“Oh Araquistain invented him. Araquistain who is Ambassador in Paris now. He made him up you know. He called him the Spanish Lenin and then the poor man tried to live up to it and somebody let him look through a pair of field glasses and he thought he was Clausewitz.”

“You said that before,” Al told him coldly. “What do you base it on?”

“Why three days ago in the Cabinet meeting he was talking military affairs. They were talking about this business we’ve got now and Jesus Hernandez, just ribbing him you know, asked him what was the difference between tactics and strategy. Do you know what the old boy said?”

“No,” Al said. I could see this new Comrade was getting a little on his nerves.

“He said, ‘In tactics you attack the enemy from in front. In strategy you take him from the sides.’ Now isn’t that something?”

“You better run along, Comrade,” Al said. “You’re getting so awfully discouraged.”

“But we’ll get rid of Largo Caballero,” the short Comrade said.

“We’ll get rid of him right after his offensive. This last piece of stupidity will be the end of him.”

“O.K. Comrade,” Al told him. “But I’ve got to attack in the morning.”

“Oh you are going to attack again?”

“Listen Comrade. You can tell me any sort of crap you want because it’s interesting and I’m grown up enough to sort things out. But don’t ask me any questions, see? Because you’ll be in trouble.”

“I just meant it personally. Not as information.”

“We don’t know each other well enough to ask personal questions, Comrade,” Al said. “Why don’t you just go to another table and let Comrade Henry and me talk. I want to ask him some things.”

“Salud Comrade,” the little man said, standing up. “We’ll meet another time.”

“Good,” said Al. “Another time.”

We watched him go over to another table. He excused himself, some soldiers made room for him, and as we watched we could see him starting to talk. They all looked interested.

“What do you make of that little guy?” Al asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Me either,” Al said. “He certainly had this offensive sized up.” He took a drink and showed his hand. “See? It’s all right now. I’m not any rummy either. I never take a drink before an attack.”

“How was it today?”

“You saw it. How did it look?”

“Terrible.”

“That’s it. That’s the word for it all right. It was terrible. I guess he’s using strategy and tactics both now because we are attacking from straight in front and from both sides. How’s the rest of it going?”