Read Online Lost Cause by John Wilson - Free Book Online

cover. As I reached for the book, Laia looked up from the poster. “What is it?”
    The leather cover was stiff with age. I opened it to the first page. The paper was very thin and, unlike the newspapers, hadn’t yellowed. The page was covered with closely spaced lines of writing that made me draw in a sharp breath. The writing was neater, but there was no mistaking my grandfather’s hand.

    JUNE 15, 1938
    Here I am at last, standing on the Spanish earth. My dream is coming true! All the months I have spent reading about the struggles of the Spanish people against the rich, self-interested landowners, the blood-soaked hands of the Church and Franco’s brutal war machine have led here. What better time to begin a journal?
    At last I can do something. Even if my government is happy to sit complacently and watch or, even worse, help Franco, Hitler and Mussolini crush all freedom under the iron heel of Fascism, I am not. I will fight and, if necessary, die beside my comrades from Canada and all around the world, to see the Spanish people freed from tyranny and Fascism stopped in its tracks.
    NO PASARAN!!!!!!
    This won’t do. I have just read back what I have written. Why is it that the thoughts I truly and passionately believe in seem so stilted and preachy in black and white on the page? I want to tell everything of the adventure I am beginning, but I will do it in two ways. I shall collect newspaper cuttings and anything else that will tell the broader picture, and I shall reserve these pages for my personal story. There will be no more lecturing from me.
    I doubt I shall be able to write every day. Some days will probably be too busy, and in any case, this is a small volume in which to record everything. I shall, however, jot down thoughts and significant events as they occur and as I find time.
    First, where am I? I am sitting in the dust beside a rough road in the foothills of the Pyrenees, waiting for a truck to take us to Barcelona. From there we will join our units in the International Brigades for training. I shall join the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion of the XVth Brigade.
    Dawn is brightening the clouds to the east, but the air is still chill. My comrades and I have spent the night climbing and scrambling over mountain passes from France, terrified that every dislodged rock will alert a border guard who will turn us back, or worse, open fire. But we made it.
    We are eight in number, myself and another Canadian called Bob, three Americans from New York, an Englishman, a Frenchman and a German escaping Hitler’s regime. We are all exhausted by the night’s journey, and all except me are trying to catch a few minutes’ sleep. I can’t; it’s all too exciting.
    An old man—a peasant with ragged clothes, wooden clogs and an unbelievably weather-beaten face—has just walked past along the road. As he drew level, he turned, raised a clenched fist and greeted us with “Salud.” Only our guide, Pedro, and I were awake enough to respond.
    I can hear the rumbling of our truck in the distance, and Pedro is waking my colleagues. I shall continue this when I have a chance.

EIGHT
    Laia coughed softly, dragging me back to the present. “It’s Grandfather’s journal,” I said. “He began it the morning after he and some others walked over the Pyrenees. He was on his way to join the other Canadians who were fighting in the Fifteenth International Brigade.”
    I let my hand slide gently over the words on the page. “He wrote me and my cousins letters before he died. He wrote the way he talked, and reading them was like he was still alive. This is different. He sounds so young and enthusiastic, but old somehow too. I guess that’s how people wrote back then.”
    â€œIt is a voice from a different time,” Laia said. “He was young, just like Maria, but he must have had much enthusiasm—and courage—to bring him all the way here