The Washington times., 1936-10-16
BvH.R. KNICKERBOCKER

Service.
By H. R. KNICKERBOCKER
Copyright, 1895, by International News
Service)
SANTA OLALLA, Spain, Oct. 16
1.N.SO.-This morning it was not
the flies but the squalling of two
husky infants which woke us up.
Two mothers had crept into the
village during the night, learned
1t was really true that the whites
had complete control, and at the
break of dawn here they were
clarnoring for the regimental chap
lain to bapti2e their children.
The village priest and his assist
ant had been murdered by the reds
a month before, the women said,
and there had been nobody who
could baptize the newborn.
There may be a good deal of
religious skepticism among the
peasantry of Spain but there is
none whatever among peasant
mothers when it comes to ques-
ton of their infants. They are
taking no chances, and these
mothers had walked 20 miles on
the off-chance of finding chap
lain to rescue their babies from
possible purgatory.
Chaplain Acts
The chaplain finally got up from
his pallet on the floor, dashed
cold water over his face and said
he was ready for the ceremony.
The two babies bawled bloody MUIR
der, but I have never in my life
seen women so blissfully, almost
ecStatically delighted as the two
mothers, one old grandmother and
three other old women.
Both babies were boys, one
named Isidor, one named Daniel.
The chaplain. Padre Don Juan
Calan Mermejo. seemed to be
pleased at having something to
do. besides administer Extreme
Unction.
The padre is a popular man with
the troops and with the officers.
He always sits next to the major
at table, and everybody kids him
in q good-natured way about his
prieStly life. 1t is interesting to
observe that many of the legion
naires, tough as they are, are prac-
ticing Catholics, and certainly SO
per cent of them want the priest
when they come to die.
Major Castejon, his staff, order
lies, guard, everybody pulled out
for the front at about 10 o'clock in
the morning, and, to our intense
disappointment, told us we could
only follow tomorrow. So there we
were, left in a deserted house, in
what amounted to a deserted viii
lage, for between the time the
major left and the time battalion
of Phalangists, or FaScists, arrived
late in the evening, there was not
a soldier in the place.
Advance Trims Line
This promoted further discus
sion of a theme we had already
touched upon, namely, the fact
that the rapid advance of the
legion toward Toledo and Madrid
had thinned our line terrifically
and if the reds had any initiative
left at all, they could easily cut in
from the flank and take Santa
Olalla or any of half dozen
places.
So we spent the day watching
the population return to their
ruined houses. Mournful old man
Ramos, owner of the house we
were living in, arrived on the scene
and it was pitiful to see him walk
ing through room after room, pick
ing up little bits of wrecked fur
niture.
He didn't do anything to keep
the big pig out of the wheat gran
nary. The old man evidently had
reached the stage where he
thought there wasn't any use try
ing to patch things up. Yet his
house was comparatively intact. It
was not utterly smashed the way
most of them were.
The women of the household,
who also gradually crept in during
the day, thought there was plenty
of use in trying to start over again.
They scrubbed and washed all day
long. The soldiers of the legion
had collected for the majors staff
use crockery from a score of
ruined houses, and the women
here now washed all that up.
Then old man Ramos told us
what it was that put that haunted
look in his eyes. 1t wasn't the fact
that he had spent eight nights
sleeping in the fields with his
family to escape the reds. It wasn't
the damage to his property. It
was just that the reds had taken
his 18-year-old son and the son
hadn't come back.