"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 _degonfler_ and Marty was worried and made wary by him.
It was hard, when Karkov spoke, to remember with what importance he, Andre 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.
Andres had said an _Ingles_.
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.
Andre 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.
Marty laid it beside the dispatch.
"Comrade Corporal," Karkov called in Spanish.