It is doubtful if the outcome of Andrés’s mission would have been any different if he and Gomez had been allowed to proceed without André Marty’s hindrance. There was no one at the front with sufficient authority to cancel the attack. The machinery had been in motion much too long for it to be stopped suddenly now. There is a great inertia about all military operations of any size. But once this inertia has been overcome and movement is under way they are almost as hard to arrest as to initiate.
But on this night the old man, his beret pulled forward, was still sitting at the table with his map when the door opened and Karkov the Russian journalist came in with two other Russians in civilian clothes, leather coats and caps. The corporal of the guard closed the door reluctantly behind them. Karkov had been the first responsible man he had been able to communicate with.
“Tovarich Marty,” said Karkov in his politely disdainful lisping voice and smiled, showing his bad teeth.
Marty stood up. He did not like Karkov, but Karkov, coming from Pravda and in direct communication with Stalin, was at this moment one of the three most important men in Spain.
“Tovarich Karkov,” he said.
“You are preparing the attack?” Karkov said insolently, nodding toward the map.
“I am studying it,” Marty answered.
“Are you attacking? Or is it Golz?” Karkov asked smoothly.
“I am only a commissar, as you know,” Marty told him.
“No,” Karkov said. “You are modest. You are really a general. You have your map and your field glasses. But were you not an admiral once, Comrade Marty?”
“I was a gunner’s mate,” said Marty. It was a lie. He had really been a chief yeoman at the time of the mutiny. But he thought now, always, that he had been a gunner’s mate.
“Ah. I thought you were a first-class yeoman,” Karkov said. “I always get my facts wrong. It is the mark of the journalist.”
The other Russians had taken no part in the conversation. They were both looking over Marty’s shoulder at the map and occasionally making a remark to each other in their own language. Marty and Karkov spoke French after the first greeting.
“It is better not to get facts wrong in Pravda,” Marty said. He said it brusquely to build himself up again. Karkov always punctured him. The French word is dégonfler and Marty was worried and made wary by him. It was hard, when Karkov spoke, to remember with what importance he, André Marty, came from the Central Committee of the French Communist Party. It was hard to remember, too, that he was untouchable. Karkov seemed always to touch him so lightly and whenever he wished. Now Karkov said, “I usually correct them before I send them to Pravda, I am quite accurate in Pravda. Tell me, Comrade Marty, have you heard anything of any message coming through for Golz from one of our partizan groups operating toward Segovia? There is an American comrade there named Jordan that we should have heard from. There have been reports of fighting there behind the fascist lines. He would have sent a message through to Golz.”
“An American?” Marty asked. Andrés had said an Inglés. So that is what it was. So he had been mistaken. Why had those fools spoken to him anyway?”
“Yes,” Karkov looked at him contemptuously, “a young American of slight political development but a great way with the Spaniards and a fine partizan record. Just give me the dispatch, Comrade Marty. It has been delayed enough.”
“What dispatch?” Marty asked. It was a very stupid thing to say and he knew it. But he was not able to admit he was wrong that quickly and he said it anyway to delay the moment of humiliation, not accepting any humiliation. “And the safe-conduct pass,” Karkov said through his bad teeth.
André Marty put his hand in his pocket and laid the dispatch on the table. He looked Karkov squarely in the eye. All right. He was wrong and there was nothing he could do about it now but he was not accepting any humiliation. “And the safe-conduct pass,” Karkov said softly.