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Two policemen with rifles, who had come in off the street patrol, were standing by the door and at this announcement I saw six men form up just like the line-up of a football team coming out of a huddle and head out through the door. Three of them were the men who had first thrown the flit king out. One of them was the man who shot him. They went right through the policemen with the rifles like good interference taking out an end and a tackle. And as they went out one of the policemen got his rifle across the door and shouted, “No one can leave. Absolutely no one.”

“Why did those men go? Why hold us if anyone’s gone?”

“They were mechanics who had to return to their air field,” someone said.

“But if anyone’s gone it’s silly to old the others.”

“Everyone must wait for the Seguridad. Things must be done legally and in order.”

“But don’t you see that if any person has gone it is silly to hold the others?”

“No one can leave. Everyone must wait.”

“It’s comic,” I said to the forceful girl.

“No it’s not. It’s simply horrible.”

We were standing up now and she was staring indignantly at where the flit king was lying. His arms were spread wide and he had one leg drawn up.

“I’m going over to help that poor wounded man. Why has no one helped him or done anything for him?”

“I’d leave him alone,” I said. “You want to keep out of this.”

“But it’s simply inhuman. I’ve nurse’s training and I’m going to give him first aid.”

“I wouldn’t,” I said. “Don’t go near him.”

“Why not?” She was very upset and almost hysterical.

“Because he’s dead,” I said.

When the police came they held everybody there for three hours. They commenced by smelling of all the pistols. In this manner they would detect one which had been fired recently. After about forty pistols they seemed to get bored with this and anyway all you could smell was wet leather coats. Then they sat at a table placed directly behind the late flit king, who lay on the floor looking like a grey wax caricature of himself, with grey wax hands and a grey wax face, and examined people’s papers.

With his shirt ripped open you could see the flit king had no undershirt and the soles of his shoes were worn through. He looked very small and pitiful lying there on the floor. You had to step over him to get to the table where two plain clothes policemen sat and examined everyone’s identification papers. The husband lost and found his papers several times with nervousness. He had a safe conduct pass somewhere but he had mislaid it in a pocket and he kept on searching and perspiring until he found it. Then he would put it in a different pocket and have to go searching again. He perspired heavily while doing this and it made his hair very curly and his face red. He now looked as though he should have not only an old school tie but one of those little caps boys in the lower forms wear. You have heard how events age people. Well, this shooting had made him look about ten years younger.

While we were waiting around I told the forceful girl I thought the whole thing was a pretty good story and that I would write it sometime. The way the six had lined up in single file and rushed that door was very impressive. She was shocked and said that I could not write it because it would be prejudicial to the cause of the Spanish Republic. I said that I had been in Spain for a long time and that they used to have a phenomenal number of shootings in the old days around Valencia under the monarchy, and that for hundreds of years before the Republic people had been cutting each other with large knives called navajas in Andalucia, and that if I saw a comic shooting in Chicote’s during the war I could write about it just as though it had been in New York, Chicago, Key West or Marseilles. It did not have anything to do with politics. She said I shouldn’t. Probably a lot of other people will say I shouldn’t too. The German seemed to think it was a pretty good story, however, and I gave him the last of the Camels. Well, anyway, finally, after about three hours the police said we could go.

They were