“Let’s finish the wine and go,” Al said. “Don’t you want to get in that game?”
“I’ll watch you for a while,” I said and called the waiter over to bring us the bill.
“Where you go?” Manolita called down the table.
“To the room.”
“We come by later on,” she said. “This man is very funny.”
“She is making most awful sport of me,” the Englishman said. “She picks up on my errors in Spanish. I say, doesn’t leche mean milk?”
“That’s one interpretation of it.”
“Does it mean something beastly too?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said.
“You know it is a beastly language,” he said. “Now Manolita, stop pulling my leg. I say stop it.”
“I’m not pulling your leg,” Manolita laughed. “I never touched your leg. I am just laughing about the leche.”
“But it does mean milk. Didn’t you just hear Edwin Henry say so?”
Manolita started to laugh again and we got up to go.
“He’s a silly piece of work,” Al said. “I’d almost like to take her away because he’s so silly.”
“You can never tell about an Englishman,” I said. It was such a profound remark that I knew we had ordered too many bottles. Outside, in the street, it was turning cold and in the moonlight the clouds were passing very big and white across the wide, building-sided canyon of the Gran Via and we walked up the sidewalk with the day’s fresh shell holes neatly cut in the cement, their rubble still not swept away, on up the rise of the hill toward the Plaza Callao where the Florida Hotel faced down the other little hill where the wide street ran that ended at the front.
We went past the two guards in the dark outside the door of the hotel and listened a minute in the doorway as the shooting down the street strengthened into a roll of firing, then dropped off.
“If it keeps up I guess I ought to go down,” Al said listening.
“That wasn’t anything,” I said. “Anyway that was off to the left by Carabanchel.”
“It sounded straight down in the Campo.”
“That’s the way the sound throws here at night. It always fools you.”
“They aren’t going to counterattack us tonight,” Al said. “When they’ve got those positions and we are up that creek they aren’t going to leave their positions to try to kick us out of that creek.”
“What creek?”
“You know the name of that creek.”
“Oh. That creek.”
“Yeah. Up that creek without a paddle.”
“Come on inside. You didn’t have to listen to that firing. That’s the way it is every night.”
We went inside, crossed the lobby, passing the night watchman at the concierge’s desk and the night watchman got up and went with us to the elevator. He pushed a button and the elevator came down. In it was a man with a white curly sheep’s wool jacket, the wool worn inside, a pink bald head, and a pink, angry face. He had six bottles of champagne under his arms and in his hands and he said, “What the hell’s the idea of bringing the elevator down?”
“You’ve been riding in the elevator for an hour,” the night watchman said.
“I can’t help it,” said the wooly jacket man. Then to me, “Where’s Frank?”
“Frank who?”
“You know Frank,” he said. “Come on, help me with this elevator.”
“You’re drunk,” I said to him. “Come on, skip it and let us get upstairs.”
“So would you be drunk,” said the white woolly jacket man. “So would you be drunk comrade old comrade. Listen, where’s Frank?”
“Where do you think he is?”
“In this fellow Henry’s room where the crap game is.”
“Come on with us,” I said. “Don’t fool with those buttons. That’s why you stop it all the time.”
“I can fly anything,” said the woolly jacket man. “And I can fly this old elevator. Want me to stunt it?”
“Skip it,” Al said to him. “You’re drunk. We want to get to the crap game.”
“Who are you? I’ll hit you with a bottle full of champagne wine.”
“Try it,” said Al. “I’d like to cool you, you rummy fake Santa Claus.”
“A rummy fake Santa Claus,” said the bald man. “A rummy fake Santa Claus. And that’s the thanks of the Republic.”
We had gotten the elevator stopped at my floor and were walking down the hall. “Take some bottles,” said the bald man. Then, “Do you know why I’m drunk?”
“No.”
“Well, I won’t tell you. But you’d be surprised. A rummy fake Santa Claus. Well well well. What are you in, comrade?”
“Tanks.”
“And you, comrade?”
“Making a picture.”
“And I’m a rummy fake Santa Claus. Well. Well. Well. I repeat. Well. Well. Well.”
“Go and drown in it,” said Al. “You rummy fake Santa Claus.”
We were outside the room now. The man in the white woolly coat took hold of Al’s arm with his thumb and forefinger.
“You amuse me, comrade,” he said. “You truly amuse me.”
I opened the door. The room was full of smoke and the game looked just as when we had left it except the ham was all gone off the table and the whisky all gone out of the bottle.
“It’s Baldy,” said one of the crap shooters.
“How do you do, comrades,” said Baldy, bowing. “How do you do? How do you do? How do you do?”
The game broke up and they all started to shoot questions at him.
“I have made my report, comrades,” Baldy said. “And here is a little champagne wine. I am no longer interested in any but the picturesque aspects of the whole affair.”
“Where did your wingmen muck off to?”
“It wasn’t their fault,” said Baldy. “I was engaged in contemplating a terrific spectacle and I was ob-livious of the fact that I had any wingmen until all of those Fiats started coming down over, past and under me and I realized that my trusty little air-o-plane no longer had any tail.”
“Jees I wish you weren’t drunk,” said one of the flyers.
“But I am drunk,” said Baldy. “And I hope all you gentlemen and comrades will join me because I am very happy tonight even though I have been insulted by an ignorant tank man who has called me a rummy fake Santa Claus.”
“I wish you were sober,” the other flyer said. “How’d you get back to the field?”
“Don’t ask me any questions,” Baldy said with great dignity. “I returned in a staff car of the Twelfth Brigade. When I alighted with my trusty para-chute there was a tendency to regard me as a criminal fascist due to my inability to master the Lanish Spanguage. But all difficulties were smoothed away when I convinced them of my identity and I was treated with rare consideration. Oh boy you ought to have seen that Junker when she started to burn. That’s what I was watching when the Fiats dove on me. Oh boy I wish I could tell you.”
“He shot a tri-moter Junker down today over the Jarama and his wingmen mucked off on him and he got shot down and bailed out,” one of the flyers said. “You know him. Baldy Jackson.”
“How far did you drop before you pulled your rip cord, Baldy?” asked another flyer.
“All of six thousand feet and I think my diaphragm is busted loose in front from when she came taut. I thought it would cut me in two. There must have been fifteen Fiats and I wanted to get completely clear. I had to fool with the chute plenty to get down on the right side of the river. I had to slip her plenty and I hit pretty hard. The wind was good.”
“Frank had to go back to Alcalá,” another flyer said. “We started a crap game. We got to get back there before daylight.”
“I am in no mood to toy with the dice,” said Baldy. “I am in a mood to drink champagne wine out of glasses with cigarette butts in them.”
“I’ll wash them,” said Al.
“For Comrade Fake Santa Claus,” said Baldy. “For old Comrade Claus.”
“Skip it,” said Al. He picked up the glasses and took them to the bathroom.
“Is he in the tanks?” asked one of the flyers.
“Yes. He’s been there since the start.”
“They tell me the tanks aren’t any good any more,” a flyer said.
“You told him that once,” I said. “Why don’t you lay off? He’s been working all day.”
“So have we. But I mean really they aren’t any good, are they?”
“Not so good. But he’s good.”
“I guess he’s all right. He looks like a nice fellow. What kind of money do they make?”
“They got ten pesetas a day,” I said. “Now he gets a lieutenant’s pay.”
“Spanish lieutenant?”
“Yes.”
“I guess he’s nuts all right. Or has he got politics?”
“He’s got politics.”
“Oh, well,” he said. “That explains it. Say Baldy, you must have had a hell of a time bailing out with that wind pressure with the tail gone.”
“Yes, comrade,” said Baldy.
“How did you feel?”
“I was thinking all the time, comrade.”
“Baldy, how many bailed out of the Junker?”
“Four,” said Baldy, “out of a crew of six. I was sure I’d killed the pilot. I noticed when he quit firing. There’s a co-pilot that’s a gunner too and I’m pretty sure I got him too. I must have because he quit firing too. But maybe it was the heat. Anyhow four came out. Would you like me to describe the scene? I can describe the scene very well.”
He was sitting on the bed now with a large water glass of champagne in his hand and his pink head and pink face were moist with sweat.
“Why doesn’t anyone drink to me?” asked Baldy. “I would like all comrades to drink to me and then I will describe the scene
