The novel Between Frontiers (348 pages) is the first book in the trilogy Evangelical Memory dealing with the experiences of the Evangelical communities in Galicia from the reign of Alfonso XIII (1886-1931) to the death of Franco in 1975. Between Frontiers goes as far as the Spanish Civil War; the second book, In the Catacombs, deals with the postwar; and the third book, A False Light, with the time of Franco’s dictatorship.

         The narrative opens with the funeral in 1986 of the local priest, Don Diego, who is buried with pomp and ceremony in the central part of the cemetery, the left of which has been reserved for Protestants, suicides and prisoners shot in the Spanish Civil War. The narrative then becomes retrospective.

         Manuel Liñares grew up on the border of Galicia with Portugal, next to the river Miño. His father, Valeriano, was a pointsman. He and his wife, Minia, ran a railway hostel, through which passed several colourful characters, including the Protestant ‘heretic’ soldier who married the barmaid Carmiña and saved Manuel from a rabid dog (but not from a series of anti-rabies injections), the Portuguese monarchist priest Don Domingos, the Portuguese tailor Caetano and the pedlar of books (or colporteur) Severo, from whom Manuel’s father bought a Protestant Bible, which Manuel would later borrow. Memorable experiences included the stopping over of a hydroplane on its way from England to Brazil and the purchase of a new bicycle, which Manuel used to sell pepper from village to village.

         Manuel was sent to study in Vigo, where he began to visit the Protestant church on Pi y Margall Street with its English pastor Thomas Berkley. His attempts to discuss matters with the Catholic priest Don Santiago had failed. Together with his friends Feliciano and Maruxa, he rejected the ideas of Scripture only being open to interpretation by priests, of clerical celibacy and confession. His studies bore little fruit, but they did enable him to propose the setting up of a Protestant church in the community he came from, which Berkley and the elders of the church in Vigo rapidly agreed to.

         On the death of his paternal grandfather, Manuel returned to his parents’ hostel, having decided to relinquish his studies. He fell in love with a girl from the congregation in Vigo, Carmiña, and worked as an apprentice on the railway. Despite provocations and his mother’s opposition to his being baptized Protestant, all went well until the shadow of conflict became a reality and the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936 before he could sit his exams to become a railwayman. The political backdrop, the short-lived Second Republic and the Catholic hierarchy’s interest in maintaining its privileges, is analysed in the narrative.

         Manuel’s hometown was the last in Galicia to fall to the Nationalist forces. They attempted a resistance, dug up the roads, removed the railway line, to make it more difficult for troops from Vigo to arrive. The priest Don Santiago was arrested and jailed in the town hall. Manuel’s parents fed all the local militia, being paid in tokens by the mayor, which Manuel’s mother feared would be worthless and would ruin their business. On 22nd July, however, a few days after the uprising, the town succumbed to the Nationalists. Manuel’s friend Feliciano was arrested, Maruxa’s father was assassinated. The captain of the border guards, who had helped organize the resistance, was shot. Initially the Civil Guard allowed the Protestants in Oleiros to continue with their worship, but the Catholic priest complained about their behaviour and their church was ransacked while the pastor, Celestino Puente, was beaten up and sent to A Guarda, where he survived thanks to the charity of local fishermen. Manuel again wished he could emigrate with Carmiña to Uruguay or Argentina, where they could be missionaries. Carmiña, meanwhile, was safe. The Nationalist leader in Vigo’s tailor was an Evangelical and the Protestants there were permitted to meet in secret.

         For his safety, since escape to Portugal, from where most refugees were returned, was impossible, Manuel travelled to Vigo and enlisted in Franco’s army, the opponents of the freedom of worship he longed for. He was a trained railwayman and could operate a telegraph machine, but he entered as a common soldier, destined to become cannon fodder. His ability to write, however, led to him completing the task of filling out forms and in turn rising to the rank of corporal. Although charity was regarded as the opposite of discipline, he was fortunate to have a commander who was kind and considerate, but warned him against talking about his religion. He was allowed to visit the church in Vigo, where Carmiña informed him of the death of Feliciano and of the treatment received by other Protestants. Manuel tried to help, smuggling bread out of the barracks under his military cape, even after winter had ended.

         The summer of 1937 was a purgatory. Manuel’s battalion was transferred from Vigo to Tui. There he was accused by the Catholic priest in Oleiros of being a Protestant, Mason and Communist, and he was sentenced to death by firing squad. Even his uniform, the fact he belonged to Franco’s army, could not protect him. His family, however, intervened and the sentence was rescinded. The battalion was again transferred, this time to Ávila, passing through Manuel’s hometown, so that he just had time to see his family from the train and to remember the scenes of his childhood. Outside Ávila, they narrowly escaped a Republican aerial bombardment and ended up being billeted in caves to avoid detection from the skies.

         Manuel was stripped of his rank of corporal and sent to the front line to be a messenger. This meant he would be unarmed and so unable to shoot any Republicans and he would have more time for prayer. Miraculously he managed to escape being killed and he was then transferred to a detachment whose role was to ambush any Republican forces trying to sabotage the railway. Here he was wounded in the leg and eventually sent back to Teis, next to Vigo, after a period of convalescence in a convent where the nuns allowed the wounded soldiers to drink a sweet wine. In Teis, Carmiña informed him how the Falangists in Vigo had continued their reign of terror, but how they’d managed to smuggle a Polish Jew by the name of Herberto, who’d come to Galicia to look for his brother, out dressed as a sailor of the Royal Navy, whose ship was in Vigo harbour.

         Manuel was transferred to another hospital in Tui, where he was treated by a sympathetic second lieutenant and sergeant, who kept him there as long as they could, until the spring of 1938. He also met an emigrant who had returned with money from Puerto Rico and listened to the radio at night for foreign news about the war.

         Once better, Manuel returned to the barracks in Vigo, where he had to endure the sound of summary executions in the early morning, where he passed his exams as a railwayman and where he learned to play the bugle. He was sent to the Ebro front as a bugler, again relieved that he wouldn’t have to shoot anybody, since his sympathies were neither with the Nationalists, who permitted only Catholicism and had the backing of the Germans and Italians, nor with the Communists, who permitted no religion and had the backing of the Russians.

         At the Ebro, Manuel and his companions made it to the front line, despite the constant shower of rain and bullets. Manuel was so exhausted that he slept the first night in an empty tent, which turned out to house the munitions. The next day, he was hit by a shell as he made his way to report for duty. Owing to his ability to write, he was given the task of keeping a record of the conflict. He made friends with the Galician barber, Tomás Calviño, and a Franciscan novice from Valencia, Vicente. He also came into contact with the army chaplain, Juan María Arregui, who explained that killing wasn’t a sin if it was done to defend the faith and who soon identified Manuel as a Protestant. A letter from Carmiña informed him that his friend Maruxa had reverted to being a Catholic.

         Manuel goes on to narrate a typical day on the Ebro front, with its attacks, running to carry a message, aerial bombardments, trading with the Moors who sold things to the soldiers, searching among the corpses for anyone who was still alive. In October 1938, the battle between both sides became more intense until in November the Republican forces abandoned their positions and the Nationalist troops reached the river Ebro.

         The troops advanced from the Ebro. The main fear now was getting shot by snipers. The local peasants they met along the way were mostly old or very young, afraid and without an heir. The troops succumbed to pillaging and drinking until finally, in January 1939, they reached Barcelona. Here they were able to wash with soap and warm water. The march continued to the French border. Manuel was reunited with Xosé, Carmiña’s brother, and they were able to compare notes. The war was almost over, but Manuel still feared getting caught by the last bullet, which would mean he was unable to return to Carmiña and to travel to the Holy Land with Vicente as they’d once hoped. From the border with France, they travelled south to Cartagena and Murcia, where past Communists offered political information in return for clemency. Manuel was able to make contact with Protestants in Murcia and to worship. Not so in Bilbao or Pamplona, where they were transferred after that and where Manuel was electrocuted on boarding a tram and had to spend another period in hospital. In Pamplona, Manuel was finally discharged, sad to leave his friends, especially Vicente, but happy to return home.

         Manuel returned first to his parents, where he shared information about the war and was ignored by Don Santiago, then to Vigo, where he found a job on the railway and was reunited with Carmiña. There was a new pastor in the church in Vigo, Edmund Woodford, and, while some Falangists continued to make fun of them, they were able to continue to worship. However, at the end, Manuel’s friend Maruxa appeared in the railway station where Manuel worked, about to travel to Buenos Aires, where she hoped to practise her beliefs in the open. She predicted that the Protestants in Galicia would have to live ‘in the catacombs,’ the title of the second book in the trilogy.

         The most striking aspect of this account of the Spanish Civil War is the way it is told from an unusual point of view, that of a Galician Evangelical. The book has been extremely well researched and the reader is given a real sense of the trials and tribulations not only of a soldier in Franco’s forces, fighting to survive, but also of a Protestant surrounded by Catholics, fighting to preserve his integrity and freedom of worship. There are touching accounts of the friendships formed despite differences of background or religious persuasion and of survival against all the odds.

Synopsis © Jonathan Dunne