Josep Almudéver died on May 23rd

OLD SOLDIERS often lose their enthusiasm for fighting. They speak instead of peace and, in fading voices, warn the young against the folly of war. Not so Josep Almudéver. At the drop of a hat he would unfurl the Spanish Republican flag he always carried with him, yellow, red and purple, the colours of dawn, and drape it proudly round his shoulders. He would rather forget to eat, than forget that flag. Then he would raise his clenched fist, shout “Viva el socialismo!” in a voice still carrying and clear, and break into a Republican song. No stopping him.

He was still at heart the boy of 17 who tried all the recruitment offices round his village, Alcàsser in the province of Valencia, to enlist in the fight to save the Second Republic from Francisco Franco’s fascists. The moment Franco’s coup against the elected government ignited the civil war, in July 1936, he had to join up. He was too young, but “You won’t stop him marching,” his father told the secretary at the Socialist Party office, who then obligingly accepted his age as 19. He was still 17, on the bleak, freezing front line at Teruel in Aragon where the Republican forces were trying to dislodge Franco’s troops, when shrapnel ploughed into his chest and shoulder. But it didn’t hurt for long and, after some weeks, he was looking for a front line again.

After the...