'Them', a short story by Xosé Luís Méndez Ferrín
(featured in a special European issue of Planet in 1992):

[This story is collected in Them and Other Stories, published by Planet Books]

The Porter turned the crank and Fernando, who was seated at the wheel, adjusted the choke until the engine fired. We pulled away in a thick fog, which appeared milky in the cold light of dawn. The heavy crowing of birds sounded out from the moors as we chugged along in Fernando Salgueiro's cream Ford, the four of us sliding around along the sharply winding track down from the Alto do Furriolo to Veiga and Verea.

We were resting our rifles between our legs except for Fernando, who had left his sub-machine gun on one of the spare seats in the back, as if it were a box of chocolates to be presented to some distinguished lady.

We always used to drink brandy before and after this kind of business.
The Porter pulled out a bottle of Tres Cepas from inside his greatcoat. Fernando shook his head and fingered his thin black moustache. The rest of us drank. The Porter belched.

"That made you feel better!" said the Knight.
The Porter's eyes were puffy and their lids heavy and drooping, with bright red lower rims. Whenever he looked sideways it seemed to me the effort must have hurt him. The Knight was looking at the Porter, sitting next to him.

"We'll take the Porter home now," snarled Fernando distantly.I had always thought that Fernando Salgueiro must have Filipino blood in him. At that moment his skin glowed brown, as if he were sweating; there were pimples on his narrow forehead.

"We'll take the Porter home so that he can screw his wife tonight," Fernando added, stroking his cheek as if to assure himself that hardly any hair grew there.

The Porter had a huge head, dark stubble and a triangular moustache which made him look like a radical or a Moroccan. He opened his mouth wide to laugh, showing his gums, and teeth which seemed to be covered in some sort of green lichen. But, almost at once, he bowed his pig-head, resting his brow on the barrel of his Mauser. I was in the front seat and, as I looked back at him, the Porter seemed the very picture of desolation. He said:

"She'll need some persuading to let me have my way!"

I'd known Fernando since we were kids.

"Well, well, well," he said, and I knew at once he was sniffing around, nosing out some way of ridiculing the Porter.We'd been brought up together, Fernando Salgueiro and I. One day we went for a picnic by the river, in Vilazo, and he put earth and a dead blackbird into the paella that the Toubes girls had lovingly made for the group. And they'd just finished convent school in Chaves and were so excited about getting together with the old gang again, because we were like family, we were, back in Verín!

We were all scared of Fernando Salgueiro. He always had his own way; always ordered us around.
"We could stop off for breakfast in Bande," the Knight suggested suddenly.

Fernando smirked. The Knight was known for his greediness and I thought of the rolls of fat beneath his combat jacket, bursting out over his belt and the badge with the Spanish emblem on it. The lardy rolls, squeezed by the straps that girthed his chest. The red cross of the Knights of Santiago was so rumpled up it had almost diappeared beneath his sagging left breast. He was older than the rest of us, was the Knight.

"Go on, we always do," I meekly begged Fernando Salgueiro.

The tarmac street was broken in a hundred places, and had a number of deep potholes. A cloud of clay dust surrounded the car as we drove along. We climbed up to the Alto do Viero and the fog faded away. I looked to the right and saw the endless wasteland, the barren desert which, near Outeiro de Égoas, crosses the marshes that stretch as far as Portugal and which the shephereds use as pastureland. The hill that could be seen in the distance must have been Penagache.

Fernando stopped the car and put the handbrake on. He gravely opened his leather jacket and took a packet of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his blue shirt. Mechanically he flicked out a fan of cigarettes. He offered them to us and I was the only one to accept. Fernando Salgueiro always smokes Chesterfield. We lit them with his gold Ronson.

Then we got out of the Ford, making as much noise as we could, slamming the doors, shouting, joking and spitting. We tucked our pistols in our belts. Adjusting our caps, first to one side and then to the front, we felt the merry dance of the pompom, so deeply and so dearly Spanish. We slung our rifles over our shoulders. We looked at each other, wanting to be seen and admired by the people of Bande, who seemed not to be around on the streets at half past nine in the morning.

The Knight of Santiago was a sorry sight in his khaki unform and jodphurs, tight around his fat calves. The Knight looked like one of the old faithfuls of Primo de Rivera time, even though he was a doctor in Cualedro. The Porter had squeezed into a boiler suit, complete with strap and ammunition pouches, open at the front to show his blue shirt. Over his shoulders he supported a greatcoat. I myself left my top-coat in the car so as to show off the yoke and arrows on the breast pocket of my combat jacket, and using my middle and fore fingers I flicked the cigarette end into the air with the clean trajectory of a mortar shell. In his gleaming riding boots, breeches and black leather jacket, his sub-machine gun over one shoulder, our beloved Fernando Salgueiro seemed far taller than he really was.

A few windows closed, and various figures we'd glimpsed hanging out clothes on the balconies of Bande disappeared. Turning a corner, our squad came across a man of about forty wearing a corduroy jacket and trousers, the black button of mourning on his striped shirt, and a small beret, cocked to one side. He paled - I saw in his eyes a boundless look of fear - and moved off to the middle of the road, showing, by the speed of his steps, total submission before us...