Homage to Catalonia: Chapter 10 Summary & Analysis

About three days after the Barcelona fighting ends, Orwell returns to the front. Orwell—and, he argues, anyone reading the news at the time—is deeply disillusioned by the bitter fight playing out in the press. In particular, he is dismayed by the one-sided narrative that systematically and unjustly vilifies the Anarchists. Orwell realizes that this war, which he had thought of as a unique fight in the name of noble ideals, is in many ways just as immoral and cruel as any other war. In the Spanish Civil War, as in other conflicts, democratic standards such as personal freedom and honest journalism have disappeared in the name of military efficiency.

Certain political patters become apparent. Orwell is convinced that the current Government will soon be replaced by a more rightwing one under Communist influence, which would then attempt to break the trade unions’ power. The political divisions in the country have become so apparent that neither democracy nor working-class control seems a likely outcome for the country anymore. After the war, Orwell concludes, Spain is bound to be a dictatorship, Fascist to at least some degree.

Orwell’s cynical reflections do not diminish his commitment to fighting on the side of the Republican Government. Whatever might happen to Spain after the war, Orwell explains, a Fascist dictatorship led by Franco would be significantly worse than any leadership by the anti-feudal, anti-Catholic Government, which would at least protect the interests of the peasants if not of the urban working class. Franco’s brand of Fascism, to Orwell, means a return to an archaic, unjust past. The Government would at least be able to modernize the country in some respects, for example through education and health. Orwell also believes that this fight has international repercussions. Putting an end to Franco’s advance might, more broadly, serve to halt the rise of Fascism across the world. This is a goal that Orwell considers worth fighting for.

When he returns to the front, Orwell learns that his friend and fellow militiaman Bob Smillie has been thrown into prison. Orwell discovers that Smillie was arrested on the spurious charge of carrying arms, despite the fact that Smillie was not actually carrying usable weapons. Orwell explains this arrest as a vicious political tactic. Since Smillie was supposed to travel to England soon, the Spanish Government probably worried that, were Smillie to relate his experience in the POUM, he would contradict the Government-sanctioned version of events, according to which the POUM is a party of Fascist traitors that must be eliminated.

Orwell is sent to Huesca and put in command of about thirty men. While nothing ever seems to happen, despite a few attacks by snipers, a bullet suddenly hits Orwell in the middle of the day. He describes this experience in great detail. He recalls feeling in the midst of an explosion, as though he were hit by a violent, electric shock. He falls to the ground, dazed, without feeling any pain. He feels nothing but realizes that his right arm is paralyzed and that he is not able to speak. His wife, he reflects, will be glad that he has been hit, for she had wanted him to be removed from the front before the beginning of the great battle.

When Orwell realizes that the bullet has gone through his neck, he becomes convinced that he is going to die. For a couple minutes, he watches as his thoughts fleet by. First, he thinks of his wife. Then, he is outraged at having to die and leave the world he so enjoys. He is angry at the senselessness of dying at such a trivial moment, in the monotony of the trenches, far from any battle. As soon as he is put on the stretcher, his arm begins to hurt excruciatingly. At the same time, he is able to appreciate the landscape around him, and experiences wonder at the beauty of the silver poplar leaves that brush against his face. The doctor gives him quick medical care and he is sent to a hospital in Siétamo.

At the hospital, despite suffering from a throat wound and being in great physical pain, Orwell notices that the nurse, in a fashion that he considers typically Spanish, attempts to make him swallow an entire hospital meal. A little while later, two fellow militiamen arrive. Instead of inquiring at length about his health, they proceed to take away all his possessions, a practice that Orwell explains is normal at the front, where tools and weapons of any kind are so desperately needed.

Orwell then travels to Barbastro in an ambulance that is so unsteady that, Orwell realizes, it would easily kill a man with a wound in the stomach. As the staff forgets to tie the wounded to their stretchers, one man is thrown to the floor, suffering unspeakable pain, while a woman vomits throughout the entire trip. Orwell is able to hold onto his stretcher with his one usable arm. 

After one night in Barbastro, Orwell is sent to Lérida, where he spends five or six days. There, two militiamen on leave come to visit him. As a clumsy, shy gesture of affection, the soldiers offer him all the tobacco in their possession and leave hurriedly. Orwell later realizes that, because of this generous gesture, which he considers typically Spanish, the men have lost an entire week’s ration of cigarettes.

At the hospital, Orwell observes the hospital system. While the doctors seem good and medical equipment is readily available, these hospitals at the front only treat men who are too seriously wounded to be moved. Everyone else is supposed to be sent to bigger cities, but lack of available transportation and capable nurses means that they are often left for days without medical care and people with grave wounds are left seriously neglected.

After being told that he is going to be sent to Barcelona, Orwell is in fact driven to the city of Tarragona. After a ghastly train ride, where men who have left their sick bed for the first time are rocked around and sent flying to the floor, Orwell arrives at the station in Tarragona, where a group of Italian volunteers is being sent to the front. Orwell is impressed by this graceful, smiling group of men, who seem to embody the traditional, heroic image of war.

At the hospital in Tarragona, Orwell sees a variety of horrific wounds. At the same time, when after a few days he finds the strength to walk down to the beach, he is surprised to note that, by the seaside, civilian life is going on as usual. People are enjoying the sun and the ordinary pleasures of life as though the war were a distant dream.

Finally, after eight or nine days since being shot, Orwell’s wound is examined. Cheerfully, without thinking twice about the gravity of what he is announcing, the doctor tells him that one of his vocal chords is paralyzed and that he will never be able to speak again. This prediction turns out to be wrong, as after two months Orwell would be able to speak again. Doctors often come to examine Orwell’s wound. They consider it a miracle that he has survived a shot that came so close to touching the artery. Orwell comments that he would have preferred not to be shot in the first place.