A Moment of War
Laurie Lee
1914–1997
A Penguin since 1962
Laurie Lee
A Moment of War
PENGUIN BOOKS
UK | USA | Canada | Ireland | Australia
India | New Zealand | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
Penguin Random House UK , One Embassy Gardens, 8 Viaduct Gardens, London SW 11 7BW
penguin.co.uk
First published in 1991
Published in Penguin Books 1992
Reissued in Penguin Classics 2014
This edition published in Penguin Classics 2025 001
Copyright © Laurie Lee, 1991
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.
In accordance with Article 4(3) of the DSM Directive 2019/790, Penguin Random House expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception.
Set in 10.25/12.75pt Dante MT Std
Typeset by Jouve (UK ), Milton Keynes
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
The authorized representative in the EEA is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D 02 YH 68
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN : 978– 0– 241– 75204– 3
Penguin Random House is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship Council® certified paper.
To the defeated
A Moment of War
Return and Welcome
In December 1937 I crossed the Pyrenees from France – two days on foot through the snow. I don’t know why I chose December; it was just one of a number of idiocies I committed at the time. But on the second night, near the frontier, I was guided over the last peak by a shepherd and directed down a path to a small mountain farmhouse.
It was dark when I reached it – a boulder among boulders – and I knocked on the door, which was presently opened by a young man with a rifle. He held up a lantern to my face and studied me closely, and I saw that he was wearing the Republican armband.
‘I’ve come to join you,’ I said.
‘Pase usted,’ he answered.
I was back in Spain, with a winter of war before me.
The young man slung his rifle over his shoulder and motioned me to enter the hut. A dark passage led to a smoky room. Inside, in a group, stood an old man and woman, another youth with a gun, and a gaunt little girl about eleven years old. They were huddled together like a family photograph fixing me with glassy teeth-set smiles.
There was a motionless silence while they took me in – seeing a young tattered stranger, coatless and soaked to the knees, carrying a kit-bag from which a violin bow protruded. Suddenly the old woman said ‘Ay!’ and beckoned me to the fire, which was piled high with glowing pine cones.