For Whom The Bell Tolls

"This comrade is a guerilla from there," Gomez told him while the man searched him. "He brings a dispatch to General Golz. Guard well my papers. Be careful with that money and that bullet on the string. It is from my first wound at Guadarama."

"Don't worry," the corporal said. "Everything will be in this drawer. Why didn't you ask me where Golz was?"

"We tried to. I asked the sentry and he called you."

"But then came the crazy and you asked him. No one should ask him anything. He is crazy. Thy Golz is up the road three kilometers from here and to the right in the rocks of the forest."

"Can you not let us go to him now?"

"Nay. It would be my head. I must take thee to the crazy. Besides, he has thy dispatch."

"Can you not tell some one?"

"Yes," the corporal said. "I will tell the first responsible one I see. All know that he is crazy."

"I had always taken him for a great figure," Gomez said. "For one of the glories of France."

"He may be a glory and all," the corporal said and put his hand on Andres's shoulder. "But he is crazy as a bedbug. He has a mania for shooting people."

"Truly shooting them?"

"Como lo oyes," the corporal said. "That old one kills more than the bubonic plague. Mata mas que la peste bubonica. But he doesn't kill fascists like we do. Que va. Not in joke. Mata bichos raros. He kills rare things. Trotzkyites. Divagationers. Any type of rare beasts."

Andres did not understand any of this.

"When we were at Escorial we shot I don't know how many for him," the corporal said. "We always furnish the firing party. The men of the Brigades would not shoot their own men. Especially the French. To avoid difficulties it is always us who do it. We shot French. We have shot Belgians. We have shot others of divers nationality. Of all types. Tiene mania de fusilar gente. Always for political things. He's crazy. Purifica mas que el Salvarsan. He purifies more than Salvarsan."

"But you will tell some one of this dispatch?"

"Yes, man. Surely. I know every one of these two Brigades. Every one comes through here. I know even up to and through the Russians, although only a few speak Spanish. We will keep this crazy from shooting Spaniards."

"But the dispatch."

"The dispatch, too. Do not worry, Comrade. We know how to deal with this crazy. He is only dangerous with his own people. We understand him now."

"Bring in the two prisoners," came the voice of Andre Marty.

"Quereis echar un trago?" the corporal asked. "Do you want a drink?"

"Why not?"

The corporal took a bottle of anis from a cupboard and both Gomez and Andres drank. So did the corporal. He wiped his mouth on his hand.

"Vamonos," he said.

They went out of the guard room with the swallowed burn of the anis warming their mouths, their bellies and their hearts and walked down the hall and entered the room where Marty sat behind a long table, his map spread in front of him, his red-and-blue pencil, with which he played at being a general officer, in his hand. To Andres it was only one more thing. There had been many tonight. There were always many. If your papers were in order and your heart was good you were in no danger. Eventually they turned you loose and you were on your way. But the Ingles had said to hurry. He knew now he could never get back for the bridge but they had a dispatch to deliver and this old man there at the table had put it in his pocket.

"Stand there," Marty said without looking up.

"Listen, Comrade Marty," Gomez broke out, the anis fortifying his anger. "Once tonight we have been impeded by the ignorance of the anarchists. Then by the sloth of a bureaucratic fascist. Now by the oversuspicion of a Communist."

"Close your mouth," Marty said without looking up. "This is not a meeting."

"Comrade Marty, this is a matter of utmost urgence," Gomez said. "Of the greatest importance."

The corporal and the soldier with them were taking a lively interest in this as though they were at a play they had seen many times but whose excellent moments they could always savor.

"Everything is of urgence," Marty said. "All things are of importance." Now he looked up at them, holding the pencil. "How did you know Golz was here? Do you understand how serious it is to come asking for an individual general before an attack? How could you know such a general would be here?"

"Tell him, tu," Gomez said to Andres.

"Comrade General," Andres started--Andre Marty did not correct him in the mistake in rank--"I was given that packet on the other side of the lines--"

"On the other side of the lines?" Marty said. "Yes, I heard him say you came from the fascist lines."

"It was given to me, Comrade General, by an Ingles named Roberto who had come to us as a dynamiter for this of the bridge. Understandeth?"

"Continue thy story," Marty said to Andres; using the term story as you would say lie, falsehood, or fabrication.