Bullets whistle through the air, or smack into the ground, or find a h-umafi target. Cries. Shouts. But, always the louder, interminable «singing. Flat on the ground, we fire into the groves. There are no sections, no companies even. But indtividuuals jump ahead, and set an example that is readily followed — too readily, for sometimes they block

‘ our fire. In the thick of the battle we organise ourselves with a certain

amount of\,s~uccess into sections. «

The Spanish problem is quickly solved: “Manuel! What’s the Span- ish for ’Forward’?’’ “Adelante!” yells M=anu«e=l, and waves the Spanish lads on. “Abajo!” And down they flop to give covering fire. A burly French Lieutenant runs over to ask me for grenades. We have none.

Waving a ridiculously tiny automatic, he advances, shouting “En Avant!”’

Ahead of us are little -cones of blue—re«d flame. Now We know where the Moorish and German machine-gunners are. Oh, for grenades! As We hug the earth we call to one another to -direct grou~p—fire on those cones.

Flat on our bellies we push forward. Inch by inch. Darkness falls like a blanket, Still the fight goes on. Advancing! All the time ad- vancing. As I crawl forward, I suddenly realise, with savage joy, that it is we who are advancing, tlzey who are being pushed back. And then. in actual disappointment: “The bastards won’t wait for our bayonets!"

We are in the olive groves. Firing ce-asess. We are on our feet, feeling for one another, in the inky blackness. I stumble against a soft

bundle. I bend down. His spiked bayonet scrapes my hand. He is

one of ours. His face is «cold. He has been dead for ho-urs... So we are back where we were -at midday.

Manuel, Andre and I dig in. Our rifle—pit completed, Manuel reaches back for the blanket he had so carefully laid down. It is missing. Ma-A

nuel rattles his bayonet and shouts lurid threats to the “bloody bastard who stole my blanket!” From the trees, all around, he is answered with roars of laughter.

‘K

_ And thus the men who had been broken and routed a few hours before settled down for the night on the ground they had reconquered. They had dashed Fascist hopes, smashed Fascist plans. Thencefor- ward, for more than four months, they were to fight, and many of them to die, in these olive groves. But never again were the F»a~scists to rout them. They were to hold that line, and save Madrid; fighting in the‘ dauntleass spirit of the great rally of that afternoon, fighting too, in the spirit of those reckless roars of laughter that night in the Wood of Death..

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