“What happened to your cap, Captain?” Martín asked, pointing to O’Reilley’s head.
“It blew off in the truck, mi General.”
“Perhaps you should have put it on more carefully. An officer should always be in proper uniform. What were you doing in the back of the truck, Captain?”
“The gendarmes put me there,” O’Reilley said indignantly. “Mi General, may I have a word with you in private?”
Martín considered that a moment.
“Why not?” he said finally. “Put him back in the truck and take him to the officers’ mess.”
O’Reilley saluted again and started to shuffle back to the truck. Nervo gestured to two gendarmes, who then caught up with O’Reilley, picked him up, carried him to the pickup, lowered the tailgate, and sat him in the bed, with his feet dangling.
When the truck was halfway across the lawn and O’Reilley out of earshot, Frade asked, “What are you up to, Bernardo?”
“To quote you, ‘I’m playing this by ear,’” Martín said. “Garcia, have you got that copy of La Nacíon?”
“In my room,” Garcia said.
“Please get it and then join us in the mess,” Martín said. “‘Us’ being Generals Nolasco and Nervo, plus Don Cletus . . . and Subteniente Cronley and Father Welner, now that I think about it.”
“You sure you want to walk—hobble—all the way over there on your crutches?” Frade asked.
“Think about it, Cletus,” Martín said. “Only a cretin would want to. One does what one must.”
He began lurching across the lawn, and the others followed.
[EIGHT]
Captain O’Reilley had been installed in a chair facing the “senior officers” table in the mess.
If that table wasn’t loaded with the stuff I brought from Kloster Grünau, Cronley thought, it would look like this room had been set up for a court-martial.
All that’s missing is an American flag, a Bible, and the Manual for Courts-Martial 1928.
And a couple of MPs.
When Martín waved everybody into chairs at the table, Jimmy started to put the material in stacks.
O’Reilley stood.
“With respect, mi General, I asked for a moment of your time in private.”
“I remember,” Martín said. “Perhaps a little later. You may stand if you wish, but you have my permission to sit.”
O’Reilley sat down.
“Frankly, O’Reilley, you puzzle me,” Martín then said. “I really can’t understand how an officer like you, with a fine record and a career to look forward to, got involved in something shameful like this.”
“With respect, mi General, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The next time you lie to me, Captain,” Martín said conversationally, “one of General Nervo’s gendarmes will smash your left hand with his truncheon. If you’re unwilling to tell me the truth, it would behoove you to say nothing.”
He let that sink in for a moment.
“Is this the first time you’ve actually seen Don Cletus, O’Reilley?”
“No, sir.”