ers had to take the places of all the former company command» ers. -Smith and Hallowell had been wounded .

Cigarefles

E were taken into a reserve position a few hundred yards behind the line. Wei hadnlt seen a cigarette for days. It was nerve/wracking. Some of us said we'd change our rifles for a cigarette. The fascist bombers bombed us three times a day. If we had thought that the bombardment in Albacete was horrifying, then the English language had no words to describe what happens when men are bombarded three times a day for four consecutive days. A shell is bad enough. But you only hear the shriek and then the explosion. You get used to that. But to listen to the drone of the plane, to hear it com’ ing closer and closer.. Waiting, every nerve tense, listening for that horrible shriek, waiting for the explosion, for the world turning into a black smoke of hell-——and then it comes. Again. Again. Something inside you leaps to your throat and then sinks to your feet. It is over and then again, and then again, thefear, the horrible, primitive fear. Only the knowledge that you know why you are here, that you keep repeating to your’ self, keeps you sane, keeps you ready to fight and make an end to this man/made murder.

Some men crack but most keep strong. It was on one morning after one of these bombardments that we heard a rumor that a truckful of cigarettes had arrived. It isn’t true, most of us said; it is one of these rumors. One fellow came screeching at the top of his lungs, “Its true, its true, honest» to/God its true. l’ve seen them. A whole truck full. Canadr ian and American cigarettes!” It was "true. Cigarettes had come. You knew that you could go through a million bomb’ ardments. You looked at that smoke coming from the cigar’ ette. You inhaled deeply, and you knew that they, the folks back home, had not forgotten. It felt good. .

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