The History of the Canadians in Spain 
Thus Far---Written by the Boys 
Themselves

A New Parley-Vouz

There were about 125 of us, Canadians and Americans who 
marched through the streets of Barcelona the first days of Febru-
ary singing---"and Franco said he'd take Madrid but now you see 
like hell he did---inky dinky parleyvoo."

The trip over the Pyrenees is a story in itself. My group 
was lucky. We rode in trucks. But the boys who came after 
us, after the control had been enforced, had to hike it. "Hiking 
for health," one guy said.

The towering mountains, the ravines, the rocks, the narrow 
paths, made it treacherous going. Mountains cannot stop our 
guys.

Most of our journey through Spain was made by train. I 
wish I could describe the scenes and the people meeting our train 
in all the towns and villages we stopped. They would come 
and dump baskets of oranges into our laps until our car looked 
like an ocean of oranges. Oranges are healthy but after we got 
through with them we were swearing that we would never look 
another orange in the face.

I remember one wizened old woman coming over and hold-
ing out her palm for alms. But a fiery little youngster who 
couldn't have been more than five years of age stepped in front 
of her and began to shout. We did not understand what he was 
saying and so one of the Cuban boys had to translate. The chico 
was yelling, "Only a fascist would take money from our com-
rades. Don't you dare." The boys laughed and insisted on giv-
ing her a few pesetas.

We had to take precautions. <sic> from air raids and we had to

---6---