Well, today will be very interesting or very dull. Thank God we've got that cavalry mount out and away from here. I don't think even if they ride right up here they will go in the way those tracks are now. They'll think he stopped and circled and they'll pick up Pablo's tracks. I wonder where the old swine will go. He'll probably leave tracks like an old bull elk spooking out of the country and work way up and then when the snow melts circle back below. That horse certainly did things for him. Of course he may have just mucked off with him too. Well, he should be able to take care of himself. He's been doing this a long time. I wouldn't trust him farther than you can throw Mount Everest, though.
I suppose it's smarter to use these rocks and build a good blind for this gun than to make a proper emplacement for it. You'd be digging and get caught with your pants down if they come or if the planes come. She will hold this, the way she is, as long as it is any use to hold it, and anyway I can't stay to fight. I have to get out of here with that stuff and I'm going to take Anselmo with me. Who would stay to cover us while we got away if we have to fight here?
Just then, while he was watching all of the country that was visible, he saw the gypsy coming through the rocks to the left. He was walking with a loose, high-hipped, sloppy swing, his carbine was slung on his back, his brown face was grinning and he carried two big hares, one in each hand. He carried them by the legs, heads swinging.
"Hola, Roberto," he called cheerfully.
Robert Jordan put his hand to his mouth, and the gypsy looked startled. He slid over behind the rocks to where Robert Jordan was crouched beside the brush-shielded automatic rifle. He crouched down and laid the hares in the snow. Robert Jordan looked up at him.
"You hijo de la gran puta!" he said softly. "Where the obscenity have you been?"
"I tracked them," the gypsy said. "I got them both. They had made love in the snow."
"And thy post?"
"It was not for long," the gypsy whispered. "What passes? Is there an alarm?"
"There is cavalry out."
"Redios!" the gypsy said. "Hast thou seen them?"
"There is one at the camp now," Robert Jordan said. "He came for breakfast."
"I thought I heard a shot or something like one," the gypsy said. "I obscenity in the milk! Did he come through here?"
"Here. Thy post."
"Ay, mi madre!" the gypsy said. "I am a poor, unlucky man."
"If thou wert not a gypsy, I would shoot thee."
"No, Roberto. Don't say that. I am sorry. It was the hares. Before daylight I heard the male thumping in the snow. You cannot imagine what a debauch they were engaged in. I went toward the noise but they were gone. I followed the tracks in the snow and high up I found them together and slew them both. Feel the fatness of the two for this time of year. Think what the Pilar will do with those two. I am sorry, Roberto, as sorry as thee. Was the cavalryman killed?"
"Yes."
"By thee?"
"Yes."
"Que tio!" the gypsy said in open flattery. "Thou art a veritable phenomenon."
"Thy mother!" Robert Jordan said. He could not help grinning at the gypsy. "Take thy hares to camp and bring us up some breakfast."
He put a hand out and felt of the hares that lay limp, long, heavy, thick-furred, big-footed and long-eared in the snow, their round dark eyes open.
"They are fat," he said.
"Fat!" the gypsy said. "There's a tub of lard on the ribs of each one. In my life have I never dreamed of such hares."
"Go then," Robert Jordan said, "and come quickly with the breakfast and bring to me the documentation of that requete. Ask Pilar for it."
"You are not angry with me, Roberto?"
"Not angry. Disgusted that you should leave your post. Suppose it had been a troop of cavalry?"
"Redios," the gypsy said. "How reasonable you are."
"Listen to me. You cannot leave a post again like that. Never. I do not speak of shooting lightly."
"Of course not. And another thing. Never would such an opportunity as the two hares present itself again. Not in the life of one man."
"Anda!" Robert Jordan said. "And hurry back."
The gypsy picked up the two hares and slipped back through the rocks and Robert Jordan looked out across the flat opening and the slopes of the hill below. Two crows circled overhead and then lit in a pine tree below. Another crow joined them and Robert Jordan, watching them, thought: those are my sentinels. As long as those are quiet there is no one coming through the trees.
The gypsy, he thought. He is truly worthless. He has no political development, nor any discipline, and you could not rely on him for anything. But I need him for tomorrow. I have a use for him tomorrow. It's odd to see a gypsy in a war. They should be exempted like conscientious objectors. Or as the physically and mentally unfit. They are worthless. But conscientious objectors weren't exempted in this war. No one was exempted. It came to one and all alike. Well, it had come here now to this lazy outfit. They had it now.
Agustin and Primitivo came up with the brush and Robert Jordan built a good blind for the automatic rifle, a blind that would conceal the gun from the air and that would look natural from the forest. He showed them where to place a man high in the rocks to the right where he could see all the country below and to the right, and another where he could command the only stretch where the left wall might be climbed.
"Do not fire if you see any one from there," Robert Jordan said. "Roll a rock down as a warning, a small rock, and signal to us with thy rifle, thus," he lifted the rifle and held it over his head as though guarding it. "Thus for numbers," he lifted the rifle up and down. "If they are dismounted point thy rifle muzzle at the ground. Thus. Do not fire from there until thou hearest the maquina fire. Shoot at a man's knees when you shoot from that height. If you hear me whistle twice on this whistle get down, keeping behind cover, and come to these rocks where the maquina is."
Primitivo raised the rifle.
"I understand," he said. "It is very simple."
"Send first the small rock as a warning and indicate the direction and the number. See that you are not seen."
"Yes," Primitivo said. "If I can throw a grenade?"
"Not until the maquina has spoken. It may be that cavalry will come searching for their comrade and still not try to enter. They may follow the tracks of Pablo. We do not want combat if it can be avoided. Above all that we should avoid it. Now get up there."
"Me voy," Primitivo said, and climbed up into the high rocks with his carbine.
"Thou, Agustin," Robert Jordan said. "What do you know of the gun?"
Agustin squatted there, tall, black, stubbly joweled, with his sunken eyes and thin mouth and his big work-worn hands.
"Pues, to load it. To aim it. To shoot it. Nothing more."
"You must not fire until they are within fifty meters and only when you are sure they will be coming into the pass which leads to the cave," Robert Jordan said.
"Yes. How far is that?"
"That rock."
"If there is an officer shoot him first. Then move the gun onto the others. Move very slowly. It takes little movement. I will teach Fernando to tap it. Hold it tight so that it does not jump and sight carefully and do not fire more than six shots at a time if you can help it. For the fire of the gun jumps upward. But each time fire at one man and then move from him to another. At a man on a horse, shoot at his belly."
"Yes."
"One man should hold the tripod still so that the gun does not jump. Thus. He will load the gun for thee."
"And where will you be?"
"I will be here on the left. Above, where I can see all and I will cover thy left with this small maquina. Here. If they should come it would be possible to make a massacre. But you must not fire until they are that close."
"I believe that we could make a massacre. Menuda matanza!"
"But I hope they do not come."
"If it were not for thy bridge we could make a massacre here and get out."
"It would avail nothing. That would serve no purpose. The bridge is a part of a plan to win the war. This would be nothing. This would be an incident. A nothing."
"Que va, nothing. Every fascist dead is a fascist less."
"Yes. But with this of the bridge we can take Segovia. The Capital of a Province. Think of that. It will be the first one we will take."
"Thou believest in this seriously? That we can take Segovia?"
"Yes. It is possible with the bridge blown correctly."
"I would like to have the massacre here and the bridge, too."
"Thou hast much appetite," Robert Jordan told him.
All this time he had been watching the crows. Now he saw one was watching something. The bird cawed and flew up. But the other crow still stayed in the tree. Robert Jordan looked up toward Primitivo's place high in the rocks. He saw him watching out over the country below but he made no signal. Robert Jordan leaned forward and worked the lock on the automatic rifle, saw the round in the chamber and let the lock down. The crow was still there in the tree. The other circled wide over the snow and then settled again. In the sun and the warm wind the snow was falling from the laden branches of the pines.
"I have a massacre for thee for tomorrow morning," Robert Jordan said. "It is necessary to exterminate the post at the sawmill."
"I am ready," Agustin said, "Estoy listo."
"Also the post at the roadmender's hut below the bridge."
"For the one or for the other," Agustin said. "Or for both."
"Not for both. They will be done at the same time," Robert Jordan said.
"Then for either one," Agustin said. "Now for a long time have I wished for action in this war. Pablo has rotted us here with inaction."
Anselmo came up with the ax.
"Do you wish more branches?" he asked. "To me it seems well hidden."
"Not branches," Robert Jordan said. "Two small trees that we can plant here and there to make it look more natural. There are not enough trees here for it to be truly natural."
"I will bring them."
"Cut them well back, so the stumps cannot be seen."
Robert Jordan heard the ax sounding in the woods behind him. He looked up at Primitivo above in the rocks and he looked down at the pines across the clearing. The one crow was still there. Then he heard the first high, throbbing murmur of a plane coming. He looked up and saw it high and tiny and silver in the sun, seeming hardly to move in the high sky.
"They cannot see us," he said to Agustin. "But it is well to keep down. That is the second observation plane today."
"And those of yesterday?" Agustin asked.
"They are like a bad dream now," Robert Jordan said.
"They must be at Segovia. The bad dream waits there to become a reality."
The plane was out of sight now over the mountains but the sound of its motors still persisted.
As Robert Jordan looked, he saw the crow fly up. He flew straight away through the trees without cawing.
23
"Get thee down," Robert Jordan whispered to Agustin, and he turned his head and flicked his hand Down, Down, to Anselmo who was coming through the gap with a pine tree, carrying it over his shoulder like a Christmas tree. He saw the old man drop his pine tree behind a rock and then he was out of sight in the rocks and Robert Jordan was looking ahead across the open space toward the timber. He saw nothing and heard nothing but he could feel his heart pounding and then he heard the clack of stone on stone and the leaping, dropping clicks of a small rock falling. He turned his head to the right and looking up saw Primitivo's rifle raised and lowered four times horizontally. Then there was nothing more to see but the white stretch in front of him with the circle of horse tracks and the timber beyond.
"Cavalry," he said softly to Agustin.
Agustin looked at him and his dark, sunken cheeks widened at their base as he grinned. Robert Jordan noticed he was sweating. He reached over and put his hand on his shoulder. His hand was still there as they saw the four horsemen ride out of the timber and he felt the muscles in Agustin's back twitch under his hand.
One horseman was ahead and three rode behind. The one ahead was following the horse tracks. He looked down as he rode. The other three came behind him, fanned out through the timber. They were all watching carefully. Robert Jordan felt his heart beating against the snowy ground as he lay, his elbows spread wide and watched them over the sights of the automatic rifle.
The man who was leading rode along the trail to where Pablo had circled and stopped. The others rode up to him and they all stopped.
Robert Jordan saw them clearly over the blued steel barrel of the automatic rifle. He saw the faces of the men, the sabers hanging, the sweat-darkened flanks of the horses, and the cone-like slope of the khaki capes, and the Navarrese slant of the khaki berets. The leader turned his horse directly toward the opening in the rocks where the gun was placed and Robert Jordan saw his young, sun-and wind-darkened face, his close-set eyes, hawk nose and the over-long wedge-shaped chin.
Sitting his horse there, the horse's chest toward Robert Jordan, the horse's head high, the butt of the light automatic rifle projecting forward from the scabbard at the right of the saddle, the leader pointed toward the opening where the gun was.
Robert Jordan sunk his elbows into the ground and looked along the barrel at the four riders stopped there in the snow. Three of them had their automatic rifles out. Two carried them across the pommels of their saddles. The other sat his horse with the rifle swung out to the right, the butt resting against his hip.
You hardly ever see them at such range, he thought. Not along the barrel of one of these do you see them like this. Usually the rear sight is raised and they seem miniatures of men and you have hell to make it carry up there; or they come running, flopping, running, and you beat a slope with fire or bar a certain street, or keep it on the windows; or far away you see them marching on a road. Only at the trains do you see them like this. Only then are they like now, and with four of these you can make them scatter. Over the gun sights, at this range, it makes them twice the size of men.
Thou, he thought, looking at the wedge of the front sight placed now firm in the slot of the rear sight, the top of the wedge against the center of the leader's chest, a little to the right of the scarlet device that showed bright in the morning sun against the khaki cape. Though, he thought, thinking in Spanish now and pressing his fingers forward against the trigger guard to keep it away from where it would bring the quick, shocking, hurtling rush from the automatic rifle. Thou, he thought again, thou art dead now in thy youth. And thou, he thought, and thou, and thou. But let it not happen. Do not let it happen.
He felt Agustin beside him start to cough, felt him hold it, choke and swallow. Then as he looked along the oiled blue of the barrel out through the opening between the branches, his finger still pressed forward against the trigger guard, he saw the leader turn his horse and point into the timber where Pablo's trail led. The four of them trotted into the timber and Agustin said softly, "Cabrones!"
Robert Jordan looked behind him at the rocks where Anselmo had dropped the tree.
The gypsy, Rafael, was coming toward them through the rocks, carrying a pair of cloth saddlebags, his rifle slung on his back. Robert Jordan waved him down and the gypsy ducked out of sight.
"We could have killed all four," Agustin said quietly. He was still wet with sweat.
"Yes," Robert Jordan whispered. "But with the firing who knows what might have come?"
Just then he heard the noise of another rock falling and he looked around quickly. But both the gypsy and Anselmo were out of sight. He looked at his wrist watch and then up to where Primitivo was raising and lowering his rifle in what seemed an infinity of short jerks. Pablo has forty-five minutes' start, Robert Jordan thought, and then he heard the noise of a body of cavalry coming.
"No te apures," he whispered to Agustin. "Do not worry. They will pass as the others."
They c
ame into sight trotting along the edge of the timber in column of twos, twenty mounted men, armed and uniformed as the others had been, their sabers swinging, their carbines in their holsters; and then they went down into the timber as the others had.
"Tu ves?" Robert Jordan said to Agustin. "Thou seest?"
"There were many," Agustin said.
"These would we have had to deal with if we had destroyed the others," Robert Jordan said very softly. His heart had quieted now and his shirt felt wet on his chest from the melting snow. There was a hollow feeling in his chest.
The sun was bright on the snow and it was melting fast. He could see it hollowing away from the tree trunks and just ahead of the gun, before his eyes, the snow surface was damp and lacily fragile as the heat of the sun melted the top and the warmth of the earth breathed warmly up at the snow that lay upon it.
Robert Jordan looked up at Primitivo's post and saw him signal, "Nothing," crossing his two hands, palms down.
Anselmo's head showed above a rock and Robert Jordan motioned him up. The old man slipped from rock to rock until he crept up and lay down flat beside the gun.
"Many," he said. "Many!"
"I do not need the trees," Robert Jordan said to him. "There is no need for further forestal improvement."
Both Anselmo and Agustin grinned.
"This has stood scrutiny well and it would be dangerous to plant trees now because those people will return and perhaps they are not stupid."
He felt the need to talk that, with him, was the sign that there had just been much danger. He could always tell how bad it had been by the strength of the desire to talk that came after.
"It was a good blind, eh?" he said.
"Good," said Agustin. "To obscenity with all fascism good. We could have killed the four of them. Didst thou see?" he said to Anselmo.
"I saw."
"Thou," Robert Jordan said to Anselmo. "Thou must go to the post of yesterday or another good post of thy selection to watch the road and report on all movement as of yesterday. Already we are late in that. Stay until dark. Then come in and we will send another."