The echo of crutches. An approximation of the career of Manuel Escorza del Val (1936-1937) by Dani Capmany (translated by Paul Sharkey) is the first profile of the mysterious Manuel Escorza del Val, head of the CNT-FAI Investigation Commission the Catalan anarchist security and intelligence service, the Servicio de InformaciĆ³n y CoordinaciĆ³n (SIC) and the Control Patrols (Patrullas de Control) during the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. Capmany's comprehensive collation of the historiography and published information covers the period from July 1936 through to the Stalinist/Catalanist coup of May 1937, the 'Events of May' that effectively ended all hopes of a libertarian social revolution in Spain and, in my opinion, possibly robbed the Republic of victory over Franco.