“I don’t want to have to talk to them. I’m too tired.”

“There’s the two Moor girls from Ceuta at that corner table.”

He looked over at them. They were both dark and bushy headed. One was large and one was small and they certainly both looked strong and active.

“No,” said Al. “I’m going to see plenty Moors tomorrow without having to fool with them tonight.”

“There’s plenty of girls,” I said. “Manolita’s at the Florida. That Seguridad bird she lives with has gone to Valencia and she’s being true to him with everybody.”

“Listen, Hank, what are you trying to promote me?”

“I just wanted to cheer you up.”

“Grow up,” he said. “What’s one more?”

“One more.”

“I don’t mind dying a bit,” he said. “Dying is just a lot of crap. Only it’s wasteful. The attack is wrong and it’s wasteful. I can handle tanks good now. If I had time I could make good tankists too. And if we had tanks that were a little bit faster the anti-tanks wouldn’t bother them the way it does when you haven’t got the mobility. Listen, Hank, they aren’t what we thought they were though: Do you remember when everybody thought if we only had tanks?”

“They were good at Guadalajara.”

“Sure. But those were the old boys. They were soldiers. And it was against Italians.”

“But what’s happened?”

“A lot of things. The mercenaries signed up for six months. Most of them were Frenchmen. They soldiered good for five but now all they want to do is live through the last month and go home. They aren’t worth a damn now. The Russians that came out as demonstrators when the government bought the tanks were perfect. But they’re pulling them back now for China they say. The new Spaniards are some of them good and some not. It takes six months to make a good tank man, I mean to know anything. And be able to size up and work intelligently you have to have a talent. We’ve been having to make them in six weeks and there aren’t so many with a talent.”

“They make fine flyers.”

“They’ll make fine tank guys too. But you have to get the ones with a vocation for it. It’s sort of like being a priest. You have to be cut out for it. Especially now they’ve got so much anti-tank.”

They had pulled down the shutters in Chicote’s and now they were locking the door. No one would be allowed in now. But you had a half an hour more before they closed.