Notes on Night Soldiers by Alan Furst

I'm reading Night Soldiers by Alan Furst. It is the story of Khristo, a Bulgarian peasant recruited by the Russian NKVD and trained as a spy. He is sent to Madrid to help the Republicans in their war against Franco and his Nationalists. Today toward the end of the section titled Blue Lantern I came across a couple of interesting bits.

Django Reinhardt - In A Sentimental Mood - Paris, 26.04.1937
Heinz Becker
On page 157 Faye is listening to Django Reinhardt & Stéphane Grappelli on an Emerson radio.

1938 Opel Kapitän

One page 165, Khristo and his gang are working with SIM (Republican secret police) to round up nationalists who are hiding out in embassies that have been abandoned because of the ongoing civil war. The SIM thugs are driving an Open Kapitän.

Degtyaryov machine gun

Khristo and Ilya are sitting in the back of a Citroen with Degtyaryov machine guns on their laps.

Port Bou railway station

Khristo and Andres barely manage to avoid arrest in Madrid and are deciding which direction to take to make their escape (p.174). One of their options is head to Port Bou in northeastern Spain. Never heard of this place, but when I look on Google Maps I see a huge railyard. What the heck is this? You see big railyards like this in big cities, but Port Bou is like a little fishing village. Turns out this is a break-of-gauge station. Evidently French trains and Spanish trains use a different gauge for their railroads.

Portbou was a small but important point for the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, as it was one of the few places from where they could get supplies from abroad. - Wikipedia