Seventy-seven years after the noise, smoke, confusion of the battle here, the archaeologists and descendants walk under a peaceful blue sky ; in a long line across the ploughed field. Looking down, every few paces we find a piece of pottery, shrapnel or a button, and mark it.We are doing field walking, then a search across the same area with a metal detector. We find a bullet, a coke can.
Des, from Ireland, finds the big discovery, a hand grenade. He tells me digging brings you much closer to the land than being a tourist. What you find or don't find tells a story: after a battle, Republicans picked up metal because they needed to re-cycle it into new bullets. A mug he found in a trench made that connection to a person.In this short week we have felt a bond grow, working with people from all over. Frieda from Glasgow lost her grandfather the retreat on March `1938, and the sacrifice changed her family. It was quite a long painful time before he was listed as "died in Spain". Penny's Greek Cypriot father came to the States, then went to Spain as a volunteer to repair trucks. He came home but never talked to his child about Spain. Hardworking Louis (who biked through Khazakistan) and Morgan come from opposite ends of Canada, Sue and Bethan share the experience and stories of many digs they've been on.
Tonight we had our last dinner at the cafe, before we come home and they stay on another week.
After paella of rice with mussels and calamari and other mysteries, Wendy jokes ,"Oh look I found a bullet in my paella-Oh, no, it's a shell~!"
The boy from the Basque country sang his national song, and we replied with "Valley of Jarama", and then sang our departure, from a song of the Internationals..."We will leave Spain...to fight on other fronts"
"Ya salimos de Espana, por luchar en otras frentes"
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