Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway, The

“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.”