Only yesterday, Franco had declared the overthrow of the Second Republic. After months of violent skirmishes and protests, localized revolutions and repressions, suddenly the country was officially at war – with itself. The Republican government’s measures to liberalize the political, social and religious landscape were being tolerated no longer by the old Establishment and stories were already coming in that the highly trained and skilled Army of Africa – which for years had been fighting savage battles in Morocco – was preparing to invade the mainland, a prospect that chilled the blood of the most hard-boiled Republican revolutionary. For no matter how angry the starving labourers were, how were they supposed to fight their own army? If there was fervour, there was also fear.

A sudden whine and blast of static made the crowd pause and take a breath as they waited for the low, gathering voice of Dolores Ibárruri. Every single body turned towards the Cortes and the giant speakers relaying the radio broadcast.

‘Workers! Farmers! Antifascists! Patriotic Spaniards! . . .’

Marina felt her heart pound as the voice from the loudspeaker vibrated through her bones. This was it! Revolution! And she was here, a part of it. In an instant, she felt the mood of the crowd lift again. Change would come, it had to. The dynastic traditions of centuries past could not continue as they had. The winds of social change had been blowing through the country for six years – the monarchy was now gone, didactic religion abandoned for education, equal rights being advocated for women . . .

‘. . . The country realizes the gravity of the current situation through the bulletins being issued by the government and the Popular Front . . .’

Someone trod on her foot, the pain sudden and intense, making her gasp out, and she glanced across to see a woman beside her, hair worn up in looped plaits and wearing dungarees. She was gazing up rapturously at the disembodied voice, a cigarette dangling between her lips.

‘Oh! Sorry, was that your foot?’ the woman asked, before breaking into a relaxed smile, the cigarette waggling as she spoke. ‘Are you okay? I’m so clumsy.’

‘Not at all,’ Marina demurred. ‘It is rather crowded.’

It was a vast understatement, their bodies compressing into an ever-smaller space as the crowds continued to push in at the back. The woman, taking the cigarette from her mouth, threw her head back and laughed. ‘Yes, it is rather, isn’t it?’ she replied in a hoity-toity voice.

Marina admired the woman’s bold, frank manner – she seemed somehow fearless – but she realized that she had also inadvertently betrayed herself, her refined speaking style at odds with the coarse and colloquial language of the crowd. She would have to do better at hiding the manners and etiquette that had been steamrollered into her if she wanted to be accepted as a true Republican. This crowd would turn in an instant if they knew who she was: the daughter of an Andalusian landowner.