Free Young Lions Roar by Andrew Mackay Page B

agony.
    “What the… what the hell is that?” Fred asked, as the blood drained from his face.
    El Bonito carefully climbed the firing step, raised his binoculars to his eyes and looked over the edge of the trench.
    A figure stumbled across No Man’s Land with his arms stretched in front of him, crying and sobbing inconsolably. The man turned and for a fleeting moment, El Bonito saw his face. The
man’s face was covered in blood and he gave a yelp of pain as he tripped and fell into a shell crater.
    “What… who is it, boss?” Fred asked, with his hand to his mouth.
    El Bonito answered as if he was in a trance. “It’s… it’s Bob…” he answered as tears streamed down his face. “They’ve blinded him...”
    “What?”
    “They’ve gouged out his eyes…”
    Fred gave a cry of horror. He rushed over to El Bonito, snatched the binoculars from his hand and leaped onto the firing step. He searched No Man’s Land and found Bob as he finally managed
to scramble out of the shell crater. A mop of gore-matted hair hung down over Bob’s eyeless sockets that were still leaking blood which ran in streams down his blood and dirt-encrusted
face.
    “Those bloody bastards!” Fred said with fury.
    “He was the same age as my kid brother…” El Bonito said with tear-filled eyes.
    There was a sudden shot, and Bob collapsed onto the ground for the last time with a bloody hole between his eyes.
    “What the…?” Fred said in confusion. He turned around to see Ramón holding the battalion’s sole sniper rifle with the smoke still coming from the end of the
barrel.
    “You bloody bastard, Ramón!” Fred was as angry as a berserker. “What did you do that for? You killed him! We could have saved him!”
    “No, Fred, you could not have,” Ramón said slowly as he shook his head. “That’s what the Moors wanted. You would have gone out to save him and they would have
killed you, or they would have captured you and you would have suffered the same fate as poor Bob, or worse.”
    “Worse? What could possibly be worse than being blinded?” Fred asked incredulously.
    “Being castrated,” Ramón answered matter-of-factly. “Losing your manhood.” He shrugged. “I saw it in Morocco in 1921 when the Moorish rebels castrated some
of our men who were captured at the Battle of Anual.”
    “That doesn’t change anything, Ramón, you’re still a murderer.” Fred raised his rifle, flicked off the safety catch and pulled the trigger, just as El Bonito rifle
butted him in the back of the head. Fred collapsed like a sack of potatoes and the round thudded harmlessly into the back of the trench wall.
    “Thanks, Jefe,” Ramón said with relief.
    “Don’t mention it,” El Bonito said graciously. “You’d do the same for me, Ramón. Besides, you did the right thing. Fred lost his head. So did I for a moment
back there… Hello? What’s going on?”
    El Bonito mounted the firing step and peered over the edge as he heard the stirring lyrics of the Republican anthem the ‘Internationale’ floating over the valley.
    “What is it? What can you see?” Ramón asked.
    El Bonito’s brows furrowed in confusion. “There are about fifty or so volunteers walking up the valley towards our position, and they’re singing and waving their rifles above
their heads.”
    “And the Fascists are not opening fire?” Ramón asked.
    “No, they’re not,” El Bonito confirmed. “Maybe our boys have arranged a cease-fire with them in order to bury the dead; it’s not the first time that it’s
happened. The same thing happened at the Battle of Jarama last year.” El Bonito shrugged and scratched his head. “I don’t know: perhaps our men are returning to our lines to grab
stretchers to collect our wounded and spades to bury the dead…”
    “Anyway, let’s welcome them back, Jefe!” Ramón said cheerfully. “God knows that we could do with some good news around here.”
    “It’s working, Jefe.”
    “Don’t count