It's lucky I've got this stuff in blocks, he thought. Instead of sticks. What the hell. It's just neater. Although a lousy canvas sack full of jelly would be quicker. Two sacks. No. One of that would do. And if we just had detonators and the old exploder. That son of a bitch threw my exploder in the river. That old box and the places that it's been. In this river he threw it. That bastard Pablo. He gave them hell there below just now. "Give me some more of that, viejo."
The old man's doing very well. He's in quite a place up there. He hated to shoot that sentry. So did I but I didn't think about it. Nor do I think about it now. You have to do that. But then Anselmo got a cripple. I know about cripples. I think that killing a man with an automatic weapon makes it easier. I mean on the one doing it. It is different. After the first touch it is it that does it. Not you. Save that to go into some other time. You and your head. You have a nice thinking head old Jordan. Roll Jordan, Roll! They used to yell that at football when you lugged the ball. Do you know the damned Jordan is really not much bigger than that creek down there below. At the source, you mean. So is anything else at the source. This is a place here under this bridge. A home away from home. Come on Jordan, pull yourself together. This is serious Jordan. Don't you understand? Serious. It's less so all the time. Look at that other side. Para que? I'm all right now however she goes. As Maine goes, so goes the nation. As Jordan goes so go the bloody Israelites. The bridge, I mean. As Jordan goes, so goes the bloody bridge, other way around, really.
"Give me some more of that, Anselmo old boy," he said. The old man nodded. "Almost through," Robert Jordan said. The old man nodded again.
Finishing wiring the grenades down, he no longer heard the firing from up the road. Suddenly he was working only with the noise of the stream. He looked down and saw it boiling up white below him through the boulders and then dropping down to a clear pebbled pool where one of the wedges he had dropped swung around in the current. As he looked a trout rose for some insect and made a circle on the surface close to where the chip was turning. As he twisted the wire tight with the pliers that held these two grenades in place, he saw, through the metal of the bridge, the sunlight on the green slope of the mountain. It was brown three days ago, he thought.
Out from the cool dark under the bridge he leaned into the bright sun and shouted to Anselmo's bending face, "Give me the big coil of wire."
The old man handed it down.
For God's sake don't loosen them any yet. This will pull them. I wish you could string them through. But with the length of wire you are using it's O.K., Robert Jordan thought as he felt the cotter pins that held the rings that would release the levers on the hand grenades. He checked that the grenades, lashed on their sides, had room for the levers to spring when the pins were pulled (the wire that lashed them ran through under the levers), then he attached a length of wire to one ring, wired it onto the main wire that ran to the ring of the outside grenade, paid off some slack from the coil and passed it around a steel brace and then handed the coil up to Anselmo. "Hold it carefully," he said.
He climbed up onto the bridge, took the coil from the old man and walked back as fast as he could pay out wire toward where the sentry was slumped in the road, leaning over the side of the bridge and paying out wire from the coil as he walked.
"Bring the sacks," he shouted to Anselmo as he walked backwards. As he passed he stooped down and picked up the submachine gun and slung it over his shoulder again.
It was then, looking up from paying out wire, that he saw, well up the road, those who were coming back from the upper post.
There were four of them, he saw, and then he had to watch his wire so it would be clear and not foul against any of the outer work of the bridge. Eladio was not with them.
Robert Jordan carried the wire clear past the end of the bridge, took a loop around the last stanchion and then ran along the road until he stopped beside a stone marker. He cut the wire and handed it to Anselmo.
"Hold this, viejo," he said. "Now walk back with me to the bridge. Take up on it as you walk. No. I will."
At the bridge he pulled the wire back out through the hitch so it now ran clear and unfouled to the grenade rings and handed it, stretching alongside the bridge but running quite clear, to Anselmo.
"Take this back to that high stone," he said. "Hold it easily but firmly. Do not put any force on it. When thou pullest hard, hard, the bridge will blow. Comprendes?"
"Yes."
"Treat it softly but do not let it sag so it will foul. Keep it lightly firm but not pulling until thou pullest. Comprendes?"
"Yes."
"When thou pullest really pull. Do not jerk."
Robert Jordan while he spoke was looking up the road at the remainder of Pilar's band. They were close now and he saw Primitivo and Rafael were supporting Fernando. He looked to be shot through the groin for he was holding himself there with both hands while the man and the boy held him on either side. His right leg was dragging, the side of the shoe scraping on the road as they walked him. Pilar was climbing the bank into the timber carrying three rifles. Robert Jordan could not see her face but her head was up and she was climbing as fast as she could.
"How does it go?" Primitivo called.
"Good. We're almost finished," Robert Jordan shouted back.
There was no need to ask how it went with them. As he looked away the three were on the edge of the road and Fernando was shaking his head as they tried to get him up the bank.
"Give me a rifle here," Robert Jordan heard him say in a choky voice.
"No, hombre. We will get thee to the horses."
"What would I do with a horse?" Fernando said. "I am very well here."
Robert Jordan did not hear the rest for he was speaking to Anselmo.
"Blow it if tanks come," he said. "But only if they come onto it. Blow it if armored cars come. If they come onto it. Anything else Pablo will stop."
"I will not blow it with thee beneath it."
"Take no account of me. Blow it if thou needest to. I fix the other wire and come back. Then we will blow it together."
He started running for the center of the bridge.
Anselmo saw Robert Jordan run up the bridge, coil of wire over his arm, pliers hanging from one wrist and the submachine gun slung over his back. He saw him climb down under the rail of the bridge and out of sight. Anselmo held the wire in his hand, his right hand, and he crouched behind the stone marker and looked down the road and across the bridge. Halfway between him and the bridge was the sentry, who had settled now closer to the road, sinking closer onto the smooth road surface as the sun weighed on his back. His rifle, lying on the road, the bayonet fixed, pointed straight toward Anselmo. The old man looked past him along the surface of the bridge crossed by the shadows of the bridge rail to where the road swung to the left along the gorge and then turned out of sight behind the rocky wall. He looked at the far sentry box with the sun shining on it and then, conscious of the wire in his hand, he turned his head to where Fernando was speaking to Primitivo and the gypsy.
"Leave me here," Fernando said. "It hurts much and there is much hemorrhage inside. I feel it in the inside when I move."
"Let us get thee up the slope," Primitivo said. "Put thy arms around our shoulders and we will take thy legs."
"It is inutile," Fernando said. "Put me here behind a stone. I am as useful here as above."
"But when we go," Primitivo said.
"Leave me here," Fernando said. "There is no question of my travelling with this. Thus it gives one horse more. I am very well here. Certainly they will come soon."
"We can take thee up the hill," the gypsy said. "Easily."
He was, naturally, in a deadly hurry to be gone, as was Primitivo. But they had brought him this far.
"Nay," Fernando said. "I am very well here. What passes with Eladio?"
The gypsy put his finger on his head to show where the wound had been.
"Here," he said. "After thee. When we made the rush."<
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"Leave me," Fernando said. Anselmo could see he was suffering much. He held both hands against his groin now and put his head back against the bank, his legs straight out before him. His face was gray and sweating.
"Leave me now please, for a favor," he said. His eyes were shut with pain, the edges of the lips twitching. "I find myself very well here."
"Here is a rifle and cartridges," Primitivo said.
"Is it mine?" Fernando asked, his eyes shut.
"Nay, the Pilar has thine," Primitivo said. "This is mine."
"I would prefer my own," Fernando said. "I am more accustomed to it."
"I will bring it to thee," the gypsy lied to him. "Keep this until it comes."
"I am in a very good position here," Fernando said. "Both for up the road and for the bridge." He opened his eyes, turned his head and looked across the bridge, then shut them as the pain came.
The gypsy tapped his head and motioned with his thumb to Primitivo for them to be off.
"Then we will be down for thee," Primitivo said and started up the slope after the gypsy, who was climbing fast.
Fernando lay back against the bank. In front of him was one of the whitewashed stones that marked the edge of the road. His head was in the shadow but the sun shone on his plugged and bandaged wound and on his hands that were cupped over it. His legs and his feet also were in the sun. The rifle lay beside him and there were three clips of cartridges shining in the sun beside the rifle. A fly crawled on his hands but the small tickling did not come through the pain.
"Fernando!" Anselmo called to him from where he crouched, holding the wire. He had made a loop in the end of the wire and twisted it close so he could hold it in his fist.
"Fernando!" he called again.
Fernando opened his eyes and looked at him.
"How does it go?" Fernando asked.
"Very good," Anselmo said. "Now in a minute we will be blowing it."
"I am pleased. Anything you need me for advise me," Fernando said and shut his eyes again and the pain lurched in him.
Anselmo looked away from him and out onto the bridge.
He was watching for the first sight of the coil of wire being handed up onto the bridge and for the Ingles's sunburnt head and face to follow it as he would pull himself up the side. At the same time he was watching beyond the bridge for anything to come around the far corner of the road. He did not feel afraid now at all and he had not been afraid all the day. It goes so fast and it is so normal, he thought. I hated the shooting of the guard and it made me an emotion but that is passed now. How could the Ingles say that the shooting of a man is like the shooting of an animal? In all hunting I have had an elation and no feeling of wrong. But to shoot a man gives a feeling as though one had struck one's own brother when you are grown men. And to shoot him various times to kill him. Nay, do not think of that. That gave thee too much emotion and thee ran blubbering down the bridge like a woman.
That is over, he told himself, and thou canst try to atone for it as for the others. But now thou has what thou asked for last night coming home across the hills. Thou art in battle and thou hast no problem. If I die on this morning now it is all right.
Then he looked at Fernando lying there against the bank with his hands cupped over the groove of his hip, his lips blue, his eyes tight shut, breathing heavily and slowly, and he thought, If I die may it be quickly. Nay I said I would ask nothing more if I were granted what I needed for today. So I will not ask. Understand? I ask nothing. Nothing in any way. Give me what I asked for and I leave all the rest according to discretion.
He listened to the noise that came, far away, of the battle at the pass and he said to himself, Truly this is a great day. I should realize and know what a day this is.
But there was no lift or any excitement in his heart. That was all gone and there was nothing but a calmness. And now, as he crouched behind the marker stone with the looped wire in his hand and another loop of it around his wrist and the gravel beside the road under his knees he was not lonely nor did he feel in any way alone. He was one with the wire in his hand and one with the bridge, and one with the charges the Ingles had placed. He was one with the Ingles still working under the bridge and he was one with all of the battle and with the Republic.
But there was no excitement. It was all calm now and the sun beat down on his neck and on his shoulders as he crouched and as he looked up he saw the high, cloudless sky and the slope of the mountain rising beyond the river and he was not happy but he was neither lonely nor afraid.
Up the hill slope Pilar lay behind a tree watching the road that came down from the pass. She had three loaded rifles by her and she handed one to Primitivo as he dropped down beside her.
"Get down there," she said. "Behind that tree. Thou, gypsy, over there," she pointed to another tree below. "Is he dead?"
"Nay. Not yet," Primitivo said.
"It was bad luck," Pilar said. "If we had had two more it need not have happened. He should have crawled around the sawdust pile. Is he all right there where he is?"
Primitivo shook his head.
"When the Ingles blows the bridge will fragments come this far?" the gypsy asked from behind his tree.
"I don't know," Pilar said. "But Agustin with the maquina is closer than thee. The Ingles would not have placed him there if it were too close."
"But I remember with the blowing of the train the lamp of the engine blew by over my head and pieces of steel flew by like swallows."
"Thou hast poetic memories," Pilar said. "Like swallows. Joder! They were like wash boilers. Listen, gypsy, thou hast comported thyself well today. Now do not let thy fear catch up with thee."
"Well, I only asked if it would blow this far so I might keep well behind the tree trunk," the gypsy said.
"Keep it thus," Pilar told him. "How many have we killed?"
"Pues five for us. Two here. Canst thou not see the other at the far end? Look there toward the bridge. See the box? Look! Dost see?" He pointed. "Then there were eight below for Pablo. I watched that post for the Ingles."
Pilar grunted. Then she said violently and raging, "What passes with that Ingles? What is he obscenitying off under that bridge. Vaya mandanga! Is he building a bridge or blowing one?"
She raised her head and looked down at Anselmo crouched behind the stone marker.
"Hey, viejo!" she shouted. "What passes with thy obscenity of an Ingles?"
"Patience, woman," Anselmo called up, holding the wire lightly but firmly. "He is terminating his work."
"But what in the name of the great whore does he take so much time about?"
"Es muy concienzudo!" Anselmo shouted. "It is a scientific labor."
"I obscenity in the milk of science," Pilar raged to the gypsy. "Let the filth-faced obscenity blow it and be done. Maria!" she shouted in her deep voice up the hill. "Thy Ingles--" and she shouted a flood of obscenity about Jordan's imaginary actions under the bridge.
"Calm yourself, woman," Anselmo called from the road. "He is doing an enormous work. He is finishing it now."
"The hell with it," Pilar raged. "It is speed that counts."
Just then they all heard firing start down the road where Pablo was holding the post he had taken. Pilar stopped cursing and listened. "Ay," she said. "Ayee. Ayee. That's it."
Robert Jordan heard it as he swung the coil of wire up onto the bridge with one hand and then pulled himself up after it. As his knees rested on the edge of the iron of the bridge and his hands were on the surface he heard the machine gun firing around the bend below. It was a different sound from Pablo's automatic rifle. He got to his feet, leaned over, passed his coil of wire clear and commenced to pay out wire as he walked backwards and sideways along the bridge.
He heard the firing and as he walked he felt it in the pit of his stomach as though it echoed on his own diaphragm. It was closer now as he walked and he looked back at the bend of the road. But it was still clear of any car, or tank or men. It was still clear when he
was halfway to the end of the bridge. It was still clear when he was three quarters of the way, his wire running clear and unfouled, and it was still clear as he climbed around behind the sentry box, holding his wire out to keep it from catching on the iron work. Then he was on the road and it was still clear below on the road and then he was moving fast backwards up the little washed-out gully by the lower side of the road as an outfielder goes backwards for a long fly ball, keeping the wire taut, and now he was almost opposite Anselmo's stone and it was still clear below the bridge.
Then he heard the truck coming down the road and he saw it over his shoulder just coming onto the long slope and he swung his wrist once around the wire and yelled to Anselmo, "Blow her!" and he dug his heels in and leaned back hard onto the tension of the wire with a turn of it around his wrist and the noise of the truck was coming behind and ahead there was the road with the dead sentry and the long bridge and the stretch of road below, still clear and then there was a cracking roar and the middle of the bridge rose up in the air like a wave breaking and he felt the blast from the explosion roll back against him as he dove on his face in the pebbly gully with his hands holding tight over his head. His face was down against the pebbles as the bridge settled where it had risen and the familiar yellow smell of it rolled over him in acrid smoke and then it commenced to rain pieces of steel.
After the steel stopped falling he was still alive and he raised his head and looked across the bridge. The center section of it was gone. There were jagged pieces of steel on the bridge with their bright, new torn edges and ends and these were all over the road. The truck had stopped up the road about a hundred yards. The driver and the two men who had been with him were running toward a culvert.
Fernando was still lying against the bank and he was still breathing. His arms straight by his sides, his hands relaxed.
Anselmo lay face down behind the white marking stone. His left arm was doubled under his head and his right arm was stretched straight out. The loop of wire was still around his right fist. Robert Jordan got to his feet, crossed the road, knelt by him and made sure that he was dead. He did not turn him over to see what the piece of steel had done. He was dead and that was all.
He looked very small, dead, Robert Jordan thought. He looked small and gray-headed and Robert Jordan thought, I wonder how he ever carried such big loads if that is the size he really was. Then he saw the shape of the calves and the thighs in the tight, gray herdsman's breeches and the worn soles of the rope-soled shoes and he picked up Anselmo's carbine and the two sacks, practically empty now and went over and picked up the rifle that lay beside Fernando. He kicked a jagged piece of steel off the surface of the road. Then he swung the two rifles over his shoulder, holding them by the muzzles, and started up the slope into the timber. He did not look back nor did he even look across the bridge at the road. They were still firing around the bend below but he cared nothing about that now.