Dodging Franco’s Bullets Again

(Part 2)    By Byron George

To continue my tales of youthful misadventures in Spain under the dying years of the Franco regime. A couple of years after our part in burying a Guardia Civils motorized bike in the woods of Tossa De Mar, three of us decided to pack up our jobs and go traveling. I guess it was that era’s version of the gap year as we backpacked across France, living in a small tent. Our original aim was to get work along the way grape picking for the French wine harvest, but that was late, so we started thumbing onwards to the Costa Brava. We made no plans apart from getting to the Spanish coast and maybe finding work in the tourist spots.

A French guy in a beaten-up old Citroen 2CV loaded with plastic dancing ducks to sell stopped and squeezed us in on top of our backpacks. Of course, he had to have the canvas roof rolled back to get us in. Sitting on top of the ducks and rucksacks, with half our heads poking out the roof, it was a hairy ride, but we all got through the customs checks at Port Bou, and the mad duck seller dropped us off at the resort of Estartit.

Looking for work proved difficult as a prominent British tourist agent had gone bust, and those couriers already there had got to the jobs first. So we had to make do with a few tips for putting out deck chairs and small menial tasks until Jeff blagged a job as a sailing instructor for a German boat hirer after convincing them he was an experienced sailor. Unfortunately, his only real experience was from a one-day instruction on the local park lake. That job didn’t last more than a day after letting a family drift out of the bay so severely that they had to send a speedboat out to tow them back to base.

We had limited funds, so we rationed our daily spending, which usually saved enough for a couple of beers at the end of the day. We decided to carry on as beach bum hippies until something else might happen. Lady luck did us proud as while walking through the town at lunchtime; we saw three guys we knew from our back home rugby club. One of those strange coincidences the universe throws up at opportune moments as they were flush with holiday cash, and we were bums low on funds. They took pity on us out of loyalty, funded us for a couple of days’ food, and were determined to get us out partying. That probably wasn’t their best idea, as we had been away from home for a month or so by then and were almost teetotal and out of practice as far as wild rugby-style drinking was concerned.

It was 1972, and at the fag end of Franco’s rule, the cops were still unduly harsh, and the semi-political cum military police, the Guardia Civil, could more or less make up their own rules. They often had problems with British tourists and business owners who gave them scant regard. Freedom-loving Brits and their useful idiot youths constantly pushed the boundaries of the strict catholic regime. I’d like to think we had a small part in his demise.

While they were on vacation, our Rugby club pals and their spouses adopted us and our bar tab. So on their last day, we joined them for a wonderful lunch, including wines, spirits, and beers. They were happy getting rid of the residue of their holiday money on us poor backpackers, and a great day and afternoon of drinking followed. Sometime during that afternoon, a gorgeous Swedish girl latched onto us, and our drinking went on into the evening as we discovered the enormous 3-liter jugs of San Miguel on draught. She took a shine to our pal Dave and attempted to smuggle him to her rented apartment above a travel agency for some free loving. That didn’t go down well with Jeff as we three had done everything together up until then, and he promptly threw his pint over Dave’s head. Jeff was never one to do things without making his point, and it was the sort of thing we did to each other when one was getting above himself or being selfish.

Put one beautiful girl amongst three rampant rogues, and it is bound to go wrong! The girl decided to take Dave up to her room, but the quaint old rules of the church and state back then would not allow that, and the tartar that ran the pension would not let her up with a guy while they were not a married couple. So Jeff and I being generous souls gave in and told them to go to our tent at the campsite on the hill.

Jeff and I carried on drinking and wondering what to do with our time now our only bed had been taken over, so we staggered down to the beach. It was dark, the bay was empty of people, and we wandered through dunes. One side of the bay was just sand leading to the water’s edge, cut in half by a stone pier, of which the other side was a marina with many yachts and motorboats moored. So we sat for a while, meditating on the half-moon light across the water, and I was enjoying the peace and listening to the waves lapping gently at the edge.

After a while, Jeff got bored and nudged me, eagerly saying, “Let’s get a boat out to the island offshore; it’s only about a half mile.” I laughed and told him not to be stupid. “If you think I’m going out to sea in this state, you can f… off.” With that, he disappeared into the darkness. I sat still and did some yoga breathing for what felt like half an hour in the beautiful silence of nature. Until I heard sounds from the marina, a few “Brrrm, brrrm, papapa’s” in succession, the unmistakable noises of an outboard motor being primed, the cord pulled and let go. I chuckled to myself at the audacity of my pal when out of the darkness, he came rushing over, full of glee. “Byron, I’ve got a boat. We just need to siphon some petrol from somewhere!”

“You’re effing mad, mate, but I love you,” and I prepared to get dragged into another misadventure. Then suddenly, from the sea wall a couple of hundred meters away, we heard a shout in Spanish to see a couple of Guardia Civil’s tricorn hats near a street light. Somebody had probably called in about the potential boat thief. They shouted a warning before firing a couple of shots into the dunes nearby. “Oh shit,” we said to each other and promptly hit the decks.

We did the GI crawl across the bay in a curve as far away from the sea wall where the two cops were while they continued to shout “Halt” or similar and fire a short salvo. You’ve never seen two guys move so quickly on their bellies, encouraged by that same sound we used to hear in the old cowboy movies, that ‘ping’ and long ‘wheee’ as the bullets whizzed behind us.

We got to a low part of the sea wall as far across the bay and away from the Guardia Civil as we could get, clambered over it and ran across the road, somersaulted over a fence into someone’s garden and kept on running, through other hacienda gardens, back streets and alleys across the town until we climbed the hill to our tent on the campsite.

We were out of breath, pumped full of adrenalin, and nervous laughter as what we had escaped from dawned on us. But, before we relaxed, we sat on a rock looking down into the town, ensuring no pursuit. Then, over at the tent, we whispered, “Dave, let us in. Hurry up.” But all we got was “F… off.” Exasperated, we tried to explain we needed to hide away, and he didn’t care and told us he would be another hour. So Jeff and I sat on the big rock for a while before deciding to go in anyway; it was our joint home.

So we joined the two nude lovers, now sleeping in the coma of post-intercourse pleasure. I woke later with my arm across the body of the girl as we both giggled, then heard a shout from outside as the campsite security guard tried to enforce silence. As I turned to look where she was laughing, Jeff had grabbed something to stifle his guffaws, and a lacy pair of white panties hung out of his mouth. However, it was all good-natured, and the four of us shared the tale of the adventure in the bay over breakfast. If the cops were out looking for two boat thieves, they only saw four young friends enjoying the sun.