Fighting for a unified national community went hand-in-hand with imagining it. Chapter four turns to the rearguard encounters which enabled the volunteers to do so, focussing on the provincial towns in which they trained and rested. Witnessing village life, encountering locals and reading about them in their trench press convinced them that they were not foreign interlopers in a distant war but adopted members of an extended antifascist family. In this way, peaceful contact helped them to rationalise their place within Spainߣs wartime violence and, by extension, continue contributing towards it on the frontlines. Their commitment to loyalist civilians did not stop at defending them from fascism, but rather extended to fighting for an egalitarian ߢNew Spainߣ free from historical exploitation. This chapter demonstrates how cross-cultural encounters generated opportunities to spread these antifascist messages to new communities, with the Commissariat working hard to initiate, manage and represent encounters in a militarily, and politically, favourable manner.