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14 ___________________ Over and Out Such memories stirred strong feelings in me, and my excitement mounted as the embassy car approached Madrid. Madrid had been the heart and soul ofthe Spanish Civil War. It was here that La Pasionaria rallied the embattled Madrilefios with the cry "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees." It was here that the battle cry "iNo Pasaran! They Shall Not Pass!" was first shouted and became, for our generation, the "shot heard round the world." Here was where the first international volunteers joined Spanish youth holding back the Franco Fascists with pistols and pre-World War I rifles at University City. Here was where Hemingway held court at the Hotel Florida, to which flocked Americans on leave from the front, looking for good scotch, cigarettes, and a hot bath. So Madrid was something special. And I was looking forward with great excitement to seeing it-for the first time. A year and a half in Spain, and I had never been to Madrid. I had seen Valencia and Barcelona but never Madrid. I had been in Spain ten months before receiving my first three-day pass from the front. By that time we were fighting in Catalonia, and we were cut off. So I had to settle for Barcelona-a beautiful city-but it wasn't Madrid. My heart beat faster as we neared the city. It was already dark when we arrived, and to my great disappointment the driver headed straight for the British Embassy. I thought I had caught a glimpse of University City on the way in, but I couldn't be sure. Once again, I was fated not to see Madrid. 110 ESCAPE FROM HITLER'S EUROPE At the embassy we were ushered into an enormous hall lined with cots. A dozen men were lounging about, playing cards, reading, talking, getting haircuts and shaves. We were happy to see Pope and a few of the others we had met in that apartment back in Paris. These escapees had arrived at the embassy four to seven days ahead of us and were getting ready for the trip to Gibraltar the next morning. So Johnson and I stayed only one night. Early the next day we all piled into two canvas-covered military trucks and left Madrid. We were escorted by a British Embassy official and a captain of the Spanish Internal Security Police. They rode in the cabs with the drivers of the trucks, while we, the escapees, were seated on wooden benches along the sides. It was not exactly the most comfortable ride, but we were on our way home. After two hours on the road our two-truck convoy stopped for rest. As I jumped down, I came face to face with the Spanish Security Police captain. I had fought for a year and a half against the Fascist enemy but had never seen a live Fascist up close. The enemy was a nonperson to me. I knew his machine gun fire, his artillery, his antitank shells, and his aerial bombs-but not the man behind the gun or the cannon, or the aviator who strafed me from the air. I don't mean to say the fighting wasn't personal. It was damned personal. I had received a shoulder wound at Fuentes del Ebro. All around me my closest comrades were dying. I certainly felt that whoever was behind that trigger was out to destroy me personally. Only I never saw the "who" who was doing it. I did see the enemy-but I saw him as a rotting corpse lying in the field, under the rubble ofa bombarded town, or on the side of the road as battles seesawed back and forth. I could not relate to that stinking piece of decomposing flesh. And during the Loyalist offensive across the Ebro River, the Lincolns had captured a company of Fascist troops. They were pitiful and very frightened young boys, wearing uniforms sim- ] Project MUSE (2024-04-25 10:49 GMT) Over and Out 111 ilar to our own and looking not very different from the quintas (conscripts) who were fighting on our side in the Lincoln Battalion. But the prisoners were taken to the rear, and I never got to talk to them. So here I was facing the enemy in person for the first timenot a corpse or a frightened, disheveled youth marching abjectly to the rear but a living human being, an...

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