was light blue, his mane blond and his cutie mark was that of a piece of old document with a brown feather quill crossing in over it.
Written Script was from a small village in the Northern part of the Crystal Empire and had signed up as a volunteer because he was tired of walking around workless and because he liked Father Stallion. He had been in since the defence of Maredrid, so I decided to stick with him.
We had picked up Odd Olive the day before when we got isolated from the rest of our company. He was from one of the Spanish detachments, so we couldn’t really communicate with him. He was wearing one of the new khaki coloured uniforms which we were all going to have to wear now.
He still had his rifle so we didn’t think he was trying to desert. He had properly just gotten lost like the rest of us.
Written Script spoke a modest amount of Spanish, but every time he tried to speak with Odd Olive, he began to cry.
He was a very small stallion and properly only a little older than Written Script, but he looked as though he was around the forties with his lean, frightened face.
His fur was of a light brown hue and his mane was as black as charcoal. His cutie mark consisted of two olives with one of them – for some reason – wearing a moustache and a sombrero.
He had been called for active military duty and thus had not volunteered as Written Script and I had.
We had been lying in the olive grove all night.
Two days earlier we had been pressing forward in a long line up the slopes in the white sun together with the others from the battalion and a couple of companies from the common Spanish army.
We were on the outermost flank in the coordinated attack which we initiated at dawn.
We witnessed Francolt’s Italian help soldiers flee right in front of us. Their dead and wounded lay spread across the landscape. We were met with the smell of shit from the shattered intestines as we ran between the dead bodies and ignored the wounded’s screams and prayers for help.
We arrived at the hilltop where the Italians hadn’t had time to dig themselves down properly. There we stood and we were then able to look out across the landscape which shone strangely beautiful in the heat haze and the grey gunpowder and the smoke from scorched olive trees and three griffon war constructions which had caught fire.
The Italian troops dropped whatever they held in their hooves. They just ran and ran, while we went into position and fired everything we had down upon the fleeing ponies. At the same time, we were cursing and screaming.
A small town was placed at the end of the hill, but it had been completely destroyed by the war. Two goat carcasses spread the smell of burn in the air like scorched roast in Hearts Warming Eve. They were completely black and lay on their backs with all four legs stretching towards the sky.
Behind one of the bombed houses a croaked scream was heard. A young Italian soldier with a small brown moustache had been shot in one of his hind legs and had been left for dead. His injured leg was bent in an unnatural angle and he was covered in blood.
The Italian had lost his helmet and was only barely awake; he was looking at us with distant dark eyes in a pale face, while muttering as though he was praying.
Written Script had acquired a sabre from a dead fascist officer who lay dead in a ditch together with two privates.
He drew forth the sabre from its sheath and stabbed the Italian in his eye.
We continued to press forward with the thirst and the nausea throbbing in our throats. Pressing forth was good, but it didn’t last.
Francolt send in his Moroccan Zebras and the Foreign Legion. They drove a wedge in between us and everything disintegrated.
You have no idea of what is going on. You can only just keep an overview of your own few square metres, but suddenly everything is just chaos and to such a degree that you almost fear Discord’s release.
Written Script and I got isolated and later Odd Olive found us, or we found him.
Written Script said it would be for the best to hide in the olive grove for the night. So that’s exactly what we did.
We tried to ration the water we had in our field bottles. We ate the last of our dry bread, took a sip of cider and tried to sleep, but Odd Olive wouldn’t stop whining.
The Germane bombers flew past us and we heard them throw their bombs well behind us. Written Script cursed in his Crystal-Equestrian and the meaning was clear as crystal; even though I didn’t always quite understand what he was saying.
The griffons dropped their bombes a pretty long distance behind us. The front had rolled straight past us, and the fascists was now in-between the brigade and us.
We could hear the artillery in the distance; muffled explosions which rolled out over the hills, making it hard to determine exactly which direction the screaming and shooting came from.
I heard the sound of the Griffon war machines before the others. There was more than one.
They were like something out of a horror story, Garmaneigh’s most recently invented construction of war; an atrocity on wheels. It looked like the ancient ballista, but with dreadful arrowheads full of gunpowder; making them explode on impact.
Written Script grabbed onto Odd Olive and just stared intimidating at him, so the Spaniard kept quiet. His eyes were terrified, as was he staring at evil itself.
He didn’t smell well, but hadn’t had the time to pull away and clean himself.
There were two Germane war machines and a small group of infantry. It was Francolt’s Moroccans who was marching forward in disciplinary order with the new war constructions, which the fascists were now given by Hitler.
Written Script and I loaded and readied our rifles while Odd Olive simply drilled his face into the dust. But they pulled to the right, around us and disappeared up the hill and down on the other side. Maybe they too had been separated from their main unit.
They didn’t spend a single thought on the dead whom lay at the foot of the hill. The vultures prepared to land the moment the small group had disappeared out of sight.
Written Script said it would be best to stay in the olive grove for the day, but that didn’t work. We had nothing to drink or eat and the sun made it so hot that it bore resemblance of being inside an oven.
In the afternoon we decided to start moving south, along with what we believed to be the frontline.
Odd Olive had cleaned himself a little but he still smelled of piss, so we let him walk last with Written Script first and me in the middle.
It was a huge landscape with olive groves spread out all over it, looking like dark birthmarks on the otherwise yellow or red ground. Spain was so massive and empty that you could disappear in it; so mighty that you felt like you were among the last ponies in the world.
It was burning hot and our rifles and saddlebags were getting heavier and heavier. Written Script had to threaten Odd Olive a couple of times with his big bony hooves because the little Spaniard wanted to drop his rifle and saddlebags.
I felt a little sorry for him and took some of his supplies from his saddlebags and put them down to mine.
In the beginning we could hear the artillery in the distance but the farther south we went the weaker grew the dull sounds.
We didn’t exactly know where we were. At one point the hills flattened and we went into some small scrubs that had become grey from all the dust.
The dust settled uncomfortably in our throats and forced its way in under the khaki uniforms and made everything scratch.
We could see large vultures soar through the air in front of us, but first as we rounded an outcrop – which looked like an eagles head – did we see the four dead bodies.
Neither Odd Olive nor I could bear looking at them; the vultures had already been there and properly also some other nocturnal carnivores the previous night.
They were from one of the other companies, so it was hardly anyone I knew either way.
From what I could see there wasn’t much of their faces left to be identified in the first place. I turned my back to them and sat down on my haunches.
Written Script went over to them and came back a little after saying it seemed like they had been taken down by Griffon fighters. We should bury them, but simply didn’t have the energy.
He stood with three field bottles levitated in his light orange glow and handed us one each. They were half full of lukewarm water but it tasted good anyway.
Written Script had also found two oranges and some very dry bread which had been lying in a metal box. We used some of the water and a little cider – which was in a fourth field bottle – to soak and thus softening the bread. The oranges were delicious.
We put some distance between us and the dead ponies and the flies, before we held our little feast. There was some tobacco and one of those rare fuse lighters as well.
Even when it got dark; had Luna’s moon and stars not yet shown themselves to guide our way. We found ourselves an olive grove to stay the night and Written Script took the first shift.
It was very hard to get any sleep at all. The nerves kept me awake. It felt like it was scratching all over and even the smallest sound or movement would wake me up.
The next morning, we drank a little water before continuing south through the empty, beautiful landscape.
When the sun was high in the sky; we took a small break. Odd Olive was walking with empty eyes and muttering to himself. Written Script was still the one in the lead and when the last drops of water was gone we set out.
There were no other ponies to see and no sounds of war to be heard. I considered suggesting to Written Script that we could head east towards our own lines, but decided that he properly knew best.
In the afternoon when the sun sat low in the west; we arrived at a small hilltop and spotted a village at the foot of the long slope.
Some goats were grassing at the edge of the fold. A shepherd was sitting on a large rock with his staff between his hooves and his saddlebag lying next to him. He didn’t look up at us.
He was wearing a worn grey jacket and a pair of baggy pants. He had a cap – which he had pulled down over his eyes – that looked very old and worn.
The village consisted of a collection of small light grey houses gathered around a small church, which looked like it had been on fire.
Several of the graveyards tombstones had been pushed over. There were holes in the church's walls; most likely from bombing. One place the wall had been completely reduced to rubble.
We were so thirsty and hungry that we found the courage to walk down there. The shepherd saw us and went over to a house and knocked on the door.
A big bulky stallion came out. It seemed he had just held siesta as he moved with long lazy movements. As he came out into the sun he brought one of his hooves up to his eyes in an attempt to block out the sun.
He turned around towards the door. A few minutes later a middle-aged mare covered in black ropes came out with a leather bag on her back.
When Written Script secured his rifle, I did the same. We extended our right front hooves up into the air and although hesitant; so did the large stallion.
In the leather bag there was cold and clear water. I drank and I drank. Like a changeling experiencing love for the very first time. Meanwhile, Written Script attempted to communicate with the large stallion and Odd Olive joined in with his small frightened voice.
The big stallion had a wide face with a small moustache. His eyes were brown and alive. A small but confident smile decorated his face but there was also something dangerous about him – a shadow of brutality which rested on all ponies, zebras and griffons alike who had experienced the war.
There was also something else. Something I couldn’t quite pinpoint. It was like he was burdened by some sort of guilt or secret. He wouldn’t look us in the eyes. I couldn’t determine his age but he was at least middle-aged.
His wife – if that’s what she was – in the black clothes didn’t look at us either. The shepherd stood a few metres away, leaning up his staff.
Down from the narrow, dusty street a couple of other mares appeared along with a single elderly stallion that was missing a leg.
Written Script turned towards me with a smile and said that the stallion was chairman of the workers committee which now controlled the village.
Not that there was a lot to control. Of the hundred that had previously lived there, only forty remained. I saw some crops growing a little distance away and could feel the hunger cutting into my very being. Those crops must have been delicious but Written Script told me that ponies of the brigades didn’t steal from the civilian population and that’s just the way it was.
I sat down, leaning up the wall with my rifle between my hooves and waited.
In the village, there were already two others from the brigade present. One of them was – surprisingly enough – a mare. The other was a political commissar from the Iron Hoof-battalion. He was a Crystal-Pony like Written Script and his name was Craft.
He had been shot in one of his hind legs and in the process one of his bones had been destroyed. His grey crystal fur was stiff with dried blood.
He was wearing the political commissar’s favourite uniform; the black leather jacket and a dark beret which was lying next to him. His silver mane was oily and sticky. He was twenty-two years old and lying on a bed inside the church.
Written Script didn’t know the stallion but they greeted each other effusively. It was like that; if you met a compatriot, then you became happy and the cider was pulled out.
The mare was Germane and named Teapot. Her full name was Hilda Teapot but she preferred the pony part of her name. She was a translator for one of the brigades.
Written Script later told me he thought that she was an agent of the Comintern or maybe even from the Muskovian secret intelligence service.
She had a strange face which wasn’t beautiful but still attractive. Properly because it was so full of character with a tall forehead, big lips and confident light blue eyes. Her short curly mane was red and her fur was an almost white, light pink.
When she smiled it felt like dawn after a long and terrifying night, it was just so pretty. She spoke in a fast Spanish but I answered in Germane which I had heard her speaking with the commissar.
I could see that he was suffering greatly. He was drinking away the pain with cider.
I didn’t particularly like commissars. The Equestrian and Crystalline wasn’t as bad as the Germane who put too much weight on discipline. But they were all communists and preached as they had been ordered to.
In every volunteer's service record there was but one political designation, being that of antifascist. But it was the communists who were in charge. I guess it was fair though. After all it was the Hooviet Union that help us with money, weaponry and advice.
Teapot had a deep, soft voice. She told me that they originally had been four but had sent off two a couple of days ago in order to get help and transport for Craft.
She said the battle had been big and we were victorious. We had just made a tactical retreat to secure our positions. What the frontline currently looked like was a little uncertain.
Craft’s bed was lined up in front of what had once been an altar. It looked like a bed which had always been standing around in a poor environment. The mattress looked old and worn and collapsed in the middle.
Half of the church benches were gone. And the rest wore signs of the fire. It seemed like it had raged in the room. There was straw on the floor. Two of the windows were destroyed. The walls were blackened. It smelled like blood and stools.
I went outside. Teapot went with me while Written Script sat down next to Craft to speak with him in their mother tongue. Odd Olive had fallen asleep in some straw in one of the corners. Even in his sleep he whined.
Teapot said that later in the afternoon we could expect to get some oiled beans, perhaps some salad… maybe even some coffee. Definitely wine.
I was hungry, but as it often happened; the gnawing hunger had passed and now simply existed as emptiness in my stomach.
Once outside, we sat down. I rolled two cigarettes and gave one of them to her before I lit both of them with the lighter. As any reasonable pony; I hated cigarettes, but it helped greatly on the emptiness in my stomach and my unsettled nerves .
The mare in black came over to us carrying the bag with water and another one with wine. She wasn’t as old as I had first thought but her eyes were empty and lifeless in her pale face.
She made the sign of the cross towards the small bell tower and went away again.
It was very hot and the insects were heard clearly. The village and the hills behind it quivered in the mist. The shepherd guided his goats away from the buildings and up a ridge.
Teapot told me that the mare always made the sign of the cross whenever she passed the bell tower because it was haunted. Teapot told her tale while we smoked and drank in turn of the young wine.
It was in July of the year where the rebellion broke out. The Spanish Civil Guard – whom had barracks in the village – had risen on Francolt's side.
There had been eight guardsmen. Led by a stallion named Red Dusk, they had quickly taken control of the village.
He had been mayor until the last election where he had been replaced by a stallion from the Popular Front. Red Dusk was falangist and loved to trot around in uniform and wave around his sabre.
He gathered the entire village in front of the church. There were five-six blue-shirts besides the Civil Guard, who had been armed by Red Dusk.
All the colts above twelve years and all the stallions were lined up in a row. Red Dusk went to and fro in front of the row; scaring both colts and stallion alike.
Next to the row of trembling ponies stood the mares, fillies and the youngest colts together in a group. Red Dusk was waving his sword around in the air with his crimson magic and flung his forelegs around for extra effect.
The dust whirled around his long black boots. He had polished both those and his cross-strap so the greasy leather glistened in the sun.
He stated that the election results showed that half the village had voted on communists, socialists, anarchists and other profane heretics. And they had to pay for this so that a new order could occur when all the bad blood had been washed away.
First, he picked out the mayor and stabbed him in the stomach; so he would die a very slow death.
The village’s newly elected mayor was 28 years old. He screamed and he screamed. Red Dusk yelled that he didn't know how a real stallion dies. Look, what a coward. Look, what a mare. Listen, the coward screams like the swine he is. Look at the foul swine. Look, how badly he dies. Long live death, he yelled.
He demanded that everyone should yell in unison: Long live death! Viva la muerte! Viva la muerte! Teapot said in Spanish almost to herself.
The priest stood in his black cassock with the cross around his neck and just looked on passively. He fumbled with his rosary and was pale and sweaty in the heat. But never the less, he went forth and blessed every other colt and stallion.
One by one, was all the blessed ponies pulled forward and stabbed, while every mare and filly of the village looked on helplessly.
The priest was a plump stallion. He gave the mayor the last oil and without the intercession or showing any sign of charity; he proceeded to bless those sentenced to death.
He simply said to every single one of them: you are a poor sinner, but if you repent then you will receive a better life in heaven.
The priest was known to love the wine which the congregation was forced to bring him until the election that changed the balance of power in the village.
His eyes were bloodshot. He walked around with his cross and a bible, as was it a Sunday like all others.
Many colts and stallions attempted to escape the horrors. Wives left the group and ran to their husbands to put themselves between them and the swords of the guards and falangists.
They were all cut down.
Red Dusk was screaming and howling the entire time. Long live death, he roared. Show yourselves like true Spaniards and die well.
The yellow dust in front of the church was red with blood. It was like the earth was crying tears of blood.
The surviving stallions and colts were set to dig a mass grave behind the graveyard where the bodies were dumped.
Teapot looked at me. She told the story without any tone, but still like someone who needed to talk. She had tired eyes underneath the red mane and smoked violently and quickly. Without a word I quickly rolled up two new cigarettes. I let her tell her story in peace.
She said that she had only just heard this tale the day before. The old mare – who really wasn’t that old, but only 28 – had told it to her when she had helped draw water from the well. They had completely forgotten about the water and just talked for several hours.
It was the first time she had told her story. She remembered all the details. She was the murdered mayor’s widow. Their nine year old daughter had been killed, just like their seven year old son who had been cut down while running to his father.
It was hard to know exactly what had happened to all the mares. Who had been raped and then killed? Who had committed suicide? Which of the mothers had killed their own foals to avoid them being abused by the Civil Guard?
The bloodbath lasted two very long days. Then the workers’ militia finally came and freed the village. When the war first broke out; everything was chaos. The local authorities refused to hand out weapons to the workers so they didn’t make it in time.
It ended up in battle, but when two of the Guardsmen had been killed and three others wounded; they gave up. The damage on the church’s walls originated from those fights.
The surviving villagers found the priest in his home. They dragged him to his church and hanged him in the bell tower rope.
The surviving falangists and Civil Guard was locked inside the church along with their wives and children. The villagers then proceeded to set it on fire with small bags of gunpowder and bottles of spirits.
Red Dusk didn’t die well. He screamed like a stuck pig until the smoke got the better of him. They dragged the bodies out into the sierra and left them for the vultures and other nocturnal carnivores.
The church was now haunted and at night they said you could hear screaming and crying coming from the church tower. If you listened to them; they silenced. But they would force their way into even your farthest nightmares when you didn’t pay attention.
You couldn’t get rid of them and no matter where you travelled they would always follow.
Teapot looked at me, stood up and said that now, she needed to bath.
I kept sitting there for some time and drank some wine. I could smell the white, dehydrated beans which was being boiled somewhere nearby.
They would be soaked in oil which the Equestrian stomachs had a hard time dealing with. It didn’t really bother me though. I stood up and went for a walk.
As I went around the village I heard the splashing of water behind an old collapsed building. I wanted to take a peek but decided against it. Instead I sat down on my haunches and leaned up the building’s half destroyed wall.
I saw Odd Olive hiding behind some rubble diagonally across from me. Only his face was visible and I could see the tears drop down and make two lines in his dusty face.
Suddenly I heard Teapot singing; it was a Germane lullaby, which my old nanny had also sung. Odd Olive’s face disappeared. I doubted whether or not I had actually seen him or not. Perhaps his grimy face was only an illusion created by fatigue and hunger.
I thought about walking over to the other side of the building, to Teapot. But it came to nothing.
The next morning, ponies from the brigade arrived in a conquered Italian cart to evacuate the Crystalline political commissar.
In the cart – which was bigger than any cart I before had witnessed – was a Germane political commissar named Günther, two Accipstrians and two Spaniards. Teapot, Written Script and I were of course also picked up and brought with them.
I sat in one side along with one of the Accipstrians and Teapot. She was busy taking care of Craft. She switched between holding his hoof and pouring cider in him.
His destroyed leg smelled badly. He had a very high fever and was often muttering to himself. It was incomprehensible nonsense in Crystal-Equestrian about gold coins and lost treasures of the lost Aztec empire.
He was soaked in his own sweat even though Teapot did her best to keep him clean. He yelled out in pain every time the cart bumped over something on the small bumpy road.
Written Script was sitting across from us next to commissar Günther and one of the Spaniards. Written Script looked at me, then at Craft and slowly shook his head.
Craft was lying on the bed from the church between us. The only one missing was Odd Olive, but he had fled during the night.
Odd Olive hadn’t gotten far. He was lying in a ditch only a few kilometres from the village.
Günther said that the comrades who had come to pick us up had met him and shot him. He had neither weapon, Laissez Passer nor a good explanation.
Odd Olive lay on his back and looked up into the Spanish blue sky. His eyes were open and his mouth still looked like he was crying. On his chest there was a pallid piece of cloth nailed to him with his own knife.
Commissar Günther had painted the word: “DESERTER” on the cloth with big black letters.
We drove past without stopping. Teapot began singing her Germane lullaby. Her voice trembled, but it was properly just because the cart had bad springs and jolted so much on the bumpy road.
