Fifth Brigade of Navarre

The Fifth Brigade of Navarre is a Francoist military formation that enters the novel through a proposed boxing contest. Its boxer, Navarro, is set against Adrián Gallardo in a match arranged by their officers, but the contest’s apparent test of sporting merit is shadowed by Captain Ochoa’s private calculation about how to secure the outcome.

The proposed contest

During a Christmas celebration, Lieutenant Barrios explains that his company has a boxer named Adrián Gallardo, said to be very good, and that the Fifth Brigade of Navarre has another boxer named Navarro. Navarro had fought in official contests before enlisting; Barrios says the officers have decided to arrange fights for Gallardo so that he can be measured against him. The brigade thus supplies the rival fighter around whom the proposed match is organized.

Ochoa’s confidence in Gallardo

Captain Ochoa asks how Navarro compares. Recalling the ants that seem to crawl up to his elbow during the journey back to Portugalete, he dismisses Navarro as worthless and tells Gallardo that he will easily beat him. Gallardo laughs, apparently taking the reassurance at face value, while Ochoa repeats it more to convince himself than to encourage his fighter.

The contest as an instrument

Ochoa’s thoughts turn from the fighters to the generals he will have to invite to dinner before a date for the match can be fixed. His whispered assurance that he will take care of the matter makes his praise of Gallardo sound less like a neutral judgment than part of a plan to manage the contest’s circumstances. The Fifth Brigade’s boxer is therefore introduced not only as Gallardo’s opponent but as the other side of a bout whose result Ochoa expects to influence through military connections.