Douglas Thompson
Wounded in the arm at the beginning of April, he was back in Barcelona when the May fighting started, decided to keep out of it, and went to his hotel — which happened to be in a part of town the police controlled. He was arrested there and held eight days in a cell too crowded to lie down in.
In George Orwell's account, to sit the Barcelona fighting out. He said so in one sentence when the two of them met in the street: his arm was still bad, and he was going back to his hotel.
The book
At a glance
- An English militiaman in Orwell's unit on the Aragón front
- In the arm, about the beginning of April 1937
- Tarragona, then back to Barcelona
- During the May fighting; eight days in a cell
- Chapters 7 and 10
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeDouglas Thompson was an English volunteer in the militia of the P.O.U.M., the small Spanish revolutionary party George Orwell fought with on the Aragón front in 1937. The book shows him twice: once under fire outside Huesca, and once in a Barcelona street a month or so later, trying to work out what was happening.
The first is the night raid on a Fascist redoubt outside Huesca. The raiders took the position and then found themselves under heavy fire from a second Fascist post further up the line, with no protection on that side at all. Orwell, going round the dug-outs to see where the danger was, found Thompson leaning against the parapet with a wounded arm dangling useless at his side, firing one-handed at the rifle flashes. A man whose own rifle had jammed was loading for him.
He was wounded in the arm about the beginning of April, and after that Orwell lost track of him, as usually happened when a man was hit — the wounded were moved from hospital to hospital without notice. Thompson was at Tarragona, and was sent back to Barcelona at about the time the street fighting of May 1937 began there.
Orwell met him in the street on the Tuesday morning, considerably bewildered by the firing going on all round, asking the question everyone in the city was asking: what the devil was it all about. Orwell explained as well as he could. Thompson said at once that he was going to keep out of it, that his arm was still bad, and that he would go back to his hotel and stay there.
The hotel was in a part of Barcelona the Civil Guards controlled. It was raided, and Thompson was arrested and held for eight days in a cell so full of people that nobody had room to lie down. Orwell lists him among the completely innocent people arrested through police bungling while the jails filled up, and draws from it one dry practical lesson about how much it matters, in street fighting, to understand the local geography.
The book never describes his face, his build, his age or his voice. It gives him two sentences of his own and two situations, and that is the whole of him.
How the book draws them
- Firing one-handedAt the captured Fascist redoubt outside Huesca, leaning against the parapet with a wounded arm dangling useless at his side, shooting at the rifle flashes while another man loaded for him.
- The question in the streetOrwell met him on the Tuesday morning of the May fighting, considerably bewildered by the shooting going on all round him, asking what the devil it was all about.
- What he decidedHe answered promptly that he was keeping out of it. His arm was still bad; he would go back to his hotel and stay there.
- Eight daysThe hotel stood in a district the Civil Guards held. It was raided, and he was arrested and kept in a cell too crowded for anyone in it to lie down.