"But the tracks that I will make?"
"Go from below as soon as the snow is gone. The road will be muddied by the snow. Note if there has been much traffic of trucks or if there are tank tracks in the softness on the road. That is all we can tell until you are there to observe."
"With your permission?" the old man asked.
"Surely."
"With your permission, would it not be better for me to go into La Granja and inquire there what passed last night and arrange for one to observe today thus in the manner you have taught me? Such a one could report tonight or, better, I could go again to La Granja for the report."
"Have you no fear of encountering cavalry?"
"Not when the snow is gone."
"Is there some one in La Granja capable of this?"
"Yes. Of this, yes. It would be a woman. There are various women of trust in La Granja."
"I believe it," Agustin said. "More, I know it, and several who serve for other purposes. You do not wish me to go?"
"Let the old man go. You understand this gun and the day is not over."
"I will go when the snow melts," Anselmo said. "And the snow is melting fast."
"What think you of their chance of catching Pablo?" Robert Jordan asked Agustin.
"Pablo is smart," Agustin said. "Do men catch a wise stag without hounds?"
"Sometimes," Robert Jordan said.
"Not Pablo," Agustin said. "Clearly, he is only a garbage of what he once was. But it is not for nothing that he is alive and comfortable in these hills and able to drink himself to death while there are so many others that have died against a wall."
"Is he as smart as they say?"
"He is much smarter."
"He has not seemed of great ability here."
"Como que no? If he were not of great ability he would have died last night. It seems to me you do not understand politics, Ingles, nor guerilla warfare. In politics and this other the first thing is to continue to exist. Look how he continued to exist last night. And the quantity of dung he ate both from me and from thee."
Now that Pablo was back in the movements of the unit, Robert Jordan did not wish to talk against him and as soon as he had uttered it he regretted saying the thing about his ability. He knew himself how smart Pablo was. It was Pablo who had seen instantly all that was wrong with the orders for the destruction of the bridge. He had made the remark only from dislike and he knew as he made it that it was wrong. It was part of the talking too much after a strain. So now he dropped the matter and said to Anselmo, "And to go into La Granja in daylight?"
"It is not bad," the old man said. "I will not go with a military band."
"Nor with a bell around his neck," Agustin said. "Nor carrying a banner."
"How will you go?"
"Above and down through the forest."
"But if they pick you up."
"I have papers."
"So have we all but thou must eat the wrong ones quickly."
Anselmo shook his head and tapped the breast pocket of his smock.
"How many times have I contemplated that," he said. "And never did I like to swallow paper."
"I have thought we should carry a little mustard on them all," Robert Jordan said. "In my left breast pocket I carry our papers. In my right the fascist papers. Thus one does not make a mistake in an emergency."
It must have been bad enough when the leader of the first patrol of cavalry had pointed toward the entry because they were all talking very much. Too much, Robert Jordan thought.
"But look, Roberto," Agustin said. "They say the government moves further to the right each day. That in the Republic they no longer say Comrade but Senor and Senora. Canst shift thy pockets?"
"When it moves far enough to the right I will carry them in my hip pocket," Robert Jordan said, "and sew it in the center."
"That they should stay in thy shirt," Agustin said. "Are we to win this war and lose the revolution?"
"Nay," Robert Jordan said. "But if we do not win this war there will be no revolution nor any Republic nor any thou nor any me nor anything but the most grand carajo."
"So say I," Anselmo said. "That we should win the war."
"And afterwards shoot the anarchists and the Communists and all this canalla except the good Republicans," Agustin said.
"That we should win this war and shoot nobody," Anselmo said. "That we should govern justly and that all should participate in the benefits according as they have striven for them. And that those who have fought against us should be educated to see their error."
"We will have to shoot many," Agustin said. "Many, many, many."
He thumped his closed right fist against the palm of his left hand.
"That we should shoot none. Not even the leaders. That they should be reformed by work."
"I know the work I'd put them at," Agustin said, and he picked up some snow and put it in his mouth.
"What, bad one?" Robert Jordan asked.
"Two trades of the utmost brilliance."
"They are?"
Agustin put some more snow in his mouth and looked across the clearing where the cavalry had ridden. Then he spat the melted snow out. "Vaya. What a breakfast," he said. "Where is the filthy gypsy?"
"What trades?" Robert Jordan asked him. "Speak, bad mouth."
"Jumping from planes without parachutes," Agustin said, and his eyes shone. "That for those that we care for. And being nailed to the tops of fence posts to be pushed over backwards for the others."
"That way of speaking is ignoble," Anselmo said. "Thus we will never have a Republic."
"I would like to swim ten leagues in a strong soup made from the cojones of all of them," Agustin said. "And when I saw those four there and thought that we might kill them I was like a mare in the corral waiting for the stallion."
"You know why we did not kill them, though?" Robert Jordan said quietly.
"Yes," Agustin said. "Yes. But the necessity was on me as it is on a mare in heat. You cannot know what it is if you have not felt it."
"You sweated enough," Robert Jordan said. "I thought it was fear."
"Fear, yes," Agustin said. "Fear and the other. And in this life there is no stronger thing than the other."
Yes, Robert Jordan thought. We do it coldly but they do not, nor ever have. It is their extra sacrament. Their old one that they had before the new religion came from the far end of the Mediterranean, the one they have never abandoned but only suppressed and hidden to bring it out again in wars and inquisitions. They are the people of the Auto de Fe; the act of faith. Killing is something one must do, but ours are different from theirs. And you, he thought, you have never been corrupted by it? You never had it in the Sierra? Nor at Usera? Nor through all the time in Estremadura? Nor at any time? Que va, he told himself. At every train.
Stop making dubious literature about the Berbers and the old Iberians and admit that you have liked to kill as all who are soldiers by choice have enjoyed it at some time whether they lie about it or not. Anselmo does not like to because he is a hunter, not a soldier. Don't idealize him, either. Hunters kill animals and soldiers kill men. Don't lie to yourself, he thought. Nor make up literature about it. You have been tainted with it for a long time now. And do not think against Anselmo either. He is a Christian. Something very rare in Catholic countries.
But with Agustin I had thought it was fear, he thought. That natural fear before action. So it was the other, too. Of course, he may be bragging now. There was plenty of fear. I felt the fear under my hand. Well, it was time to stop talking.
"See if the gypsy brought food," he said to Anselmo. "Do not let him come up. He is a fool. Bring it yourself. And however much he brought, send back for more. I am hungry."
24
Now the morning was late May, the sky was high and clear and the wind blew warm on Robert Jordan's shoulders. The snow was going fast and they were eating breakfast. There were two big sandwiches of meat and the goaty cheese apiece, and Robert Jordan h
ad cut thick slices of onion with his clasp knife and put them on each side of the meat and cheese between the chunks of bread.
"You will have a breath that will carry through the forest to the fascists," Agustin said, his own mouth full.
"Give me the wineskin and I will rinse the mouth," Robert Jordan said, his mouth full of meat, cheese, onion and chewed bread.
He had never been hungrier and he filled his mouth with wine, faintly tarry-tasting from the leather bag, and swallowed. Then he took another big mouthful of wine, lifting the bag up to let the jet of wine spurt into the back of his mouth, the wineskin touching the needles of the blind of pine branches that covered the automatic rifle as he lifted his hand, his head leaning against the pine branches as he bent it back to let the wine run down.
"Dost thou want this other sandwich?" Agustin asked him, handing it toward him across the gun.
"No. Thank you. Eat it."
"I cannot. I am not accustomed to eat in the morning."
"You do not want it, truly?"
"Nay. Take it."
Robert Jordan took it and laid it on his lap while he got the onion out of his side jacket pocket where the grenades were and opened his knife to slice it. He cut off a thin sliver of the surface that had dirtied in his pocket, then cut a thick slice. An outer segment fell and he picked it up and bent the circle together and put it into the sandwich.
"Eatest thou always onions for breakfast?" Agustin asked.
"When there are any."
"Do all in thy country do this?"
"Nay," Robert Jordan said. "It is looked on badly there."
"I am glad," Agustin said. "I had always considered America a civilized country."
"What hast thou against the onion?"
"The odor. Nothing more. Otherwise it is like the rose."
Robert Jordan grinned at him with his mouth full.
"Like the rose," he said. "Mighty like the rose. A rose is a rose is an onion."
"Thy onions are affecting thy brain," Agustin said. "Take care."
"An onion is an onion is an onion," Robert Jordan said cheerily and, he thought, a stone is a stein is a rock is a boulder is a pebble.
"Rinse thy mouth with wine," Agustin said. "Thou art very rare, Ingles. There is great difference between thee and the last dynamiter who worked with us."
"There is one great difference."
"Tell it to me."
"I am alive and he is dead," Robert Jordan said. Then: what's the matter with you? he thought. Is that the way to talk? Does food make you that slap happy? What are you, drunk on onions? Is that all it means to you, now? It never meant much, he told himself truly. You tried to make it mean something, but it never did. There is no need to lie in the time that is left.
"No," he said, seriously now. "That one was a man who had suffered greatly."
"And thou? Hast thou not suffered?"
"No," said Robert Jordan. "I am of those who suffer little."
"Me also," Agustin told him. "There are those who suffer and those who do not. I suffer very little."
"Less bad," Robert Jordan tipped up the wineskin again. "And with this, less."
"I suffer for others."
"As all good men should."
"But for myself very little."
"Hast thou a wife?"
"No."
"Me neither."
"But now you have the Maria."
"Yes."
"There is a rare thing," Agustin said. "Since she came to us at the train the Pilar has kept her away from all as fiercely as though she were in a convent of Carmelites. You cannot imagine with what fierceness she guarded her. You come, and she gives her to thee as a present. How does that seem to thee?"
"It was not thus."
"How was it, then?"
"She has put her in my care."
"And thy care is to joder with her all night?"
"With luck."
"What a manner to care for one."
"You do not understand that one can take good care of one thus?"
"Yes, but such care could have been furnished by any one of us."
"Let us not talk of it any more," Robert Jordan said. "I care for her seriously."
"Seriously?"
"As there can be nothing more serious in this world."
"And afterwards? After this of the bridge?"
"She goes with me."
"Then," Agustin said. "That no one speaks of it further and that the two of you go with all luck."
He lifted the leather wine bag and took a long pull, then handed it to Robert Jordan.
"One thing more, Ingles," he said.
"Of course."
"I have cared much for her, too."
Robert Jordan put his hand on his shoulder.
"Much," Agustin said. "Much. More than one is able to imagine."
"I can imagine."
"She has made an impression on me that does not dissipate."
"I can imagine."
"Look. I say this to thee in all seriousness."
"Say it."
"I have never touched her nor had anything to do with her but I care for her greatly. Ingles, do not treat her lightly. Because she sleeps with thee she is no whore."
"I will care for her."
"I believe thee. But more. You do not understand how such a girl would be if there had been no revolution. You have much responsibility. This one, truly, has suffered much. She is not as we are."
"I will marry her."
"Nay. Not that. There is no need for that under the revolution. But--" he nodded his head--"it would be better."
"I will marry her," Robert Jordan said and could feel his throat swelling as he said it. "I care for her greatly."
"Later," Agustin said. "When it is convenient. The important thing is to have the intention."
"I have it."
"Listen," Agustin said. "I am speaking too much of a matter in which I have no right to intervene, but hast thou known many girls of this country?"
"A few."
"Whores?"
"Some who were not."
"How many?"
"Several."
"And did you sleep with them?"
"No."
"You see?"
"Yes."
"What I mean is that this Maria does not do this lightly."
"Nor I."
"If I thought you did I would have shot you last night as you lay with her. For this we kill much here."
"Listen, old one," Robert Jordan said. "It is because of the lack of time that there has been informality. What we do not have is time. Tomorrow we must fight. To me that is nothing. But for the Maria and me it means that we must live all of our life in this time."
"And a day and a night is little time," Agustin said.
"Yes. But there has been yesterday and the night before and last night."
"Look," Agustin said. "If I can aid thee."
"No. We are all right."
"If I could do anything for thee or for the cropped head----"
"No."
"Truly, there is little one man can do for another."
"No. There is much."
"What?"
"No matter what passes today and tomorrow in respect to combat, give me thy confidence and obey even though the orders may appear wrong."
"You have my confidence. Since this of the cavalry and the sending away of the horse."
"That was nothing. You see that we are working for one thing. To win the war. Unless we win, all other things are futile. Tomorrow we have a thing of great importance. Of true importance. Also we will have combat. In combat there must be discipline. For many things are not as they appear. Discipline must come from trust and confidence."
Agustin spat on the ground.
"The Maria and all such things are apart," he said. "That you and the Maria should make use of what time there is as two human beings. If I can aid thee I am at thy orders. But for the thing of tomorrow I will obey thee blindly. If it is necessary th
at one should die for the thing of tomorrow one goes gladly and with the heart light."
"Thus do I feel," Robert Jordan said. "But to hear it from thee brings pleasure."
"And more," Agustin said. "That one above," he pointed toward Primitivo, "is a dependable value. The Pilar is much, much more than thou canst imagine. The old man Anselmo, also. Andres also. Eladio also. Very quiet, but a dependable element. And Fernando. I do not know how thou hast appreciated him. It is true he is heavier than mercury. He is fuller of boredom than a steer drawing a cart on the highroad. But to fight and to do as he is told. Es muy hombre! Thou wilt see."
"We are lucky."
"No. We have two weak elements. The gypsy and Pablo. But the band of Sordo are as much better than we are as we are better than goat manure."
"All is well then."
"Yes," Agustin said. "But I wish it was for today."
"Me, too. To finish with it. But it is not."
"Do you think it will be bad?"
"It can be."
"But thou are very cheerful now, Ingles."
"Yes."
"Me also. In spite of this of the Maria and all."
"Do you know why?"
"No."
"Me neither. Perhaps it is the day. The day is good."
"Who knows? Perhaps it is that we will have action."
"I think it is that," Robert Jordan said. "But not today. Of all things; of all importance we must avoid it today."
As he spoke he heard something. It was a noise far off that came above the sound of the warm wind in the trees. He could not be sure and he held his mouth open and listened, glancing up at Primitivo as he did so. He thought he heard it but then it was gone. The wind was blowing in the pines and now Robert Jordan strained all of himself to listen. Then he heard it faintly coming down the wind.
"It is nothing tragic with me," he heard Agustin say. "That I should never have the Maria is nothing. I will go with the whores as always."
"Shut up," he said, not listening, and lying beside him, his head having been turned away. Agustin looked over at him suddenly.
"Que pasa?" he asked.
Robert Jordan put his hand over his own mouth and went on listening. There it came again. It came faint, muted, dry and far away. But there was no mistaking it now. It was the precise, crackling, curling roll of automatic rifle fire. It sounded as though pack after pack of miniature firecrackers were going off at a distance that was almost out of hearing.
Robert Jordan looked up at Primitivo who had his head up now, his face looking toward them, his hand cupped to his ear. As he looked Primitivo pointed up the mountain toward the highest country.