The lean boy trudged through the forest, his boots becoming marked with the scent of Spain.
To call him a boy would be an understatement. His visible biceps, his tall figure: these compensated for the fact that Ezra Bridger was young.
Perhaps I am too young, he thought to himself as he searched in vain for his allies. I'm only 17 years old. I should be back in Newark, with the other degenerate communists.
He chuckled at his own self-deprecation.
Where the hell are these soldiers supposed to be?
He clutched his rifle and gave it a shake, only to hear rattling inside. Great. It was a fairly recent model ('fairly recent' describing his Mauser Model 1893, a weapon somehow in use in 1936), but it was crudely manufactured, in this case. Hell. I don't have anything better to shoot Fascists with, do I?
"Camarada, ¿que te envió?" a Spanish voice spoke from the trees. "Who sent you?"
Ezra got over his initial shock of hearing a voice for the first time in two days. "El gobierno, Camarada." Ezra's Spanish was shoddy, but it would have to do.
"Ven conmigo, Camarada." The voice emerged from the trees, to reveal a man in his thirties. He seemed awfully short-sighted for a soldier, but he wore no glasses.
"¿Que le paso a tus ojos?" Ezra asked inquisitively.
"Yo soy ciego. Un poquito." Great. A blind man in the trenches. It'd be incredible if he could fire a rifle straight.
Correction: a little bit blind.
Ezra sighed. It would have to do. "¡Vamonos!"
––
For many, the Falangist coup in July had been disastrous. Thousands were already dead. The trained Fascist troops under Franco were causing great casualties to the poorly trained Republican militias and International Brigades.
For others, it was an opportunity to profit.
Sabine Wren began painting what she saw: a sentry with an antiquated rifle in a hastily erected watchtower, gazing into the streets of Barcelona as crowds gathered with red flags and signs, protesting the weak Azaña government. She gave it no thought. She was here to make money selling her paintings of the Spanish situation to all sorts of characters, after all.
She sighed. One day, she thought. I'll be in that crowd.