“You haven’t got the horrors, have you?”
“No,” he said. “I’m fine. Listen, Hank. I don’t want to talk a lot of crap but I think I’m going to get killed tomorrow.”
I touched the table three times with my fingertips.
“Everybody feels like that. I’ve felt like that plenty of times.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not natural with me. But where we’ve got to go tomorrow doesn’t make sense. I don’t even know that I can get them up there. You can’t make them move if they won’t go. You can shoot them afterwards. But at the time if they won’t go they won’t go. If you shoot them they still won’t go.”
“Maybe it will be all right.”
“No. We’ve got good infantry tomorrow. They’ll go anyway. Not like those yellow bastids we had the first day.”
“Maybe it will be all right.”
“No,” he said. “It won’t be all right. But it will be just exactly as good as I can make it. I can make them start all right and I can take them up to where they will have to quit one at a time. Maybe they can make it. I’ve got three I can rely on. If only one of the good ones doesn’t get knocked out at the start.”
“Who are your good ones?”
“I’ve got a big Greek from Chicago that will go anywhere. He’s just as good as they come. I’ve got a Frenchman from Marseille that’s got his left shoulder in a cast with two wounds still draining that asked to come out of the hospital in the Palace Hotel for this show and has to be strapped in and I don’t know how he can do it. Just technically I mean. He’d break your bloody heart. He used to be a taxi driver.” He stopped. “I’m talking too much. Stop me if I talk too much.”
“Who’s the third one?” I asked.
“The third one? Did I say I had a third one?”
“Sure.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “That’s me.”
“What about the others?”
“They’re mechanics, but they couldn’t learn to soldier. They can’t size up what’s happening. And they’re all afraid to die. I tried to get them over it,” he said. “But it comes back on them every attack. They look like tank men when you see them by the tanks with the helmets on. They look like tank men when they get in. But when they shut the traps down there’s really nothing inside. They aren’t tank men. And so far we haven’t had time to make new ones.”
“Do you want to take the bath?”
“Let’s sit here a little while longer,” he said. “It’s nice here.”
“It’s funny all right, with a war right down the end of the street so you can walk to it, and then leave it and come here.”
“And then walk back to it,” Al said.
“What about a girl? There’s two American girls at the Florida. Newspaper correspondents. Maybe you could make one.”
“I don’t want to have to talk to them. I’m too tired.”
“There’s the two Moor girls from Ceuta at that corner table.”
He looked over at them. They were both dark and bushy-headed. One was large and one was small and they certainly both looked strong and active.
“No,” said Al. “I’m going to see plenty Moors tomorrow without having to fool with them tonight.”
“There’s plenty of girls,” I said. “Manolita’s at the Florida. That Seguridad bird she lives with has gone to Valencia and she’s being true to him with everybody.”
“Listen, Hank, what are you trying to promote me?”
“I just wanted to cheer you up.”
“Grow up,” he said. “What’s one more?”
“One more.”
“I don’t mind dying a bit,” he said. “Dying is just a lot of crap. Only it’s wasteful. The attack is wrong and it’s wasteful. I can handle tanks good now. If I had time I could make good tankists too. And if we had tanks that were a little bit faster the anti-tanks wouldn’t bother them the way it does when you haven’t got the mobility. Listen, Hank, they aren’t what we thought they were though. Do you remember when everybody thought if we only had tanks?”
“They were good at Gaudalajara.”
“Sure. But those were the old boys. They were soldiers. And it was against Italians.”
“But what’s happened?”
“A lot of things. The mercenaries signed up for six months. Most of them were Frenchmen. They soldiered good for five but now all they want to do is live through the last month and go home. They aren’t worth a damn now. The Russians that came out as demonstrators when the government bought the tanks were perfect. But they’re pulling them back now for China they say. The new Spaniards are some of them good and some not. It takes six months to make a good tank man, I mean to know anything. And to be able to size up and work intelligently you have to have a talent. We’ve been having to make them in six weeks and there aren’t so many with a talent.”
“They make fine flyers.”
“They’ll make fine tank guys too. But you have to get the ones with a vocation for it. It’s sort of like being a priest. You have to be cut out for it. Especially now they’ve got so much anti-tank.”
They had pulled down the shutters in Chicote’s and now they were locking the door. No one would be allowed in now. But you had a half an hour more before they closed.
“I like it here,” said Al. “It isn’t so noisy now. Remember that time I met you in New Orleans when I was on a ship and we went in to have a drink in the Monteleone bar and that kid that looked just like Saint Sebastian was paging people with that funny voice like he was singing and I gave him a quarter to page Mr. B. F. Slob?”
“That’s the same way you said ‘Casa del Campo.’ ”
“Yeah,” he said. “I laugh every time I think of that.” Then he went on, “You see, now, they’re not frightened of tanks any more. Nobody is. We aren’t either. But they’re still useful. Really useful. Only with the anti-tank now they’re so damn vulnerable. Maybe I ought to be in something else. Not really. Because they’re still useful. But the way they are now you’ve got to have a vocation for them. You got to have a lot of political development to be a good tank man now.”
“You’re a good tank man.”
“I’d like to be something else tomorrow,” he said. “I’m talking awfully wet but you have a right to talk wet if it isn’t going to hurt anybody else. You know I like tanks too, only we don’t use them right because the infantry don’t know enough yet. They just want the old tank ahead to give them some cover while they go. That’s no good. Then they get to depending on the tanks and they won’t move without them. Sometimes they won’t even deploy.”
“I know.”
“But you see if you had tankists that knew their stuff they’d go out ahead and develop the machine-gun fire and then drop back behind the infantry and fire on the gun and knock it out and give the infantry covering fire when they attacked. And other tanks could rush the machine-gun posts as though they were cavalry. And they could straddle a trench and enfilade and put flaking fire down it. And they could bring up infantry when it was right to or cover their advance when that was best.”
“But instead?”
“Instead it’s like it will be tomorrow. We have so damned few guns that we’re just used as slightly mobile armored artillery units. And as soon as you are standing still and being light artillery, you’ve lost your mobility and that’s your safety and they start sniping at you with the anti-tanks. And if we’re not that we’re just sort of iron perambulators to push ahead of the infantry. And lately you don’t know whether the perambulator will push or whether the guys inside will push them. And you never know if there’s going to be anybody behind you when you get there.”
“How many are you now to a brigade?”
“Six to a battalion. Thirty to a brigade. That’s in principle.”
“Why don’t you come along now and get the bath and we’ll go and eat?”
“All right. But don’t you start taking care of me or thinking I’m worried or anything because I’m not. I’
m just tired and I wanted to talk. And don’t give me any pep talk either because we’ve got a political commissar and I know what I’m fighting for and I’m not worried. But I’d like things to be efficient and used as intelligently as possible.”
“What made you think I was going to give you any pep talk?”
“You started to look like it.”
“All I tried to do was see if you wanted a girl and not to talk too wet about getting killed.”
“Well, I don’t want any girl tonight and I’ll talk just as wet as I please unless it does damage to others. Does it damage you?”
“Come on and get the bath,” I said. “You can talk just as bloody wet as you want.”
“Who do you suppose that little guy was that talked as though he knew so much?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to find out.”
“He made me gloomy,” said Al. “Come on. Let’s go.”
The old waiter with the bald head unlocked the outside door of Chicote’s and let us out into the street.
“How is the offensive, comrades?” he said at the door.
“It’s O.K., comrade,” said Al. “It’s all right.”
“I am happy,” said the waiter. “My boy is in the One Hundred and Forty-fifth Brigade. Have you seen them?”
“I am of the tanks,” said Al. “This comrade makes a cinema. Have you seen the Hundred and Forty-fifth?”
“No,” I said.
“They are up the Extremadura road,” the old waiter said. “My boy is political commissar of the machine-gun company of his battalion. He is my youngest boy. He is twenty.”
“What party are you comrade?” Al asked him.
“I am of no party,” the waiter said. “But my boy is a Communist.”
“So am I,” said Al. “The offensive, comrade, has not yet reached a decision. It is very difficult. The fascists hold very strong positions. You, in the rear-guard, must be as firm as we will be at the front. We may not take these positions now but we have proved we now have an army capable of going on the offensive and you will see what it will do.”
“And the Extremadura road?” asked the old waiter, still holding on to the door. “Is it very dangerous there?”
“No,” said Al. “It’s fine up there. You don’t need to worry about him up there.”
“God bless you,” said the waiter. “God guard you and keep you.”
Outside in the dark street, Al said, “Jees he’s kind of confused politically, isn’t he?”
“He is a good guy,” I said. “I’ve known him for a long time.”
“He seems like a good guy,” Al said. “But he ought to get wise to himself politically.”
The room at the Florida was crowded. They were playing the gramophone and it was full of smoke and there was a crap game going on the floor. Comrades kept coming in to use the bathtub and the room smelt of smoke, soap, dirty uniforms, and steam from the bathroom.
The Spanish girl called Manolita, very neat, demurely dressed, with a sort of false French chic, with much joviality, much dignity and closely set cold eyes, was sitting on the bed talking with an English newspaper man. Except for the gramophone it wasn’t very noisy.
“It is your room, isn’t it?” the English newspaper man said.
“It’s in my name at the desk,” I said. “I sleep in it sometimes.”
“But whose is the whisky?” he asked.
“Mine,” said Manolita. “They drank that bottle so I got another.”
“You’re a good girl, daughter,” I said. “That’s three I owe you.”
“Two,” she said. “The other was a present.”
There was a huge cooked ham, rosy and white edged in a half-opened tin on the table beside my typewriter and a comrade would reach up, cut himself a slice of ham with his pocket knife, and go back to the crap game. I cut myself a slice of ham.
“You’re next on the tub,” I said to Al. He had been looking around the room.
“It’s nice here,” he said. “Where did the ham come from?”
“We bought it from the intendencia of one of the brigades,” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
“Who’s we?”
“He and I,” she said, turning her head toward the English correspondent. “Don’t you think he’s cute?”
“Manolita has been most kind,” said the Englishman. “I hope we’re not disturbing you.”
“Not at all,” I said. “Later on I might want to use the bed but that won’t be until much later.”
“We can have a party in my room,” Manolita said. “You aren’t cross are you, Henry?”
“Never,” I said. “Who are the comrades shooting craps?”
“I don’t know,” said Manolita. “They came in for baths and then they stayed to shoot craps. Everyone has been very nice. You know my bad news?”
“No.”
“It’s very bad. You knew my fiancé who was in the police and went to Barcelona?”
“Yes. Sure.”
Al went into the bathroom.
“Well, he was shot in an accident and I haven’t any one I can depend on in police circles and he never got me the papers he had promised me and today I heard I was going to be arrested.”
“Why?”
“Because I have no papers and they say I hang around with you people and with people from the brigades all the time so I am probably a spy. If my fiancé had not gotten himself shot it would have been all right. Will you help me?”
“Sure,” I said. “Nothing will happen to you if you’re all right.”
“I think I’d better stay with you to be sure.”
“And if you’re not all right that would be fine for me, wouldn’t it?”
“Can’t I stay with you?”
“No. If you get in trouble call me up. I never heard you ask anybody any military questions. I think you’re all right.”
“I’m really all right,” she said then, leaning over, away from the Englishman. “You think it’s all right to stay with him? Is he all right?”
“How do I know?” I said. “I never saw him before.”
“You’re being cross,” she said. “Let’s not think about it now but everyone be happy and go out to dinner.”
I went over to the crap game.
“You want to go out to dinner?”
“No, comrade,” said the man handling the dice without looking up. “You want to get in the game?”
“I want to eat.”
“We’ll be here when you get back,” said another crap shooter. “Come on, roll, I’ve got you covered.”
“If you run into any money bring it up here to the game.”
There was one in the room I knew besides Manolita. He was from the Twelfth Brigade and he was playing the gramophone. He was a Hungarian, a sad Hungarian, not one of the cheerful kind.
“Salud camarade,” he said. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
“Don’t you shoot craps?” I asked him.
“I haven’t that sort of money,” he said. “They are aviators with contracts. Mercenaries … They make a thousand dollars a month. They were on the Teruel front and now they have come here.”
“How did they come up here?”
“One of them knows you. But he had to go out to his field. They came for him in a car and the game had already started.”
“I’m glad you came up,” I said. “Come up any time and make yourself at home.”
“I came to play the new discs,” he said. “It does not disturb you?”
“No. It’s fine. Have a drink.”
“A little ham,” he said.
One of the crap shooters reached up and cut a slice of ham.
“You haven’t seen this guy Henry around that owns the place, have you?” he asked me.
“That’s me.”
“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. Want to get in the game?”
“Later on,” I said.
“O.K.,” he said. Then his mouth full of ham, “Listen yo
u tar heel bastid. Make your dice hit the wall and bounce.”
“Won’t make no difference to you, comrade,” said the man handling the dice.
Al came out of the bathroom. He looked all clean except for some smudges around his eyes.
“You can take those off with a towel,” I said.
“What?”
“Look at yourself once more in the mirror.”
“It’s too steamy.” he said. “To hell with it, I feel clean.”
“Let’s eat,” I said. “Come on, Manolita. You know each other?”
I watched her eyes run over Al.
“How are you?” Manolita said.
“I say that is a sound idea,” the Englishman said. “Do let’s eat. But where?”
“Is that a crap game?” Al said.
“Didn’t you see it when you came in?”
“No,” he said. “All I saw was the ham.”
“It’s a crap game.”
“You go and eat,” Al said. “I’m staying here.”
As we went out there were six of them on the floor and Al Wagner was reaching up to cut a slice of ham.
“What do you do, comrade?” I heard one of the flyers say to Al.
“Tanks.”
“Tell me they aren’t any good any more,” said the flyer.
“Tell you a lot of things,” Al said. “What you got there? Some dice?”
“Want to look at them?”
“No,” said Al. “I want to handle them.”
We went down the hall, Manolita, me and the tall Englishman, and found the boys had left already for the Gran Via restaurant. The Hungarian had stayed behind to replay the new discs. I was very hungry and the food at the Gran Via was lousy. The two who were making the film had already eaten and gone back to work on the bad camera.
This restaurant was in the basement and you had to pass a guard and go through the kitchen and down a stairs to get to it. It was a racket.
They had a millet and water soup, yellow rice with horse meat in it, and oranges for dessert. There had been another dish of chickpeas with sausage in it that everybody said was terrible but it had run out. The newspaper men all sat at one table and the other tables were filled with officers and girls from Chicote’s, people from the censorship, which was then in the telephone building across the street, and various unknown citizens.