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tore open his shirt and shouted: “Shoot, cowards! Long live socialism!”

Martin Villasclara was led to the slaughter next, with his hands tied in front of him. Some fascists who were not on the firing squad began pelting him with stones. Turning to his tormentors he raised his manacled hands above his bleeding head in the democratic salute and shouted: “Long live the People’: Front!”

I. L. D. FIELD HOSPITAL No. 2

We arrived just when the wounded were eating. The friendly atmosphere of the ward reached out to us. Abundant air and sunshine came through the high windows and flooded the room Our appreciation of the hospital increased with each step. We saw at once that the details of tending the wounded were ex- cellently organized and carried out with discipline, care and kindness.

The wounded men waited for returning health with impati- ence, anxious to return to the front. A wounded militia man with whom we spoke expressed the typical feeling when he said, “Pm all right.’ I want to go to the front with the next transport, but they won’t let me. They say I must stay here one, two, even three days more.” As a nurse passed with a tray of food and we inquired about his appetite, he continued, “M y appetite is fine, but I want to get back to the front.”

We entered another ward with about ten or twelve beds, but there were only four or five wounded men there. In a corner one of them was sitting on the edge of a bed, patiently teaching his neighbor, an amazingly rugged and strong peasant type, to read. The pupil, Felix Pedrero, was a youth of twenty-nine who came from the village of Consuegra. He was wounded at Somosierra. Since he entered the hospital his great desire has been to learn how to read and he has occupied himself with books incessantly. Open before him was a primer which he was sure he would master before he left the ‘hospital. There was no need to ask why he, at his age, was still ifliterate. All the men in the Spanish villages are illiterate,———from early child-

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