"Wave of Desertions"

For the first time in months, a "pirate" submarine last week appeared in the Mediterranean to sink without warning the Dutch freighter, Hannah, bound for Valencia with a cargo of beans and wheat. Last week also Rightist planes from the island of Majorca roared in five times to bomb Leftist munitions plants on the outskirts of Barcelona. But elsewhere the Spanish war was almost at a standstill. Even the snows of Teruel had melted to make an impassable torrent of the Guadalaviar River, an impassable morass of most of the lower valley.

Directly traceable to the Leftist victory at Teruel, however, was a wave of desertions from the Rightist Army. At Gibraltar, foreigners were able to see evidence of it with their own eyes. All week long the Leftist consul at Gibraltar went about with pockets stuffed with cash like a racing bookmaker. In driblets, two and three men at a time, Rightist deserters arrived, some in rowboats from Algeciras across the bay, some by land from La Linea across no man's land to neutral ground. Back & forth to British police headquarters went the consul to pay the small fines imposed on the deserters for illegal entry, to arrange to send them on to Valencia.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.