Dr. Bethune and his comrades Hazen Sise and Thomas Worsley
INTRODUCTION
Most of the people, crazed by panic and desperation, took the
road to Motril and Almeria. A whole town in flight. They fled from
Malaga; which had just been occupied by the legions of Italians and
Germans, by Moors and the Tercio.
On the right of the road open to the sea, the guns of the pirate
ships were pouring out fire, seconded by the units of the German
and Italian squadrons. Beneath the explosion of grenades, which
sowed death, there opened in the human torrent which advanced
unceasingly, tragic gaps: hundreds of women, men, old people and
children, fell, never to rise again, horribly hit. From the sky, of a
passive blue, the aeroplanes swooped down —also German and Ita-
lian— and sowed with the lead of their machine-guns, death wherever
they pleased.
On the left of the road, the scarps of the Sierra Nevada cut
off all hope of escape for those who fled. From sky and sea the cold
breath of death extinguished thousands of lives. Under the noise
of exploding shells and the rattle of machine guns from the aero-