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"Bill Bailey: The Kid from Hoboken"

(an Irish-American in the SCW)

These extracts come from his biography, The Kid from Hoboken by Lynn Damme, San Francisco, Circus Lithographic Prepress, 1993, the biography of Bill Bailey, a veteran of the SCW. They cover his childhood and the trip to Spain. So, to get his full story, including his time in Spain, read Lynns book. Here is his obituary.

Extract from Chapter 1 - just to establish he's 'Irish'.

[His parents]had met in Ireland. It was shortly after she had returned to the outskirts of Waterford from two years of "service" in South Africa. Ireland in those days was Great Britain's melting pot for an abundance of cheap labor forced on by poverty and hunger. Mother applied for a "position" and was accepted for work as a kitchen maid in the home of a well-to-do English doctor on a beautiful estate in Cape Town.

Back in Ireland, this beautiful woman, Elizabeth Nolan, met my dad, a meeting she always regretted, so she said. Raised as a Catholic by a strict Irish family, she abided by all the dogmas of the Church. My father had just returned from India, where he had done a hitch or two for His Majesty's occupation troops. He cut a handsome figure in his white uniform, Sam Browne belt, saber, bobby-type colonial hat and a rifle across his shoulder....

When my old man arrived back in Ireland, he still had part of his army pay. It was this money that helped pay the passage for him and my mother to the United States. As my mother told the story, when they came ashore at Ellis Island, it was full of "foreign" people.

Chapter XXI: Journey to War in Spain

It was nice to be back in my favorite city of strong unions and old friends. I would have no time to waste in San Francisco. My first task was to find all the information I needed to get to Spain. While looking up some old friends, I found out they had already reached New York on their way to Spain. I met some Party comrades, expressed my desire and the machinery was put into motion to get me on my way. I would have to obtain my passport, which was easy. All I needed was a few dollars for some photos and the cost of the passport.

At the passport office I worked on my application form. "Where do you intend to go?" was one of the questions on the form.

"Paris," I wrote, "to attend the Paris Exhibition."

"What is your occupation?" read the form.

"Studen," I wrote. I signed the application and handed the money and pictures to the young man behind the counter. He read the application and neatly added a "t" to "studen." He looked up at me and smiled and said, "Don't forget to keep your head down."

In the week I spent waiting for my passport, I wrote several long articles for the Western Worker, the West Coast Party newspaper, about the workers' lives in Hawaii.

Almost every week, five or ten men from the West Coast would depart from San Francisco for New York, then Spain. When my passport arrived, there was a big inscription printed across the first page, "Not valid for travel in Spain." After a few warm handshakes and last minute instructions on whom to contact in New York, I was on the Greyhound bus as it headed east. There were five of us on that bus heading for Spain. Two comrades had come down from Seattle, one from Portland and two of us from the San Francisco Bay Area. Our limited funds for traveling allowed for nothing more than hamburgers and coffee for the next five days across the United States. The bus stopped for a ten-hour wait in Chicago. That suited me fine; I had a chance to see Pele. It seemed like centuries since I had last seen her.

I took off for Pele's home while my four pals roamed around Chicago taking in the sights. She met me warmly and introduced me to her parents. Her mother had prepared a wonderful Hungarian meal. I sat at the table like a 14-year-old schoolboy looking across at Pele, trying to communicate with her. She seemed distant. Her good manners, if one may call them such, told her to wait until I had at least eaten my meal before telling me the bad news. "I'm getting married," she said as one might say, "It's a beautiful day" or "Pass the salt."

If there was any more conversation left in me it vanished. I stammered around a bit trying to find something more to say than "I hope you will be happy." It was still five hours before the bus was to leave, but it didn't matter. I wanted to get out and into the street.

"You will write?" she asked as I started to leave.

"Of course."

Back at the bus depot I sat around waiting for the other fellows to show up. I don't know when I ever felt more depressed. It was still a long wait. I decided to walk a bit. I came to an employment agency where they advertised jobs on placards that decorated the entrance. One caught my attention: "Marine Fireman for an ore carrier on the Great Lakes. $100 per week, plus room, board and liberal benefits."

I was amazed at the figure of $100 a week. That was over three times what a deep sea fisherman got. My curiosity got the best of me. I made my way upstairs to the office. A sign on the door read, "Please knock before entering." I knocked and waited a few seconds. The door opened, revealing a tall, shapely, good-looking woman in her late 20s in a revealing dress. "Yes," she said with an enticing smile. "What can I do for you?"

"I'm interested in the fireman's job. Can you tell me more about it?" I asked, finding it difficult to look her in the eye.

"Oh, you're looking for work. Well, that job is no longer available, but I'll let you work for me for five dollars, if you like."

"Well, that isn't what I had in mind," I answered.

"What did you have in mind? Trying to get me down to two dollars? Look, creep, if you don't think I'm worth five crummy dollars, then screw off down the street and for two dollars have your pick of all the black crows you want! Now get the hell down those stairs." She slammed the door shut.

The bus rambled through the night toward New York. My thoughts were jumbled and it was impossible to maintain any continuity for less than a minute. I hadn't expected Pele to tell me such devastating news. I rather believed that she might suggest that, once I returned from Spain, things could work out for us. That would have been welcome news. I had little sleep as our bus pulled into New York on a warm Sunday morning.

Perhaps 50 men listened to one of the speakers instructing us on the second major hop to Spain. "There's to be no screwing around on the ship," he advised sternly. "Remember, you're passengers en route to Europe, not Spain. As far as you're concerned, Spain does not exist, so don't mention it to anyone. We know there are members of the government aboard, even Franco agents, and their job is to stop volunteers from reaching Spain. They may sidle up to you and try to get a conversation going about Spain; stay clear of them. There's to be no boozing or chasing of women aboard.

"Now, each man will be given $100. We have experienced some maneuvering by the French immigration who are playing ball with the State Department. They have questioned some of our comrades about the money they had. A few of them had no money and the French wouldn't allow them in without some means of support. This $100 is not spending money; once you make contact in Paris you'll turn it over to our contact man. From then on you're in his hands. We will dispatch you in groups of 20. You will have a responsible comrade who will see that you toe the mark. If, in his judgment, one of you screws up, he'll decide whether or not you should be allowed to continue to Spain. Now, I'll call the name of the comrade who will be in charge, then I'll call the list of 20 he will be responsible for."

My name was called. I stood up so the 20 could see me. Two-thirds of them I knew, among them five seamen and the four who had traveled with me from the Coast.

We were to sail as third-class passengers on board the English liner Aquitania, which was one of the five largest ships in the world. It was two days before sailing. One thing had to be done. I would have to tell my mother that I took a job on some ship sailing for Europe and had no idea of the time of its return. I could never even try to explain to her that I was going to Spain to fight in a war where so far thousands of people had already been killed. There was no possible way that could be done; I didn't give it a second thought.

No one was on shore to wave goodbye as the liner moved away from the dock and sailed down the Hudson River, past the giant skyscrapers of Wall Street and out to sea. From the outset of the voyage we pretended not to know each other and avoided being seen in groups with three or more at any one time. One big problem bugged me from the start. The dining room tables were set up for six people. I had been assigned to a table of five schoolteachers, all traveling together and over forty years old. They were charming, and their manners were impeccable. I sat at the end of the table, afraid to even ask for the salt to be passed. They passed up most of the heavy items on the menu and were content to nibble on the smallest amount of food possible. For the first two days I found myself leaving the table starved. At this rate I would be dead on arrival.

After the second day I ran into my waiter in the passageway.

"Hey, pal," I said. "How about doing me a favor?"

"Yes, sir. Anything you ask."

"From now on, don't ask me what I want to eat. Just keep bringing me everything that's on the menu."

From then on I ate as if trying to make up for all those years I went hungry. Since the teachers were always wrapped up in their own little world, they eventually paid no heed to the rushing waiter picking up empty plates and delivering full ones at my end of the table.

We awoke early one morning to find ourselves at anchor off LeHavre. The night before we had been told to be ready after breakfast to meet immigration and customs. After that we were to be ready to board with bag and baggage lighters to take us ashore.

We expected some trouble from the American consulate which had, on previous trips, attempted to convince some of our volunteers to return home passage free. Because the ship arrived so early, no consulate members were on hand. We passed all the necessary officials, boarded the lighter and within half an hour were riding a sleek passenger train to Paris.

For some reason we felt more secure on French soil than we had on board the ocean liner. We were in France, where the workers had helped elect a Popular Front government headed by Leon Blum the Socialist. We felt we were on some sort of sacred ground protected by a government which the Communists had helped elect. There was one salute, the Popular Front Salute, with the closed fist and raised arm. No sight was more welcome.

Paris was awe-inspiring. We disembarked from the train and worked our way through the hustle and bustle of the busy railroad station. Following instructions, we piled into taxi cabs, gave the drivers the address and awaited the next move.

Our contact was the headquarters of the Friends of the International Brigade. We were warmly greeted by French comrades and ushered toward the leader of the American volunteers. To my surprise, he was my old Norfolk section organizer Joe Kline, who greeted me with a big hug and a handshake. Each man gave him the hundred-dollar bill we had been entrusted with, along with a container of George Washington instant coffee. Why we brought this to Paris in such large quantities still remains a mystery. Quickly we received our new instructions. We were to stay in Paris overnight and leave the next afternoon. We were assigned to hotels. I found mine close to the Eiffel Tower. Taxis drove us to the hotel door. A sumptuous meal awaited us.

The men were on their own, free to take in the sights or just idle away the time until the next day. The Paris Exposition was taking place in the area of the Eiffel Tower. A few of us had toured as much of Paris as we cared to. Later that evening we took in the Exposition. It was a great experience; almost every country had its own exhibit building. Some parts of the exposition grounds reminded us of Coney Island, with hotdog stands and champagne stands in every nook and corner.

The two most striking buildings were those of the Russian and the German exhibits. Either by design or by accident, both buildings faced one another. The German building flew the swastika while the Russian building displayed a huge statue of a man and a woman posed with hammer and sickle held aloft. It looked as if they wanted to take off and hack away at the German exhibit. High aloft on the building flew the red banner with the hammer and sickle, the national emblem. At night the red banner stood out sharply with ten big spotlights shining on it.

For the next few hours we occupied one of the benches watching people pass us; every now and then we took turns visiting the concessionaires and returning with hotdogs on French rolls and large glasses of champagne. We all shared the feeling that this was perhaps the last time for some of us to ever see Paris. As the taste of the chilled champagne grew more delightful, we knew that it was the best time to get the hell out of there and snatch some sleep. Hopefully the next day would be a good day.

Cabs were waiting for us at the hotel door to take us and our belongings back to headquarters. We were permitted to take a few personal things out of the suitcases, nothing heavy or awkward, and the suitcases were then taken from us to be stored God knows where. For all practical purpose we had no further need of them.

Kline addressed us. "There have been some problems at the border, or frontier if you wish. No longer is it permissible to ride across the border in comfort. Some comrades before you had to hoof across the Pyrenees, and comrades after you will have to do the same thing. Some of our comrades have been caught by right-wing French border guards and arrested. You will have to be very careful.

"You will travel by train and get off at Toulouse. You will go through the station and go one block to your right. You will see a cafe called La Paix. Enter, sit down at a table and ask the waiter for lemonade with ice in it. He will handle the situation from there and instruct you further. For all practical purposes you men are geology students on a rock-hunting tour, if anyone should ask. If anyone here understands the slightest bit of French, now is the time to remember what you learned. I know it will come in handy." We asked a number of questions, like what happens if Cafe La Paix is burned to the ground when we get there?

"Don't worry," said Kline. "Right at this moment they know the exact time you are to arrive. The 'railway system' we have going is so good that the chance of even getting lost is remote. If the place is burned to the ground, don't worry, some fireman will most likely come up to steer you correctly."

We played cards, read or slept as the train rambled on toward Spain. We wondered about our pending walk across the Pyrenees. None of us had any prior mountain experiences. In fact, none of us could even guess the height of the Pyrenees. All we knew was the Pyrenees separated us from our objective. Well, why worry about it; we still had a long way to go and a few obstacles to overcome.

Sure enough, Kline was right on target. They were waiting for our arrival. When we entered the cafe, tables were set for lunch. Our contact advised us to take the local train and get off at Carcassonne, where we were to go to a hotel called La Bleu Oiseau (The Blue Bird). Reservations had been made for a group of touring geology students. So good was the "railway system" that soup was already being poured into our dishes when we walked into the hotel.

We received our new instructions. After a good night's sleep and an equally good breakfast, we reboarded the local train for Perpignan. This time we had someone to escort us on the train and to our new contact. On a not-too-busy street we were ushered into a small hotel. We seemed to be the only people there with the exception of the hotel keeper, his wife and a maid and cook.

Our contact told us to stay put, that the city was full of Franco and German agents and that we were too close to our final destination to allow anything to go wrong. We enjoyed some coffee while he went out to make contact with the guide who would take us across the mountains. An hour later he returned looking distressed. He beckoned me to accompany him. We drove for several miles toward the Spanish border and stopped at a neatly-painted cottage with a small vegetable garden surrounding it.

Our new contact must have been at least 60 years old, with slightly gray hair and a ruddy complexion. Once inside his comfortable home, the argument became heated between him and my companion. Since they argued in French it was impossible for me to know what they were arguing about. I had to guess when the old man kept making gestures like he had a backache or when he pointed to his feet and made a face as if describing pain in his feet. I guessed right when I concluded that my contact was trying to get him to take another group across the Pyrenees and he was protesting that he had just taken a group across the previous night and needed some rest and sleep. The old-timer's reluctance to guide the group heated up the argument. After another five minutes of loud utterances, the old-timer agreed. Smiles returned to their faces. We got into the car and returned to the hotel, where we were told again to wait while he departed.

Our friend returned two hours later. He motioned to us to follow him to the back of the hotel. At the door was an old bus, curtains drawn on all the windows. He quickly motioned us into the bus and warned us to stay away from the windows. We pulled out of the side alley and onto the main road that linked France with Spain. The sun was almost down as we made our way slowly to the border. A half a mile before the checkpoint, the bus pulled off the road and the driver turned off the engine. There was very little traffic coming or going on that road.

Anyone passing the bus would believe that it had broken down and remained empty. A rap sounded on the bus door. The driver opened it and motioned to us to rush into the thick brush and weeds that surrounded the foothills of the Pyrenees.

No words were wasted. Our guide for the trip, that old man, was leading the group up a deer path. He carried a small cane and maintained a fast pace. None of us had any idea of how long it would take to cross those mountains. Only the guide knew and he wasn't talking.

We had taken our first step from the bus at about 6:30 that night. It was now 11:30 and we were still walking at a fast pace, huffing and puffing. The end was nowhere in sight. From time to time, whenever one of our comrades slowed down and left a big gap in the ranks, the guide would dash back and come down once or twice with his cane on the comrade's behind. He would grumble something in French, then dash back to the front of the line. We learned why he carried that cane.

Every time we climbed one high peak, we looked up to see another one, much higher than the last. We forded a stream that almost made us scream. The ice-cold water reached our chests. Joe Sansome, one of my close companions, was almost carried downstream by the force of the rushing water. With our clothes soaked and the air chilly, we climbed ever upward.

At two in the morning, our guide stopped and motioned us to rest. We dropped to the ground like wet sacks of cement. We were thankful for the ten-minute rest. At three in the morning we were fairly close to the crest. The guide motioned us to stop and be quiet. Off in the distance a howling dog could be heard. "Guardia Frontera," said the guide. Frontier guards.

A few minutes of rest and he had us on our feet again. This area was perhaps the most dangerous, with patrolling guards from both the French and Spanish sides. It was the French side we were afraid of. If we were picked up by the Spanish, the most they would do would be to turn their heads and allow us to continue. After all, it was republican territory and we were not their enemy. With the French it could very well be another story. Not all the French were true believers in the Popular Front, and not all French were in sympathy with the Spanish Republican government. To be caught now by the French would be the worst disaster possible. How could I face anyone at home, telling them that I came 8,000 miles to be caught a mile from the border? No. If the French patrols were to show up, the best thing to do would be scatter and make a run for it. They may get some--but not all--of us. The terrain was in the guards' favor, but the darkness equalized some of the odds. I had come too far to be cheated out of my goal.

The stars began to fade and dawn started to edge the darkness. We were now walking in six inches of snow and a few of our men were slipping and falling. We were not climbing anymore. The ground seemed level. We could look ahead now. We saw no rising cliffs in front of us, just trees and the light of the rising day between them. Our guide motioned for us to slow our pace. "España," he said, pointing to the ground and not bothering to muffle the sound of his voice. We could have shouted with joy, but we were so tired no one dared expend energy on exultation.

We had reached the southern edge of the Pyrenees. Ahead of us we could see a long valley and at the end of the valley an old Spanish farm house. The area looked like any scene of the backroad country of Nevada. There were no horses or cattle or decent grazing grounds. There were just deer paths and dried-up creeks that would be overflowing with water when the rainy season came.

The guide stopped and pointed toward the farm house. "Casa," he said. He motioned for us to go on, then clenched his right fist and raised it a few inches above his head. Each man passed him and said thank you. As the last man moved down the side of the mountain, the guide turned and headed back toward France.We were in Spain, the territory of the Spanish Republican government. Many of us had traveled some 8,000 miles to be able to stomp our feet on Spanish soil. As we trudged toward the farm house we were shouting within ourselves, "Hey, you bloody fascist bastards, Franco, Mussolini and Hitler! We've come a long way and waited a long time for this opportunity to join thousands of other anti-fascists from all over the world to form the International Brigades. By God, we're finally here on a battle ground that may one day help to decide the fate of the human race. We may not be the most skilled army in this world, but one thing's for sure--we're going to make you pay for every indignity you committed against the peace-loving peoples of the world. We intend to give a good account of ourselves. From here on, you're going to know we're here."

Chapter XXII: Somewhere in Spain

Somewhere in Spain: In the event of my death, will the finder please mail this letter to my mother

Dear Mom:

I wish I could be near you to hold your hand and explain in some detail the reasons for my death. I know at this point that it has fallen upon you in a way that I wish would not have happened. I wanted to explain to you the night before I left New York that I was really going to Spain, and the reasons why.

But I knew that no matter what I might have told you, it would never have made sense to you. I found that trying to explain was an impossibility. I am sorry for that.

But, you see, Mom, there are things that one must do in this life that are just a little more than living. I could never be satisfied with just going through life knowing that there are millions of people all over the world who are being stepped on and pushed around by bullies.

I can recall the first time I missed your presence at home and discovered that you were out hunting for a job scrubbing floors in order to bring home some food for the family. I knew that something was very wrong with life, but I had no idea what to do about it to make it any different. It was only when I grew up and I too had to go around begging for work to live that I realized the wrongs had to be corrected.

In Spain there are countless thousands of mothers like yourself who never had a fair shake in life. Their whole existence has been one of trying to get enough food to stay alive for another day. One day these people did something about that. They got together and elected a government that really gave some meaning to their lives and promised to make it so that the millions of mothers like you would never again have to bend their knees and beg to exist in a world that had plenty for everyone.

But it didn't work out the way the poor people expected. A group of bullies decided to crush and wipe out this wonderful thing the poor people had accomplished and drive them back to the old way of life.

That's why I went to Spain, Mom--to help these poor people win this battle so one day it would be easier for you and the mothers of the future. I am not alone. Many of the men I associated myself with have mothers who have gone through much of the same hard times and misery you suffered.

Don't let anyone mislead you, Mom, by telling you that all this had something to do with Communism. The Hitlers and Mussolinis of the world are killing Spanish people who don't know the difference between Communism and rheumatism. And it's not to set up some Communist government, either. The only thing the Communists did here was show the people how to fight and win what is rightfully theirs.

You should be proud that you have a son whose heart, soul and energy were directed toward helping the poor people of the world get back what was taken from them. When the horrible conditions of this world are eventually made right, you can look with pride at those who will be here to enjoy it and say, "My son gave his life to help make things better, and for that I am grateful."

If it will make my departure from the world of the living a little easier for you, just remember this, Mom: I love you dearly and warmly, and there was never a moment when I didn't feel that way. I was always grateful and proud that you were my mom.

Your son,

Will

I never had to have this letter mailed, although there were plenty of times when I thought I would have to.

I realized that I had not recognized my mother's understanding of what was taking place when I heard that she had joined a contingent of mothers who proudly marched up Fifth Avenue in New York City in a May Day parade. She walked behind a banner that read, "Support our sons who are fighting in the Lincoln-Washington Battalion, trying to keep Spain free."

Bill in Spain

We had gone as far as the train would take us. The fascists had uprooted the tracks past the point we had reached.

"All out! All out!" a commanding voice shouted. "Move it out. On the double."

Some 650 Americans who made up the Abraham Lincoln Brigade quickly jumped out of the rickety boxcars, throwing to the ground blankets, rifles, ammo belts and knapsacks. We were in a strange part of the country. The air was hot and the countryside was dry. We could smell burnt gunpowder in the hot breeze. We were glad to leave the boxcars that had been our home for the past day and a half. It had been a slow, cautious trek as the train worked its way from our southern takeoff point to this northern town in Spain, a town that few of us had ever heard of.

Less than half the men in our refurbished battalion were seasoned troops. Most of us, including myself, were new arrivals from the States. We had had about three weeks of training in Tarrazona, the base camp for the American volunteers.

We spent that training period on dry maneuvers that is, maneuvers where we only went through the motions of firing a rifle or a machine gun. We used rocks to simulate the lobbing of hand grenades. Some days were spent at lectures, or in classes breaking apart our rifles and machine guns, learning the importance of all the parts, then putting them back together. We were limited to only one type of rifle and one type of machine gun, both made in the Soviet Union.

None of us had fired more than five live rounds of ammunition during all of our days in training. Ammunition was expensive and hard to come by for the republic. Firing live ammunition was a luxury frowned upon. "Wait," we were told. "You'll have a chance to fire all the live ammunition you want. At the front. At the fascists."

The train started to move in reverse once we had cleared off it. The engineer and trainmen were nervous and eager to get away from the air that heavy with spent gunpowder.

We were just two kilometers away from the fascists. Only a small hill blocked our view of our objective, the town of Quinto. Nearby our artillery batteries had dug in with their two anti-tank cannons and two French 75s. The shelling had started early in the morning. For the first time in my life I was within 20 feet of a cannon as it went off.

Our pace quickened as we charged toward the front, passing the artillery units, lugging our machine guns with one hand, toting a can of ammunition with the other; our rifles strung across our backs weighed us down further. Now we had left behind the cannons; still, each shot made us feel as though our heads would roll off. We thought the metallic screeching and ringing of weird whistles would never still. Our main fear was that a shell would fall short and land on us.

As far as the eye could see to our left and right, battalions of men were advancing on the town. I recognized several high-ranking officers standing on the high spot of the hill, directing operations.

The town's only church tower suddenly appeared in view. Surrounding the church clustered the town of Quinto, a town of cobblestoned streets and two-storied stone houses, a town that the fascists had boasted was superbly fortified.

To the republicans, it was a town that was the front door to the more important cities of Belchite and Zaragossa, and a town that had to be won. It was the beginning of a huge government offensive.

As we got over the rise our company paused for a moment. We watched a group of light Russian bombers, flying in a low wing-to-wing formation, drop their bombs in unison on a heavily-fortified position. The thundering sound of the bursting bombs and the smoke and dirt rising into the sky dispelled any illusion , if one held any, that this was not the real thing.

Our pace quickened. We were running toward the town. Far to our left, we could hear the yelling of an American infantry company advancing to the first line of the fascist trenches.

Bullets were whistling past us, making their crackling, popping noise as we neared the line of fire where we could be observed by entrenched fascists and picked off easily.

Bill McCarthy, an ex-altar boy, an ardent anti-fascist and my close buddy, found a gully that headed toward town. Crouched over, we advanced. A Spanish soldier from another company crossed our path. We heard the crack of a bullet and the soldier fell flat on his face. McCarthy and I ran to see if he was dead. The Spaniard looked stunned, then tried to get up. As he lifted his head from the ground blood started to flow from his jaw in the same manner as wine would flow from a keg once the plug was pulled. The sight of the blood panicked him. He put up his hands toward the small hole in his jaw to stop the flow. Now the blood ran through his fingers and down his arm. He tried to get up. McCarthy jumped on him, holding him down. To stand up would guarantee a target for a sharpshooter.

He shouted out, "Pedro, Pedro," but no one answered. I had my emergency bandage on my belt. I ripped it off and opened it, and McCarthy deftly applied the bandage to his face. The bullet had entered his jaw, then rounded its way down his body and out his lower back.

The mass of blood on his clothing, face, hands, and even in his hair made it appear that his life was over. He must have felt that way, too. Using every available word we could muster in Spanish, we tried to convey to him that he was okay, that the war was over for him, he would go to a hospital, then home.

We got him calmed down enough to get the bandage securely around him, then told him to stay quiet and in the same spot until he could gather a little strength, or until the stretcher-bearing first aid men caught up with him. We commenced to move away from him. We got no more than a few feet when we heard the sound of panic behind us. Our friend had turned around and discovered he was lying just a few feet from a dead Moor. The sight of the Moor with bandages wrapped around a head wound and his body puffed up by the sweltering sun was enough to make our wounded friend decide not to wait for the stretcher bearers. With great effort he was crawling toward the rear.

The closer we advanced toward the town the fiercer the fighting became. The fascists were now lobbing artillery and mortar fire at us. Shells were landing in a disorganized pattern. Bullets went pop-pop-pop overhead and whined as they ricocheted everywhere. There were the shouts of those in command: where to direct your fire, where to advance . . . "Where the hell's the Third Company?" And there were calls for the stretcher bearers.

We had come upon an abandoned fascist trench. Several of the enemy lay close by. There had been no time for the fascists to remove their dead. In fact, there had been no time for them to properly dress their wounded. One dead soldier had part of a bandage taped around his head while the rest of the bandage lay neatly at his side.

Joe Sansome, an automobile worker from Detroit and a buddy of ours, came charging up close behind us. He noticed one of the dead fascist soldiers was wearing a pair of abrogados, Spanish rope-soled shoes with steel cleats. He started to untie them from the soldier's feet. I protested.

"This sonofabitch is wearing better shoes than I am," he roared back. "Besides, he has no use for them anymore." He proceeded to pull them off the soldier.

We moved on, panting and sweating under the midday sun. We found a shell hole and rested for a moment to catch our breaths and gulp a mouthful of water from a quart-size canteen that felt as heavy as a ship's anchor.

I closed my eyes for a moment to avoid a droplet of sweat from rolling into them. It felt good. The restful moment got me thinking that at this time yesterday I had been enjoying the Spanish countryside as our train chugged its way past olive groves and vineyards. The only noise we had heard was was the sound of the clanking engines as they labored pulling us up through the mountain pass.

Now the tranquility had ceased. The beautiful countryside was no longer green and lush and sweet-smelling, but a landscape of manmade horror of mangled bodies bloating and swelling in the scorching sun, eyes popping right out of their sockets and stomachs swelling, bursting open and sending forth a stink of rotting human flesh that would infiltrate the depths of your being.

McCarthy was trying to say something to me, but I was oblivious to all but my own thoughts we cannot enjoy the luxury of a long respite. We must move out and stay closer to the rest of the Company. The blasting of shells and the popping of bullets are intensifying. Seems like every goddamn two-bit problem in the world is coming to a head around us. Damn it to hell, it's boiling hot. Even the pebbles and stones we crawl over are hot to the touch. Not a cloud in the sky.

My face is covered with sweat and heavy dust. We move about with our mouths open, sucking in air. Our nostrils have long ago stopped functioning. They are clogged with the fine dust of the Spanish earth. The stink of the dead brings us to the verge of vomiting. We try not to breathe in the stinking air. Big buzzing flies are everywhere. They fly from feeding on the dead to land on our faces. We grow to hate them with a vengeance.

The sight of the dead has a psychological effect, even though the dead are fascists. Nobody had lectured us about what no-man's land would look like. The noise, the sight and sound of a ricocheting shell twirling through the air is frightening to even the most experienced soldier. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, then I wonder if anyone looking in my eyes right now could see my deep inner feelings: the urgency of wanting to get at the throats of the fascists, yet the fear that one of them will get me before I get him. I wonder, too, how I'm stacking up in the eyes of my fellow soldiers, whether or not I'm falling short in my responsibilities to them. Myriad thoughts are weaving in and out in a fleeting moment.

I even try to find humor in the situation by asking myself what the hell I'm doing here, going through all this torture, when I could be safely home with an easy task like passing out leaflets calling for support of the Spanish people's cause or stuffing envelopes for some political campaign. I'd be free from the dangers and the stink of death all around me. I know I would not be satisfied with that, and I try to remember where it all started, this great urge to right the wrongs of an insane society. Was it back when that cop slugged me on the picket line during my first effort to build a union? Or was it during the reform school riot when the guards forced me up against the wall with my hands raised over my head and made me watch as they clubbed into unconsciousness many of my friends?

No, it went back farther than that. Somewhere the handwriting was on the wall and my destiny was spelled out for me. Perhaps it was when I was clutching fast the handle of the baby carriage . . . away back to those tiny hands clutching the handles . . ..

The Lonesome Ride Home

The trip back to San Francisco from New York was not too exciting. The Veteran's Committee had made some sort of deal with the American Bus Lines that ran to most major towns and cities. In my case the fare from New York to San Francisco was $35. This also included a breakfast valued at 25 cents, a lunch at 35 cents and a dinner valued at 45 cents. The trip took five days and five nights.

I sat next to a woman as we left the Chicago area. We got to talking. I told her I had been in Spain for the past year and a half fighting against Franco as a member of the Spanish People's Army. "My," she blurted out, "why are you riding a bus with all the money you made as a mercenary?" If she was representative of the thinking of the American people, then I knew I had a tough job ahead of me trying to explain my presence in Spain.

I was lucky upon my return to San Francisco. Some people were waiting for me at the depot. I stayed with a Swedish longshoremen and his wife. For the next two weeks I was well-fed and rested and gained back some of the 23 pounds I had lost in Spain. While I was fattening up I checked with my union, the Marine's Firemen's Union, about shipping out. I had not paid any dues during my absence. Dues were $75, a large sum in those days. I was given a shipping card with permission to make a trip and pay off the debt on my first voyage.

I had heard a rumor that one of our veterans, Stanley Postek, could not be processed to leave Spain when most of the Internationals did because of his wounds. He had to go across the Pyrenees into France and ended up in a French concentration camp. He was able to escape with the help of some French Communists and was now hiding out in the seaport town of Marseilles, trying to stow away on an American ship for the United States.

Stanley was one of the young organizers that had been attracted to organize seaman into the Marine Workers Industrial Union. Most of his work had been done in and around New Orleans and Gulf ports. He was also an aspiring boxer and fought his way pretty high up in the ranks of the heavyweights. In fact, just a few months before he took off for Spain he had achieved the title of heavyweight champ of the Pacific Coast. He gave up his boxing career and set out to join the Lincoln Brigade in Spain.

I recall the morning that he caught up with our company. We were stationed not too far from the Rio Ebro. Our outfit was in a preparedness position and spending a lot of time training for the assault we were soon to make across the Ebro. Our ranks needed some reinforcements. In fact, we needed more than that. We needed food and a change of clothing. We needed tobacco and letters from home. The truth was, things were going badly for our side. Franco and his generals were winning more and more territory and with that the food supply. We were hungry and many things pissed us off which, if we had been well fed, would not have bothered us.

Here we were on a hot day, no idea of what tomorrow would bring, when we noticed far off down the road a truck approaching. A food truck, we hoped, since this was the way food was brought to us, in barrels aboard an open truck. It was also the way new men and replacements were brought to our battalion. We were in luck. It was our food truck and holding onto the side panels were several replacements. Among them were two that I recognized immediately, Archie Brown from San Francisco and Stanley Postek. Of course there were handshakes and hugs and greetings. Among the ranks of the vets we had a few characters who loved the excitement of making any newcomer feel that he was finding himself among a pack of weirdos. One such character was Johnnie Coons, a sailor from the West Coast. He started to sing a World War I song; I think it was called "I Want to Go Home" and one of its passages was "The bullets do whistle, the cannons they roar. I don't want to go to the front anymore. Ma, Ma, I'm too young to die. I want to go home." When our new arrivals heard this they looked at each other in disbelief. Archie seemed completely flabbergasted, but Stanley quickly sensed that it was all seamen's humor, that we were not brought over by the enemy.

About a week before we were assigned to go into action by recrossing the Ebro and routing the fascists on several fronts, something happened to Stanley and he ended up in the hospital. After a week of chasing the fascists back toward their home base of Salamanca, we found ourselves relieving the Lister Battalion atop Hill 666 in the Sierra Pandols. Hill 666 was a high spot atop a mean, rugged, arid, rocky ridge that overlooked the main entrance toward the city of Gandesa, which we had our sights on. It was on this mountain ridge that the fascists had dug in when they learned that the republicans had forded the Ebro. Their positions were immensely fortified, making it almost impossible for us to move them one foot, forcing us to become exposed. While we could see our objective, Gandesa, in the distance, there was no way we could get near it, let alone capture it, unless we broke through the lines atop this mountain.

Each hour that passed made this possibility less realistic. One day the fascists mounted an artillery barrage against us; it lasted from daybreak until seven o'clock that evening. At least one shell a minute hit the ridge we were on. Perhaps it was the shape of the mountain ridge or indecisive aiming, but the attack did not do the damage the enemy expected. A few of our men were killed, some wounded. But we managed to maintain our positions and not cede one foot.

Many of the shells lobbed at us would slap the rocky ridge of the mountain, then ricochet to the rear of our position where they either exploded or spent themselves. It was one such shell that bounced off our position, then whirled itself down through the valley at our rear which connected with the road that carried our supplies to the front. As luck would have it that day, Stanley was once again riding to the front in a food truck. He had just come out of the hospital. With one hand on the truck's side panel and the other hand holding onto the food barrel, Stanley was expecting to join his comrades in the next few minutes. As the truck rounded the bend in the road, the ricocheting shell landed on the cab of the truck. It killed the driver and his helper immediately. The blast of the shell demolished the truck as well as blowing Stanley high in the air, slamming him against the mountainside some 30 feet away. He was picked up by the medics, bleeding and unconscious, and rushed back across the Ebro to the nearest hospital. His arm was smashed and the blast of the shell played havoc with other parts of his body, too.

I decided to rescue him. With this mission in mind, I joined the SS President Monroe, an American President Lines ship, for a trip around the world. One of her main ports in the Mediterranean would be Marseilles, where I expected to locate Stanley and stow him away. When we pulled into the dock, my eyes were trying to search him out. I spent a good part of the day looking for him, and it was only when I checked with some longshore members of the Communist Party that I learned that "the tall American with the wound in his arm" was safely stowed on board an American vessel bound for New York. I felt relieved that he was safe. As our vessel moved on down the Mediterranean, we passed the coastline of Spain. The war was still raging. While Barcelona and many other principal cities had fallen, Madrid was still holding out. Our radios were picking up broadcasts from both sides. The Madrid radio exhorted the republicans to continue the fight, while the fascist Franco stations were telling the people to throw down their guns and give up. It was sad. Very sad.