Jacques sits in the train car. He is unarmed. He is wearing prisoner clothes, but with an army overcoat and hat. He was previously a Monarchist soldier, then a Requeté soldier, and then, it all ended, and he was a prisoner of the Spanish Republic. He was surprised they hadn't all shot them yet; though the Worker's Front was often rough with the officers, they hadn't done anything to kill the soldiers yet. But, they were on this train, now. Going somewhere. Probably to be shot.

Jacques has regrets. He had wanted to live a life of meaning, but he had gotten caught up in the reaction; he had thrown it away in order to oppose a popular movement.

Jacques finally summons up the courage to ask one of the guards in the train car the all-important question:

"So are you guys going to just shoot us, or what?"

The guard looks at him quizzically. "What? No. Anyways, Comrade Díaz wouldn't want that. You are being taken to a battlefield, and you are going to rebuild what you helped to destroy."

"What?"

"You're going to meet the people whose homes you smashed through, and you are going to apologize and let them air their grievances. You are going to learn to self-criticize and criticize the actions of your peers. You're going to learn things about yourself, and about the world. You will be reformed into a real person; a better person, who is once again fit to live in the world. And only then will you be set free."

"You'd give us a second chance?"

"You are butchers, but you were deceived, were you not? You thought you would make a better world by killing Socialists and Republicans. You will have a second chance."

"But-but I-"

"Do you reject your last chance?"

"Well, no..."

"So, then; in the day you will help to rebuild what you destroyed, in the evening you will learn from your mistakes, and in the end, you will be a better you. You will not be forgiven, but you will be reformed. If I were in your position, I would think that is a much better alternative to being shot, but that is just me."

Jacques tried to think of a response, but couldn't.

"Well, uh, thank you."

"Not yet; when you are done, then you can thank the Worker's Front."

Jacques goes to sit back down. He stares out the window, and he thinks about what he's done.

"You know what," he says to himself, "I do like this better than being shot."

And he thinks of his mother, who he has not seen in a year since surrendering, and he cries.

If the program to reform the former soldiers and police of the Monarchy goes well, then, someday soon, most these former villains of the Monarchist armies will be allowed to return home, genuinely better people than they ever could have been under the reign of any King-- though the most grievous war criminals will face not labor and self-criticism, but trial, jail, and possibly even execution. We will see what happens to them.