ran up the last few yards, the trench became alive. A mass of white 
faces, hands upstretched to the sky, and in cracked voices from parched 
throats, the cry of “Agua!” Agua!” And here were these men we had 
been trying to kill a few minutes before, now drinking out of our water- 
bottles! 
Shots rang out further down the trench. It was a group of Fascist 
officers who had committed suicide. One was a German, another a 
White Russian. His revolver, which one of the comrades showed me 
later, was of the pre-War Russian Imperial pattern. I never heard 
who he was or how he got to be there. 
Inspecting the fort we had captured, we felt proud of ourselves, and 
of the guns and tanks that had blasted a way up for us. Revolving gun 
turrets with overhead cover commanded the country for miles around. 
In deep dug-outs were stacks of shells. To us, it was an object-lesson 
on fortifications. And the garrison had numbered 500, over half of 
whom were dead or wounded. Our attacking force had been less in num- 
bers than the defenders! The trenches stank with the smell of 
dead. I came across a Fascist whose head had been completely blown 
off by a shell. I couldn’t find the head. 

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