“Cogswell. Tracy Cogswell.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say, so he said the usual. “Where you from, Dan?”
“Winnipeg.”
“Where’s Winnipeg?”
“Manitoba. It’s the capital of Manitoba.”
Tracy said, “I’m sorry. Where’s Manitoba?”
The other laughed. “You Yanks,” he said derisively. “I’ll bet you don’t even know what the capital of Canada is. The closest country to you and you know practically nothing about it.”
Tracy was glad to have the opportunity to talk, to put his thoughts on something other than impending death. He said, defensively, “It’s, uh, Toronto.”
Whiteley laughed again. “It’s Ottawa. The capital of the United States is Washington. Your president’s name is Franklin Roosevelt. I’ll bet you don’t know our premier’s name. Where do you come from?”
Tracy had him now, to his satisfaction. “Cross Plains,” he said.
“Indiana?”
“I’ll be damned. How did you know? The population can’t be more than two or three hundred, counting cows.”
The other laughed again, pleased with himself. “Pure chance. I drove through there a year or so ago, heading east to New York, and stopped off to see an old character named Wooley who had raised the biggest steer in North America. It was big as a barn.”
“I’ll be damned,” Tracy said. “I knew Lon Wooley. But my family moved to Cincinnati when I was a kid.”
Dan Whiteley indicated the man at his right with a thumb. “This is my brother, Bud. Hey, Buddy, meet Tracy Cogswell.”
Bud had been dozing, swaying gently to the monotonous movement of the troop carrier. If he hadn’t been packed in so tight between his brother and the man to his right, he undoubtedly would have fallen to the truck floor, or, at least, onto the men seated there.
He said, sleepily, “Hi.”
Dan said, “Bud’s a bit hung over. It got a little drunk out yesterday, when we found out about this push.”
Tracy looked over. Bud Whiteley was possibly nineteen or twenty, considerably shorter than his brother, and heftier. His face was just now slack but Tracy suspected that even under the best of conditions it wasn’t exactly intellectual. Easygoing would have been the better term. His ears stuck out like those of Bing Crosby. Tracy had read somewhere that they had to tape Crosby’s ears down when he was in a movie, especially in a romantic scene. Dan Whiteley, on the other hand, looked more like Gary Cooper, back in the days when Cooper was still a kid. What was that old movie he’d played in with Wallace Beery?
Tracy said, “Glad to meet you.”
But Bud Whiteley had dozed off again.
Dan said, “This your first action?”
“Yeah.”
“Whose squad are you in?”
Tracy said, “Damned if I know. I hardly more than got to Madrid than they put me in this truck.”
“Then you’re probably in mine,” the other said. “If not, we’ll make arrangements. Things are pretty informal in the brigades.” Whiteley chuckled again. “Informal, shit. They’re chaotic. At any rate, stick with Buddy and me. The first time you’re under fire is bitchy. It scares the holy blue jazus out of you. Hell, any time you’re under fire is bitchy. I still get scared.”
A staff car came up from behind them, blasting with its Klaxon and flicking its lights off and on to clear the way. For the first time, Tracy could see Whiteley clearly. He was reassured by his appearance and came to the conclusion that he would be a good man to be with when the going scoured.
He said, “You’re a sergeant?”
“That’s right,” Whiteley grinned. “And if the war lasts another year, knock on wood, I hope it doesn’t, I’ll be a damned colonel.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean that at the rate the brigades take casualties, promotion is fast. Anybody who can execute an about-face, and knows what end of the gun a slug issues from, is made a lieutenant.”
“Oh,” Tracy said unhappily. “You’ve already seen quite a bit of combat, eh?”
“Yeah,” Whiteley answered. “But and I have been in it from the first. The first action this battalion saw. It was in the Jarama valley. The fascists wanted to cut the Madrid-to-Valencia road and caught us by surprise. For once, thank God, we had control of the air. The Russkies had brought in a whole slew of Moscas, kind of a Russian version of the American Boeing P32. Our battalion was stationed between Pingarron and San Martin, under that stupid son of a bitch Gal. Man, did we take a beating. We started out with four hundred fifty men and a hundred twenty were killed and a hundred seventy-five wounded. Even at that, we didn’t do as bad as the British Battalion. They started out with six hundred and before the day was through only two hundred twenty-five were left.” He paused a moment before adding, “But the fuckin’ fascists didn’t cut the road.”
Tracy Cogswell hissed between his teeth. With casualty rates like that you had less than a fifty-fifty chance of getting through even a single engagement.
The other grinned again. “I told you promotion was quick in this war. Why? Because we lost practically every officer in the battalion. I went in as a private and came out a corporal.”
He began singing, to the tune of “Red River Valley,” and several of the others joined in.
It was beginning to get light, and Tracy could see his companions better now. Bud Whiteley was shaking himself awake and running a coated tongue over coated lips distastefully.
Tracy looked at Dan Whiteley, taking in the insignia on his sleeve. “Corporal?” he said. “But you’re a sergeant aren’t you?”
Whiteley chuckled again; he was evidently a great one for grins and laughter. “Yeah. I told you I’d wind up a colonel if the war lasted another year. Jarama was in February. In March the Italians decided they’d capture Guadalajara and started out gung-ho with all their speedy Fiat tanks and their Fiat CR thirty-two pursuit planes for air cover. I wish the hell all armies were like the wops. There wouldn’t be any more wars. Their battle cry is, ‘I surrender,’ and as soon as they spot an enemy they give the double fascist salute. Both hands high in the air.”
Tracy had to laugh.
Whiteley continued, “At any rate, we killed off about two thousand of them and wounded something like four thousand and captured quite a few hundred. Then we chased them back a few miles and since we’d taken some casualties ourselves, especially among the noncoms, I wound up a sergeant.”
Bud said sourly, “Now all we have to do is lose a couple of lieutenants.”
Three aircraft, in tight formation, streaked over them, heading up the road.
Tracy’s instinct was to hunch down, expecting bombs or machine gun fire.
But the others looked up without alarm and one of them said, “Russian I-sixteens. The Spanish call them
“We’ll need it,” one of those seated on the floor muttered glumly. “Do you know where we’re going?”
Somebody else snorted and said, “Do you? This is supposed to be some big surprise.”
“Surprise my ass,” the other said. “For the last week they’ve been discussing the big government offensive in every sidewalk cafe in Madrid. Every goddamned fascist in Spain probably knows all about it.”
One of those seated up front near the cab, a big Negro, said, “I heard we were going to take Brunete and roll up the fascists from the rear, all the way to Madrid.”
