And he had pulled the heavy side door to with a slam and locked it and they had started down that long slope in the car and the bullets had commenced to hit against the car, sounding like pebbles tossed against an iron boiler.
Then when the machine gun opened on them, they were like sharp hammer tappings.
They had pulled up behind the shelter of the bull ring with the last October posters still pasted up beside the ticket window and the ammunition boxes knocked open and the comrades with the rifles, the grenades on their belts and in their pockets, waiting there in the lee and Montero had said,
"Good.
Here is the tank.
Now we can attack."
Later that night when they had the last houses on the hill, he lay comfortable behind a brick wall with a hole knocked in the bricks for a loophole and looked across the beautiful level field of fire they had between them and the ridge the fascists had retired to and thought, with a comfort that was almost voluptuous, of the rise of the hill with the smashed villa that protected the left flank.
He had lain in a pile of straw in his sweat-soaked clothes and wound a blanket around him while he dried.
Lying there he thought of the economist and laughed, and then felt sorry he had been rude.
But at the moment, when the man had handed him the cigarette, pushing it out almost like offering a tip for information, the combatant's hatred for the noncombatant had been too much for him.
Now he remembered Gaylord's and Karkov speaking of this same man.
"So it was there you met him," Karkov had said.
"I did not get farther than the Puente de Toledo myself on that day.
He was very far toward the front.
That was the last day of his bravery I believe.
He left Madrid the next day.
Toledo was where he was the bravest, I believe.
At Toledo he was enormous.
He was one of the architects of our capture of the Alcazar.
You should have seen him at Toledo.
I believe it was largely through his efforts and his advice that our siege was successful.
That was the silliest part of the war.
It reached an ultimate in silliness but tell me, what is thought of him in America?"
"In America," Robert Jordan said, "he is supposed to be very close to Moscow."
"He is not," said Karkov.
"But he has a wonderful face and his face and his manners are very successful.
Now with my face I could do nothing.
What little I have accomplished was all done in spite of my face which does not either inspire people nor move them to love me and to trust me.
But this man Mitchell has a face he makes his fortune with.
It is the face of a conspirator.
All who have read of conspirators in books trust him instantly.
Also he has the true manner of the conspirator.
Any one seeing him enter a room knows that he is instantly in the presence of a conspirator of the first mark.
All of your rich compatriots who wish sentimentally to aid the Soviet Union as they believe or to insure themselves a little against any eventual success of the party see instantly in the face of this man, and in his manner that he can be none other than a trusted agent of the Comintern."
"Has he no connections in Moscow?"
"None.
Listen, Comrade Jordan.
Do you know about the two kinds of fools?"
"Plain and damn?"
"No.
The two kinds of fools we have in Russia," Karkov grinned and began. "First there is the winter fool.
The winter fool comes to the door of your house and he knocks loudly.
You go to the door and you see him there and you have never seen him before.
He is an impressive sight.
He is a very big man and he has on high boots and a fur coat and a fur hat and he is all covered with snow.
First he stamps his boots and snow falls from them.
Then he takes off his fur coat and shakes it and more snow falls.
Then he takes off his fur hat and knocks it against the door.
More snow falls from his fur hat.
Then he stamps his boots again and advances into the room.