Free Young Lions Roar by Andrew Mackay Page A

surprised Legiónaries and
Moors, who had optimistically expected the German artillery barrage to have destroyed the British Battalion’s trenches and to have swept their Republican enemies from the summit of the hill.
The machine guns cut huge swathes through the ranks of the advancing Nationalists, and the Legiónaries and Moors fell as if a giant scythe wielded by the Grim Reaper himself had cut them
down. Within a few minutes the six hundred attacking Nationalists had been reduced to half that number and fled in a confused rabble like rabbits with their tails between their legs, abandoning
their weapons and their wounded in their desperation to get back to their lines and find safety. The Republican machine guns offered no mercy and continued to fire at the retreating troops without
respite, with rounds striking the Nationalists at ranges of up to eight hundred yards.
    “Come on, boys! We’ve got them on the run! After them!” a British volunteer shouted.
    He was answered with a ragged cheer as dozens of volunteers climbed out of their trenches and poured over the top, pursuing the fleeing Nationalist troops.
    “No! Come back, you idiots!” El Bonito shouted desperately. “You’ll be caught out in the open with no cover!”
    “Come on, boss!” Bob his young runner urged, “We’ve got them on the run! We can chase them back to Morocco!”
    “No, Bob!” El Bonito shouted in vain. “Come back!”
    But Bob had already disappeared. Bob Robinson was only sixteen and had run away from home in Liverpool to join the International Brigade. He was frequently teased for his useful exuberance and
impulsive behaviour, and was acting true to form.
    “It’s no use, Jefe. You’re wasting your breath.” Ramón, the British Battalion’s Spanish Republican liaison officer said. “Your men smell victory and
they think that the battle is won.”
    El Bonito shook his head in despair. “The bloody fools. Once the Fascists get back to their foxholes they’ll be able to open fire on them with their machine guns and their
artillery.”
    Mendoza had only just managed to reach the relative safety of the Nationalist lines and had barely caught his breath when he saw dozens of Republican soldiers streaming over No
Man’s Land in hot pursuit.
    “Legiónaries! One hundred metres! To your front! Rapid fire!” Mendoza ordered.
    His surviving Legiónaries fired a ragged salvo that succeeded in dropping a dozen or so Republican soldiers. The remaining volunteers took cover and started to open fire on the
Nationalist positions. However, most of the Legiónaries had managed to find fox-holes, and the Republicans were sheltered from fire and from view by the stony ground, covered in thick
cactus, which concealed many dips and ditches. The fire fight was threatening to settle into an inconclusive stalemate when the guns of the German Condor Legión decided to join in and began
to fire shells into No Man’s Land. The artillery intervention tipped the balance and the volunteers started to rise up and retreat back to their positions at the top of the hill. The
Legiónaries stood up in their fox hills and cheered whenever an artillery shell found its target and blew up a band of Republican soldiers.
    A volunteer scrambled over the top of the trench and landed in a tangled heap on the bottom of the trench.
    “Paddy, did you see Bob?” El Bonito asked.
    “No, boss,” a soldier answered in a broad Irish brogue. “I didn’t see him.”
    Another soldier appeared over the parapet and plummeted to the bottom of the trench.
    “Fred, have you seen Bob?” El Bonito asked anxiously.
    “No, boss, I…” Fred began to answer, when a terrible wailing sound began to echo from the Nationalist position at the bottom of the valley to the Republican position at the
summit of the hill. The hair on the back of El Bonito’s neck stood on end and he felt a cold hand squeeze his heart as he listened to the tortured sound of a soul in