On July 6, 1937, the Spanish Republican Army launched the Battle of Brunette to save the capital of the Republic, Madrid, from being besieged.International columns of several brigades went into battle with heavy casualties.The rebels were aided by a hundred German planes.The ambulance was on the road, and the target was exposed. Although the roof was painted with a huge red cross, it was still being chased by the German plane.In the middle of the war, the fighting became more intense, and it became more and more difficult to remove the wounded from the front. He had dodged planes chasing Joe several times.

In the early morning of July 18, he drove another ambulance converted from a truck that had just been restored to the front.On the way back, he heard the nasty German planes howling like wolves again.The straight dirt road was too narrow to zigzag, and the fields on both sides were too exposed to evacuate the wounded.He could only step on the accelerator, accelerate desperately, and listen carefully to the roar of the plane. At the last moment of the dive, he suddenly slammed on the brakes and bent over his seat.With the screeching of the brakes, two bombs landed directly in front of the car, and the explosion almost overturned the car, and the shrapnel smashed the engine.The water tank was broken, and the steam was whistling.

The plane took off again with a whoosh.He climbed out of the car seat, shook off the broken glass, cursed the dirtiest thing he knew, and watched the plane fly away.The nurse in the rear compartment, despite his warning, was still severely hit, and the wounded screamed in pain.At this time, Madrid was holding the World Writers Anti-Fascist Congress to commemorate the first anniversary of the Spanish Civil War, and the meeting invited him to give a speech as a "poet on the front line".But he felt that there was no need to participate in the heated chatter of literati, and there was indeed a shortage of ambulance drivers on the front line.After all, in the roar of bombs, action is the most powerful poem.

The truck couldn't drive, so he had to wait for the next car to pick up the wounded.Back at the hospital, he immediately changed to a truck and drove out. This time his luck ran out: A bomb exploded right next to the truck, destroying half the truck and the cab.The car behind caught up and rushed out the living and dead from the smoking car.  He was carried to the British Volunteer Medical Corps in Escoria, his face covered in dust and blood.Doctors found shrapnel deeply embedded in his chest cavity.Surgery is no longer possible: surgery will only hasten death.The wounded are everywhere, the doctors can only save the hopeful ones first.There was a nurse who took care of the wounded who the doctor left alone. Seeing him lying on a stretcher and being ignored, she wiped his face with a cotton cloth dampened with water, trying to make him feel a little more comfortable when he was dying.Probably because he was wearing a helmet while driving, she found that his face didn't have a scratch, and his face was as pale as marble, as if he had fallen asleep from exhaustion.

The nurse was about to leave, but when he saw his lips moving, as if he had something to say, he stopped.He tried to open his eyes, but couldn't.The nurse bent down, and the hospital was noisy, but his voice was still clearly heard: "I want two things in my life: to have the most beautiful mistress, and to go to the battlefield. I have done both, and I am very satisfied." The nurse stood up in surprise and looked at the man who was speaking: the bandage on his chest was already red, and blood was still oozing rapidly, and the red dripped onto the ground next to the stretcher.He didn't seem to be in any pain, and he was very peaceful when he said these words.Such self-satisfied last words are rarely heard from the mouths of the seriously wounded and dying, but not impossible.The war is on and anything is possible.

He said some more words, which the ex-teacher-nurse thought were in Latin, but they were too vague to be heard, and his voice faded away: he fell into a coma again, and never woke up again. He was buried at night in the Fuencarral cemetery with the other dead of that day.  The attending doctor, whose body was covered with blood, took off his gloves, washed his face, and sat down to sign the death certificate.This was the last official task of the daily routine, and he signed it mechanically, his eyes almost closed.After signing the last one, he neatly knocked out a large stack of death certificates. Then he suddenly woke up and realized that one of the signed papers had a familiar name.He found the page, and yes, it was the name—Julian Bell.Notice was sent to next of kin, mother, Vanessa Bell, 46 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, London.

The doctor put down the report, rubbed his red eyes, and called the head nurse. The head nurse fetched the relic of the driver named Julian Bell, which was nothing more than a military bag.The doctor dumped all the contents on the table, toilet utensils, a thin hand-ordered book, and the words in the hand-written book were divided into lines, like poetry, but it was a language he didn't understand, an oriental language.A few pages of neatly folded paper are sandwiched in the poetry collection, without envelopes, but the handwriting is very neat.Please give this letter to my mother when I die of disease or accident, or when I hear the news or rumors that I participated in the revolutionary movement.

The opening is very ordinary, obviously a suicide note.Yes, the doctor thought, this boy still remembers to write a suicide note.Having a suicide note saves us a lot of trouble.The suicide note was quite long, and he didn't have time to read it.His eyes scanned the time and place of writing at the top of the letter: September 26, 1935, when Fushimi Maru sailed into Shanghai Port. two years ago?China?What suicide note! His eyes fell on a yellow handkerchief, which felt comfortable and thick.The dark flowers are bamboo leaves, bright and shiny, turned over, the yellow is lighter, double-sided silk satin, very oriental.There is a K letter at the corner, which seems to be hand-embroidered, with dark yellow silk thread.He sighed, each of the deceased's relics was hung with a string of stories, and after being buried in the soil, each of the deceased's stories would have the same bitter taste.

He put the spread things back into the bag, stacked the death report again, and put it on the table.The hospital secretary will come tomorrow to handle the dispatch separately. He felt tired like never before, his throat and tongue were as uncomfortable as burnt skin.He stood up and fell back onto the bed.At this moment, he remembered that he had met this dead man before. It was several years ago that he and a friend went to a party to debate how to stop the global expansion of fascism.He remembered seeing the famous heroines, the "Bloomsbury Sisters": the painter Vanessa Bell, the writer Virginia Woolf.Between the two of them sat a young man with flaxen hair, healthy, tall, and handsome, but his laughter was a little too loud, obviously mocking the Labor Party theorist Professor Laski who was speaking on the stage.He probably said something very funny, and the two women laughed and put their arms around his shoulders, as if he was their common son.

"Julian Bell," his friend whispered in his ear. "A top student at King's College, Cambridge, who is said to be Bloomsbury's 'second generation' of poets." The speech was interrupted again, and the venue was noisy.The friend said bitterly, "Self-righteous artist!" He felt that the young man was like a child who grew up too fast, still being pampered, and he was quite envious.