At any rate thelandowners were gone, the fields
were being cultivated, and people seemedsatisfied. I went round to the other side of
the dug-outs. The trailing stuff was lifted delicately aside.
I flashed my torch inside the machine-gun
nest.
In the daytime the guns thundered
fitfully.
Every loophole seemed to be spouting jets of
flame.
But no, not a sound, no answering shot, no movement
inthe Fascist lines. While my arm was in the sling I spent several blissful days
wandering aboutthe country-side. Of course, he knew the ground better than I and had
soon slipped away fromme. There was the roar of the explosion and then,instantly, a
diabolical outcry of screams and groans.
Outside, where I was probably in lessdanger, I had
been half sick with fright.
I felt the blast of a shot and realized that aman
was firing from immediately behind me. The thing I was after was the machine-gun.
Even now they could have massacred us if they had hadthe initiative to bring up a
few mortars.
I could have told him that he neednt worry. Jorge
poised himself on one knee and swung his arm like abowler. I had flung myself down
at thefirst volley.
I could have told him that he neednt worry. Iknew
that the inner wire was barely twenty yards from the parapet.
The trench-mortars, small though they were,made the
most evil sound of all. Suddenly there was another shout thatthe Fascists were
closing in. The thing I was after was the machine-gun. I went round to the other
side of the dug-outs.
As a rule they are difficult to get over. The dead
from the front were normally sent to Sietamo;these were the village
dead.
Even now they could have massacred us if they had
hadthe initiative to bring up a few mortars. Such telescopes simply did notexist on
our side of the line and they were desperately needed. However, there were only four
ofthem, three Germans and a Spaniard.
The thing I was after was the
machine-gun.
As soon as the weather improved the peasants had
turned outfor the spring ploughing.
It was queerly different from an English
graveyard.
I knew by experiment that on a darknight you can
never see a man at twenty paces.
Kopp addressed us, first in Spanish, then in
English, andexplained the plan of attack. That was another danger,but it would take
them some minutes to find our range. Towards the end of March I got a poisoned hand
that had to be lanced and putin a sling.
Everything overgrown with bushes and coarsegrass,
human bones littered everywhere.
How the peasants must have cursed both armies! A
stream of bullets was passingjust overhead.
There were four or five of us round this
side.
Jorge poised himself on one knee and swung his arm
like abowler.