Thing to Love Read Free Page A

they’d appoint somebody else and let us get on with training the Division.”
    â€œBut you must admit we should lose a lot of laughs.”
    â€œSalvador, I cannot imagine why you became a soldier.”
    â€œBecause, my General, I am young. And when one is young, one looks for someone to follow, to love and — within reason — to respect. I felt that my devotion to the Managing Director of Transatlantic Insurance and the President of Caribbean Film Distributors, both of whom were eager to reward my ability with sacks of pesos, would be qualified. I therefore decided to remain in the Army.”
    â€œHm, well . . .” said Miro, quite unable to make a proper Latin answer to this merry declaration of devotion. “Well, I’m glad you did.”
    He took the file from Captain Irala and read the remarkable deal of paper which had been created since 6 A.M . that morning: a report of the guard commander; attestations of witnesses; and a letter from the lieutenant colonel of the Presidential Guard overflowing with patriotism and apologies.
    This attempt of a Corporal Menendez to insult the national flag had certainly upset his commanding officer. The splendid andstirring matutinal ceremony had been desecrated, but the Most Excellent General was assured that the Regiment was sound at heart. Menendez had been recruited from the Barracas, and therefore would be a Communist sympathizer if not a member of the Party. In accordance with standing orders, Trumpeter Corporal Menendez was being escorted to the Citadel for preliminary questioning by the garrison commander before proceeding to full interrogation by Military Security and court-martial. The lieutenant colonel again presented his excuses, and assured the general that the guard asked no better than to wipe out with their blood the insult offered to the flag, to the Army of Guayanas, and to the nation.
    It was Vidal’s personal order that within the Garrison of San Vicente all military charges affecting the security of the State should be investigated by the garrison commander. Fiery accusations of subversive activity had in the past too often led to bloodshed or excitable court-martial. It was a tribute to his common sense, Miro supposed, but a damned nuisance all the same. He must really talk to commanding officers in private and tell them that every time a drunken trooper declared his intention of cutting out the guts of the President, or swore — when he couldn’t reassemble his Hotchkiss — that the whole staff kept their whores on bribes from armament manufacturers, they should not consider it a Security case but deal with the offender rudely in the orderly room.
    This, however, was serious. Conviction, under Chap. XII , Subsection D (2), which — as the lieutenant colonel had officiously reminded him — seemed to cover spitting on the flag, could carry the death sentence.
    â€œHow many Communists would you say there are in Guayanas?” he asked his A.D.C.
    â€œThe police figures are fourteen thousand.”
    â€œOh, the police!” Miro exclaimed contemptuously. “What’s your own opinion?”
    â€œTwelve hundred, my General,” replied Irala promptly.
    Miro looked up with a swift smile which invited his A.D.C. to go further.
    â€œSeven hundred,” said the captain, “are Negroes of the port who have got Marx mixed up with the millennium. Fifty are students at the university. It started when my brother threw a tomato at the Vice President of the United States. Why not? After all, you don’t get a chance to throw tomatoes at the United States very often. Then he got two hundred thousand pesos from Moscow just as an advance. They spent half of it on parties and the other half financed the teachers’ strike. There were some honeys among those teachers. My brother thought it would do them a world of good to have a couple of weeks off. But the damned fools couldn’t keep