speaking through the loud-speaker, the Fascist officers realised that they 
could not force their men to fight any longer. They became afraid that 
the men would turn on them and shoot them, as was the case at Quijorna 
in July, when six hundred of our misled brothers realised their error, 
shot their officers and joined our ranks. 
Afraid of the soldiers, the officers stole away by one of the under- 
ground passages and took refuge in another strongly-fortified building. 
Now we realised there was more fighting in front of us. And though 
we were very weary after days and nights without sleep, and fighting 
all the time, we were glad that this time we would not be firing on men 
who wanted to be our comrades. There would be opposed to us only 
the Fascist officers who are the betrayers of Spain and the enemies of 
the Spanish people. 
We were awaiting orders, resting in a trench. Firing was still going 
on. Other Battalions were searching for the traitor Fascist officers. 
Then, Robbie, Adjutant-Commissar of the Brigade came and spoke to us. 
He didn’t speak much Spanish but we understood that he was telling 
us the siesta was over and that we were to go into the fight. After ma- 
king a very good speech he went away to give instructions to other com- 
rades. Acting on orders, we moved closer towards the houses. 
As this part of the town had been captured by our Brigade a few 
days earlier, we were unsuspecting. It was night time and except for 
the grenades bursting and the machine-guns firing further in in the 
town, there was nothing unusual happening. 
Suddenly, a few yards in front of us we heard voices and distin- 
guished a mass of people coming towards us. Some were women. There 
were shouts of “Camaradas!” We thought they were more of the people 
who had been liberated. But we always had orders to challenge all 
people coming from the town and establish their identity before we let 
them pass. Then our Commander shouted and we realised what was 
happening. These were Fascists who had escaped through one of the 
underground passages with which the town was honeycombed, and they 
were driving civilians before them in order to prevent us firing effec- 
tively. 
Our Commander called on them to halt. The answer was a shower 
of grenades. Women, children, men and Fascists were now so mixed 
up and running in all directions that it was impossible in the bad light 
to distinguish anything clearly. We noticed that some of the civilians 
were firing at us. They were officers in disguise, as we found out af-
terwards. 
The whole affair had taken us by surprise. Then, we had hesita- 
ted too much for fear of killing the civilians. So the Fascists were able 

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