The General and the Professor divined, rather than saw, the silhouettes of the heavily laden men they were passing. At the end of a short time they knew that they were not far from the head of the column. Soon they could hear the potent voice of Celso, who was shouting loud enough to be heard in the inferno: “Gang of burros! What a convoy I’ve got with me! Are you rebels? Don’t make me laugh! You complain and whine more than a bunch of old women. Sons of bitches! You didn’t whine like this when you had to march for the bosses and sink in the mud up to your ears for them. Then you worked like oxen. Each one of you did what four oxen together couldn’t have done. But then you were working for those bastards. Now that you have to do something for yourselves, here you are whimpering. Swear if you have to, but don’t break my eardrums with your whining! Rebels? You’re not rebels! Listen to me carefully, you pack of mules. Whoever complains from now on, may lightning strike me if I don’t shut him up! Now—get on there and keep your mouths shut!”
The Professor and the General stood stock-still.
“Say, General, it seems to me that you have chosen well in the chief of your general staff.”
“So I see. From now on he is a lieutenant.”
“Only a lieutenant? I propose that we name him a captain.”
“You’re our adviser, and if you propose it, I name him a captain.”
“Thanks, comrade.”
“But now that I think of it, I have one colonel, ten captains, fifty lieutenants, and no major. And so, with your permission, comrade, this afternoon when we reach camp I’ll name Celso a major.”
Martín Trinidad had started forward again, but just as Juan Méndez made him this proposal he stumbled against a root and fell full length, with his face in the mud. For that reason he was unable to give his immediate approval to the promotion of Celso.
ALLISON & BUSBY FICTION
Simon Beckett
Fine Lines
Animals
Philip Callow
The Magnolia
The Painter’s Confessions
Hella S. Haasse
Threshold of Fire
Catherine Heath
Lady on the Burning Deck
Behaving Badly
Chester Himes
Cast the First Stone
Collected Stories
The End of a Primitive
Pink Toes
Run Man Run
Tom Holland
Attis
R. C. Hutchinson
A Child Possessed
Johanna at Daybreak
Recollection of a Journey
Dan Jacobson
Francis King
Act of Darkness
Ash on an old man’s sleeve
The One and Only
The Widow
Colin MacInnes
Absolute Beginners
City of Spades
Mr Love and Justice
The Colin MacInnes Omnibus
Indira Mahindra
The End Play
Susanna Mitchell
The Colour of His Hair
Bill Naughton
Alfie
Matthew Parkhill
And I Loved Them Madly
Alison Prince
The Witching Tree
Ishmael Reed
Japanese by Spring
Reckless Eyeballing
The Terrible Threes
The Terrible Twos
The Free-Lance Pallbearers
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down
Françoise Sagan
Engagements of the Heart
Evasion
Incidental Music
The Leash
The Unmade Bed
The Disenchanted
The Harder They Fall
Love, Action, Laughter and Other Sad Stories
On the Waterfront
What Makes Sammy Run?
Debbie Taylor
The Children Who Sleep by the River
B. Traven
Government
The Carreta
March to the Monteriá
Trozas
Etienne Van Heerden
Ancestral Voices
Mad Dog and Other Stories
Tom Wakefield
War Paint
About the Author
No one knows who B Traven really was. Probably German, Traven was almost certainly not his real name. A BBC programme was unsuccessful in getting at the truth of his identity. Whoever he was, there is no disputing that he is widely remembered for his Treasure of the Sierra Madre and his six Jungle novels. You can sign up for author updates here.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Allison & Busby Fiction
About the Author
Copyright
First published by Allison & Busby in 1984
Copyright © 1952 by Esperanza López Mateos and Josef Wieder
Originally published in Spanish as La Rebelión de los Colgados
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978-0-374-72259-3
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First Farrar, Straus and Giroux ebook: 2020