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This second-to-last chapter drives home the incompetence and
futility that have characterized the cause for which Robert Jordan
is risking his life and his newly discovered future with Maria.
The Republican offensive is moving through the night in one
direction as Gomez carries Andres on his motorcycle in the other
direction toward headquarters. Hemingway paints a scene like a
slapstick sequence from an old silent movie. One truck rams into the
rear of another at a control point, creating a massive bottleneck.
Truck after truck in the convoy pulls up and stops so close to the one
in front of it that none can move, and the smashed vehicle in the
original accident can\'t be removed from the road. An officer tries
to run to the end of the line to tell the last truck to back up- but
trucks keep arriving faster than he can run, and the end of the line
moves farther away from him.
The mighty Republican army is on the move, so to speak. Its big
top-secret offensive is getting in gear!
But Andres rides past this ridiculous confusion in childlike hero
worship. \"Look at the army that has been builded!\" he thinks
exultantly to himself.
Finally, after some more delays, they arrive at headquarters. Just
then a staff car pulls up and out of it steps a man whom Gomez
recognizes: the famous Andre Marty! This legendary leader will
certainly get the message through to Golz without any more red tape.
So Gomez thinks as Marty reads the dispatch.
Instead, Marty has them arrested.
What Gomez doesn\'t know is that the great Comrade Marty has become
an incompetent shell of a leader. He is inclined to execute people
he thinks are traitors. Even the corporal refers to Andre Marty as
\"the crazy.\"
Hemingway gives us a brilliant picture of the tortured reasoning
in what\'s left of Andre Marty\'s mind. Marty decides from their story
that Golz is a traitor and that this is really a fascist
communication.
We learn later that Marty often doesn\'t even understand the war maps
he \"studies.\" He simply points a finger and gives directions. His
puppets agree and dispatch troops to their death carrying out his
militarily absurd orders.
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NOTE: ANDRE MARTY Marty was a real historical character, a French
communist who commanded the International Brigades in the Spanish
Civil War. Hemingway felt contempt for him in real life and paints him
as uncomplimentarily as possible in For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Many people agreed with Hemingway\'s opinion of Marty. But not all.
After For Whom the Bell Tolls was published, an open letter to
Hemingway bearing several signatures accused him of libeling Marty
(and La Pasionaria). It didn\'t, of course, change Hemingway\'s opinion.
He wrote a particularly bitter reply to one of the signers saying,
\"You have your Marty [Andre Marty] and I\'ve married my Marty [Martha
Gellhorn, his third wife and a noted writer] and we\'ll see who does
the most for the world in the end.\"
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Karkov, the Soviet journalist, shows up (through the efforts of
the corporal) to save Gomez and Andre. There\'s a dramatic battle of
words (and relative status) between Karkov and Marty, but the Soviet
is one of the few people not intimidated by the supposedly legendary
figure.
Karkov wins. Gomez and Andres are released. It\'s nearing daybreak
now.
Jordan\'s dispatch goes to Duval, Golz\'s chief of staff, but he
doesn\'t have sufficient authority or information to cancel the attack.
However, he doesn\'t want to send men to their death if the offensive
is expected by the enemy. Finally, he is able to contact Golz and
transmit Jordan\'s message. Now you learn the truth. The attack is
not a holding action. It\'s the real thing.
But the huge offensive the Republic has mounted will find no
targets. The enemy won\'t be where they were supposed to be. They\'ve
heard. They\'ve gone from the slopes and the ridges. Instead they\'ll be
waiting for the attackers.
But nothing can stop the orders. There will be tragedy... and many
dead Loyalist soldiers.
Golz, in the very moment he receives the news, looks up at his
planes beginning the unstoppable, futile, destined-to-be disastrous
attack. He sees his thundering, silvery-gleaming power streaking
across the sky, and he\'s proud of how it could and should have been.
Hemingway has spent a great deal of time leading up to the
following, final chapter. In it, Robert Jordan and a makeshift band of
peasant volunteers will attempt to blow up a bridge behind enemy
lines.
Before you read or reread this final chapter, think of how Hemingway
has prepared you for it. How is it different from the climax of
other war and/or adventure stories you have read? What\'s at stake in
this story besides the victory in a test of military expertise?
Are you resentful that Jordan has to do this at all? Do you wish you
could call out to him and say, \"Stop! It isn\'t worth it!\"? Are you
angry that Jordan is still doggedly pursuing his \"duty,\" even though
it now seems a waste? Or do you feel that he put himself in the
situation, so it\'s his problem and he must accept whatever happens? In
either case, do you see his actions as noble and honorable?
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