to the Brigade, reached us, they were filled with the wrong ammunition. 
Under fire, they had to be emptied and refilled with the right ammunit- 
ion, by hand. (Our guns were of the old pattern used in the Great War 
and needed a special ammunition. Other units had some of the later 
model which took the ordinary rifle-bullet: hence the bungle of the 
belts.) It was late evening when our guns came into action, not too 
late to save the day, but too late to win it. 
So, from morning to dusk, it was a battle between our riflemen and 
a numerically superior enemy, well-equipped with automatic rifles, ma- 
chine-guns, artillery and tanks. From Battalion Headquarters we could 
see it in panorama in front. We did not know who was on our left; our 
men had instructions to watch that flank well. 
Through the woods, beyond the road on our right, we caught glimp- 
ses of the Franco-Belge who were being hard-pressed. Our battery of 
artillery limbered up and went back. Soon, we knew the Franco-Belge 
Battalion had gone back too, for from the woods in which they had been 
came machine-gun fire which sprinkled Battalion Headquarters and 
our right flank on Conical Hill. Soon these machine-guns came nearer, 
until, occupying a knoll 500 yards to the right of Conical Hill, they began 
to enfilade our men there. Meanwhile the Fascist frontal attack on 
that Hill (which was manned mainly by our No. 1 Company) and on 
White House Hill intensified, and artillery came into action against us. 
For hours, the unequal combat raged. The close-range fire of Fa- 
scist light machine-guns and heavier guns firing over their heads was 
more intense than any the veterans among us had experienced. “Worse 
than the Somme” was the opinion of men who had survived that battle. 
Grass fell in swathes before it; men lifting their heads to fire were shot 
through the face. At one point the Moors were only thirty yards away. 
At Battalion Headquarters there was, for hours, no news from the 
Companies. Later we discovered why. A message had gone direct 
form the Brigade, the runner missing Battalion Headquarters, telling 
the men to “hold on at all costs”. They were holding on. And the 
evidence of our eyes actually misled us as to casualties. A false impres- 
sion was given us by the steady behaviour of the men, by the fewness 
of the wounded who where coming back, by the sight of officers moving 
about almost casually in the hail of bullets and shells. 
The direct route from Battalion Headquarters to the line was swept 
by machine-gun fire and few runners got through it. In the afternoon, 
from White House Hill, a runner came to ask for reinforcements. He 
was told that his Commander could, if he felt necessary, retire to the 
ridge which Battalion Headquarters was no evacuating for a new
position on the sunken road. He asked for a definite order, "for they'll

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