WHEN I had been about three weeks in the line a contingent1 of twenty or thirty men, sent out from England by the I.L.P., arrived at Alcubierre, and in order to keep the English on this front together Williams and I were sent to join them. Our new position was at Monte Oscuro, several miles farther west and within sight of Zaragoza.
The position was perched on a sort of razor-back of limestone2 with dug-outs driven horizontally into the cliff like sand-martins’ nests. They went into the ground for prodigious3 distances, and inside they were pitch dark and so low that you could not even kneel in them, let alone stand. On the peaks to the left of us there were two more P.O.U.M. positions, one of them an object of fascination4 to every man in the line, because there were three militiawomen there who did the cooking. These women were not exactly beautiful, but it was found necessary to put the position out of bounds to men of other companies. Five hundred yards to our right there was a P.S.U.C. post at the bend of the Alcubierre road. It was just here that the road changed hands. At night you could watch the lamps of our supply-lorries winding6 out from Alcubierre and, simultaneously7, those of the Fascists9 coming from Zaragoza. You could see Zaragoza itself, a thin string of lights like the lighted portholes of a ship, twelve miles south-westward. The Government troops had gazed at it from that distance since August 1936, and they are gazing at it still.
There were about thirty of ourselves, including one Spaniard (Ramon, Williams’s brother-in-law), and there were a dozen Spanish machine — gunners. Apart from the one or two inevitable10 nuisances — for, as everyone knows, war attracts riff-raff — the English were an exceptionally good crowd, both physically12 and mentally. Perhaps the best of the bunch was Bob Smillie — the grandson of the famous miners’ leader — who afterwards died such an evil and meaningless death in Valencia. It says a lot for the Spanish character that the English and the Spaniards always got on well together, in spite of the language difficulty. All Spaniards, we discovered, knew two English expressions. One was ‘O.K., baby’, the other was a word used by the Barcelona whores in their dealings with English sailors, and I am afraid the compositors would not print it.
Once again there was nothing happening all along the line: only the random13 crack of bullets and, very rarely, the crash of a Fascist8 mortar14 that sent everyone running to the top trench15 to see which hill the shells were bursting on. The enemy was somewhat closer to us here, perhaps three or four hundred yards away.Their nearest position was exactly opposite ours, with a machine-gun nest whose loopholes constantly tempted16 one to waste cartridges17. The Fascists seldom bothered with rifle-shots, but sent bursts of accurate machine-gun fire at anyone who exposed himself. Nevertheless it was ten days or more before we had our first casualty. The troops opposite us were Spaniards, but according to the deserters there were a few German N.C.O.S. among them. At some time in the past there had also been Moors18 there — poor devils, how they must have felt the cold! — for out in no man’s land there was a dead Moor19 who was one of the sights of the locality. A mile or two to the left of us the line ceased to be continuous and there was a tract11 of country, lower-lying and thickly wooded, which belonged neither to the Fascists nor ourselves. Both we and they used to make daylight patrols there. It was not bad fun in a Boy Scoutish way, though I never saw a Fascist patrol nearer than several hundred yards. By a lot of crawling on your belly20 you could work your way partly through the Fascist lines and could even see the farm-house flying the monarchist flag, which was the local Fascist headquarters. Occasionally we gave it a rifle-volley and then slipped into cover before the machine-guns could locate us. I hope we broke a few windows, but it was a good eight hundred metres away, and with our rifles you could not make sure of hitting even a house at that range.
The weather was mostly clear and cold; sometimes sunny at midday, but always cold. Here and there in the soil of the hill-sides you found the green beaks22 of wild crocuses or irises23 poking24 through; evidently spring was coming, but coming very slowly. The nights were colder than ever. Coming off guard in the small hours we used to rake together what was left of the cook-house fire and then stand in the red-hot embers. It was bad for your boots, but it was very good for your feet. But there were mornings when the sight of the dawn among the mountain — tops made it almost worth while to be out of bed at godless hours. I hate mountains, even from a spectacular point of view. But sometimes the dawn breaking behind the hill-tops in our rear, the first narrow streaks25 of gold, like swords slitting26 the darkness, and then the growing light and the seas of carmine27 cloud stretching away into inconceivable distances, were worth watching even when you had been up all night, when your legs were numb28 from the knees down, and you were sullenly29 reflecting that there was no hope of food for another three hours. I saw the dawn oftener during this campaign than during the rest of my life put together — or during the part that is to come, I hope.
We were short-handed here, which meant longer guards and more fatigues30. I was beginning to suffer a little from the lack of sleep which is inevitable even in the quietest kind of war. Apart from guard-duties and patrols there were constant night-alarms and stand — to’s, and in any case you can’t sleep properly in a beastly hole in the ground with your feet aching with the cold. In my first three or four months in the line I do not suppose I had more than a dozen periods of twenty-four hours that were completely without sleep; on the other hand I certainly did not have a dozen nights of full sleep. Twenty or thirty hours’ sleep in a week was quite a normal amount. The effects of this were not so bad as might be expected; one grew very stupid, and the job of climbing up and down the hills grew harder instead of easier, but one felt well and one was constantly hungry — heavens, how hungry! All food seemed good, even the eternal haricot beans which everyone in Spain finally learned to hate the sight of. Our water, what there was of it, came from miles away, on the backs of mules31 or little persecuted32 donkeys. For some reason the Aragon peasants treated their mules well but their donkeys abominably33. If a donkey refused to go it was quite usual to kick him in the testicles. The issue of candles had ceased, and matches were running short. The Spaniards taught us how to make olive oil lamps out of a condensed milk tin, a cartridge-clip, and a bit of rag. When you had any olive oil, which was not often, these things would burn with a smoky flicker34, about a quarter candle power, just enough to find your rifle by.
There seemed no hope of any real fighting. When we left Monte Pocero I had counted my cartridges and found that in nearly three weeks I had fired just three shots at the enemy. They say it takes a thousand bullets to kill a man, and at this rate it would be twenty years before I killed my first Fascist. At Monte Oscuro the lines were closer and one fired oftener, but I am reasonably certain that I never hit anyone. As a matter of fact, on this front and at this period of the war the real weapon was not the rifle but the megaphone. Being unable to kill your enemy you shouted at him instead. This method of warfare35 is so extraordinary that it needs explaining.
Wherever the lines were within hailing distance of one another there was always a good deal of shouting from trench to trench. From ourselves: ‘Fascistas — maricones!’ From the Fascists: ‘‘Viva Espana! Viva Franco!’ — or, when they knew that there were English opposite them: ‘Go home, you English! We don’t want foreigners here!’ On the Government side, in the party militias36, the shouting of propaganda to undermine the enemy morale37 had been developed into a regular technique. In every suitable position men, usually machine-gunners, were told off for shouting-duty and provided with megaphones. Generally they shouted a set-piece, full of revolutionary sentiments which explained to the Fascist soldiers that they were merely the hirelings of international capitalism38, that they were fighting against their own class, etc., etc., and urged them to come over to our side. This was repeated over and over by relays of men; sometimes it continued almost the whole night. There is very little doubt that it had its effect; everyone agreed that the trickle39 of Fascist deserters was partly caused by it. If one comes to think of it, when some poor devil of a sentry40 — very likely a Socialist41 or Anarchist42 trade union member who has been conscripted against his will — is freezing at his post, the slogan ‘Don’t fight against your own class!’ ringing again and again through the darkness is bound to make an impression on him. It might make just the difference between deserting and not deserting. Of course such a proceeding43 does not fit in with the English conception of war. I admit I was amazed and scandalized when I first saw it done. The idea of trying to convert your enemy instead of shooting him! I now think that from any point of view it was a legitimate44 manoeuvre45. In ordinary trench warfare, when there is no artillery46, it is extremely difficult to inflict47 casualties on the enemy without receiving an equal number yourself. If you can immobilize a certain number of men by making them desert, so much the better; deserters are actually more useful to you than corpses48, because they can give information. But at the beginning it dismayed all of us; it made us fed that the Spaniards were not taking this war of theirs sufficiently49 seriously. The man who did the shouting at the P.S.U.C. post down on our right was an artist at the job. Sometimes, instead of shouting revolutionary slogans he simply told the Fascists how much better we were fed than they were. His account of the Government rations50 was apt to be a little imaginative.’ Buttered toast!’ — you could hear his voice echoing across the lonely valley — ‘We’re just sitting down to buttered toast over here! Lovely slices of buttered toast!’ I do not doubt that, like the rest of us, he had not seen butter for weeks or months past, but in the icy night the news of buttered toast probably set many a Fascist mouth watering. It even made mine water, though I knew he was lying.
One day in February we saw a Fascist aeroplane approaching. As usual, a machine-gun was dragged into the open and its barrel cocked up, and everyone lay on his back to get a good aim. Our isolated51 positions were not worth bombing, and as a rule the few Fascist aeroplanes that passed our way circled round to avoid machine-gun fire. This time the aeroplane came straight over, too high up to be worth shooting at, and out of it came tumbling not bombs but white glittering things that turned over and over in the air. A few fluttered down into the position. They were copies of a Fascist newspaper, the Heraldo de Aragon, announcing the fall of Malaga.
That night the Fascists made a sort of abortive52 attack. I was just getting down into kip, half dead with sleep, when there was a heavy stream of bullets overhead and someone shouted into the dug-out: ‘They’re attacking!’ I grabbed my rifle and slithered up to my post, which was at the top of the position, beside the machine-gun. There was utter darkness and diabolical53 noise. The fire of, I think five machine-guns was pouring upon us, and there was a series of heavy crashes caused by the Fascists flinging bombs over their own parapet in the most idiotic54 manner. It was intensely dark. Down in the valley to the left of us I could see the greenish flash of rifles where a small party of Fascists, probably a patrol, were chipping in. The bullets were flying round us in the darkness, crack-zip-crack. A few shells came whistling over, but they fell nowhere near us and (as usual in this war) most of them failed to explode. I had a bad moment when yet another machine-gun opened fire from the hill-top in our rear — actually a gun that had been brought up to support us, but at the time it looked as though we were surrounded. .Presently our own machine-gun jammed, as it always did jam with those vile55 cartridges, and the ramrod was lost in the impenetrable darkness. Apparently56 there was nothing that one could do except stand still and be shot at. The Spanish machine-gunners disdained57 to take cover, in fact exposed themselves deliberately58, so I had to do likewise. Petty though it was, the whole experience was very interesting. It was the first time that I had been properly speaking under fire, and to my humiliation59 I found that I was horribly frightened. You always, I notice, feel the same when you are under heavy fire — not so much afraid of being hit as afraid because you don’t know where you will be hit. You are wondering all the while just where the bullet will nip you, and it gives your whole body a most unpleasant sensitiveness.
After an hour or two the firing slowed down and died away. Meanwhile we had had only one casualty. The Fascists had advanced a couple of machine-guns into no man’s land, but they had kept a safe distance and made no attempt to storm our parapet. They were in fact not attacking, merely wasting cartridges and making a cheerful noise to celebrate the fall of Malaga. The chief importance of the affair was that it taught me to read the war news in the papers with a more disbelieving eye. A day or two later the newspapers and the radio published reports of a tremendous attack with cavalry60 and tanks (up a perpendicular61 hill — side!) which had been beaten off by the heroic English.
When the Fascists told us that Malaga had fallen we set it down as a lie, but next day there were more convincing rumours62, and it must have been a day or two later that it was admitted officially. By degrees the whole disgraceful story leaked out — how the town had been evacuated63 without firing a shot, and how the fury of the Italians had fallen not upon the troops, who were gone, but upon the wretched civilian64 population, some of whom were pursued and machine-gunned for a hundred miles. The news sent a sort of chill all along the line, for, whatever the truth may have been, every man in the militia5 believed that the loss of Malaga was due to treachery. It was the first talk I had heard of treachery or divided aims. It set up in my mind the first vague doubts about this war in which, hitherto, the rights and wrongs had seemed so beautifully simple.
In mid21 February we left Monte Oscuro and were sent, together with all the P.O.U.M. troops in this sector65, to make a part of the army besieging66 Huesca. It was a fifty-mile lorry journey across the wintry plain, where the clipped vines were not yet budding and the blades of the winter barley67 were just poking through the lumpy soil. Four kilometres from our new trenches68 Huesca glittered small and clear like a city of dolls’ houses. Months earlier, when Sietamo was taken, the general commanding the Government troops had said gaily69: ‘Tomorrow we’ll have coffee in Huesca.’ It turned out that he was mistaken. There had been bloody70 attacks, but the town did not fall, and ‘Tomorrow we’ll have coffee in Huesca’ had become a standing71 joke throughout the army. If I ever go back to Spain I shall make a point of having a cup of coffee in Huesca.
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1
contingent
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| adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队 | |
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limestone
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| n.石灰石 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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militia
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| n.民兵，民兵组织 | |
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winding
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| n.绕，缠，绕组，线圈 | |
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simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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fascist
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| adj.法西斯主义的；法西斯党的；n.法西斯主义者，法西斯分子 | |
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fascists
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| n.法西斯主义的支持者( fascist的名词复数 ) | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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physically
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| adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律 | |
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random
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| adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动 | |
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mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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cartridges
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| 子弹( cartridge的名词复数 )； （打印机的）墨盒； 录音带盒； （唱机的）唱头 | |
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moors
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| v.停泊，系泊（船只）( moor的第三人称单数 ) | |
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moor
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| n.荒野，沼泽；vt.(使)停泊；vi.停泊 | |
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belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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mid
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| adj.中央的，中间的 | |
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beaks
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| n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者 | |
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irises
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| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
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poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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streaks
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| n.（与周围有所不同的）条纹( streak的名词复数 )；（通常指不好的）特征（倾向）；（不断经历成功或失败的）一段时期v.快速移动( streak的第三人称单数 )；使布满条纹 | |
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slitting
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| n.纵裂（缝）v.切开，撕开( slit的现在分词 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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carmine
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| n.深红色，洋红色 | |
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numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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sullenly
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| 不高兴地，绷着脸，忧郁地 | |
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fatigues
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| n.疲劳( fatigue的名词复数 )；杂役；厌倦；（士兵穿的）工作服 | |
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mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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abominably
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| adv. 可恶地，可恨地，恶劣地 | |
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flicker
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| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
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warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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militias
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| n.民兵组织，民兵( militia的名词复数 ) | |
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morale
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| n.道德准则，士气，斗志 | |
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capitalism
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| n.资本主义 | |
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trickle
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| vi.淌，滴，流出，慢慢移动，逐渐消散 | |
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sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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anarchist
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| n.无政府主义者 | |
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proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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46
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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47
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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corpses
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| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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51
isolated
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| adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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52
abortive
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| adj.不成功的，发育不全的 | |
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diabolical
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| adj.恶魔似的，凶暴的 | |
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54
idiotic
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| adj.白痴的 | |
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vile
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| adj.卑鄙的，可耻的，邪恶的；坏透的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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evacuated
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| 撤退者的 | |
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civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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sector
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| n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形 | |
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besieging
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的现在分词 ) | |
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barley
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| n.大麦，大麦粒 | |
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trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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gaily
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| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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