Excerpt: For Whom The Bell Tolls
He lay flat on the brown,
pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high
overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees. The mountainside sloped
gently where he lay; but below it was steep and he could see the dark of the oiled
road winding through the pass. There was a stream alongside the road and far
down the pass he saw a mill beside the stream and the falling water of the dam,
white in the summer sunlight.
"Is that the mill?" he
asked.
"Yes."
"I do not remember it."
"It was built since you were
here. The old mill is farther down; much below the pass."
He spread the photostated
military map out on the forest floor and looked at it carefully. The old man
looked over his shoulder. He was a short and solid old man in a black peasant's
smock and gray iron-stiff trousers and he wore rope-soled shoes. He was
breathing heavily from the climb and his hand rested on one of the two heavy
packs they had been carrying.
"Then you cannot see the
bridge from here."
"No," the old man said.
"This is the easy country of the pass where the stream flows gently.
Below, where the road turns out of sight in the trees, it drops suddenly and
there is a steep gorge — "
"I remember."
"Across this gorge is the
bridge."
"And where are their posts?"
"There is a post at the mill
that you see there."
The young man, who was studying
the country, took his glasses from the pocket of his faded, khaki flannel
shirt, wiped the lenses with a handkerchief, screwed the eyepieces around until
the boards of the mill showed suddenly clearly and he saw the wooden bench
beside the door; the huge pile of sawdust that rose behind the open shed where
the circular saw was, and a stretch of the flume that brought the logs down
from the mountainside on the other bank of the stream. The stream showed clear
and smooth-looking in the glasses and, below the curl of the falling water, the
spray from the dam was blowing in the wind.
"There is no sentry."
"There is smoke coming from
the millhouse," the old man said. "There are also clothes hanging on
a line."
"I see them but I do not see
any sentry."
"Perhaps he is in the
shade," the old man explained. "It is hot there now. He would be in
the shadow at the end we do not see."
"Probably. Where is the next
post?"
"Below the bridge. It is at
the roadmender's hut at kilometer five from the top of the pass."
"How many men are
here?" He pointed at the mill.
"Perhaps four and a
corporal."
"And below?"
"More. I will find
out."
"And at the bridge?"
"Always two. One at each
end."
"We will need a certain
number of men," he said. "How many men can you get?"
"I can bring as many men as
you wish," the old man said. "There are many men now here in the
hills."
"How many?"
"There are more than a
hundred. But they are in small bands. How many men will you need?"
"I will let you know when we
have studied the bridge."
"Do you wish to study it
now?"
"No. Now I wish to go to
where we will hide this explosive until it is time. I would like to have it
hidden in utmost security at a distance no greater than half an hour from the
bridge, if that is possible."
"That is simple," the
old man said. "From where we are going, it will all be downhill to the
bridge. But now we must climb a little in seriousness to get there. Are you
hungry?"
"Yes," the young man
said. "But we will eat later. How are you called? I have forgotten."
It was a bad sign to him that he had forgotten.
"Anselmo," the old man
said. "I am called Anselmo and I come from Barco de Avila. Let me help you
with that pack."
The young man, who was tall and
thin, with sun-streaked fair hair, and a wind- and sun-burned face, who wore
the sun-faded flannel shirt, a pair of peasant's trousers and rope-soled shoes,
leaned over, put his arm through one of the leather pack straps and swung the
heavy pack up onto his shoulders. He worked his arm through the other strap and
settled the weight of the pack against his back. His shirt was still wet from
where the pack had rested.
"I have it up now," he
said. "How do we go?"
"We climb," Anselmo
said.
Bending under the weight of the
packs, sweating, they climbed steadily in the pine forest that covered the
mountainside. There was no trail that the young man could see, but they were
working up and around the face of the mountain and now they crossed a small
stream and the old man went steadily on ahead up the edge of the rocky stream
bed. The climbing now was steeper and more difficult, until finally the stream
seemed to drop down over the edge of a smooth granite ledge that rose above
them and the old man waited at the foot of the ledge for the young man to come
up to him.
"How are you making
it?"
"All right," the young
man said. He was sweating heavily and his thigh muscles were twitchy from the
steepness of the climb.
"Wait here now for me. I go
ahead to warn them. You do not want to be shot at carrying that stuff."
"Not even in a joke,"
the young man said. "Is it far?"
"It is very close. How do
they call thee?"
"Roberto," the young
man answered. He had slipped the pack off and lowered it gently down between
two boulders by the stream bed.
"Wait here, then, Roberto,
and I will return for you."
"Good," the young man
said. "But do you plan to go down this way to the bridge?"
"No. When we go to the
bridge it will be by another way. Shorter and easier."
"I do not want this material
to be stored too far from the bridge."
"You will see. If you are
not satisfied, we will take another place."
"We will see," the
young man said.
He sat by the packs and watched
the old man climb the ledge. It was not hard to climb and from the way he found
hand-holds without searching for them the young man could see that he had
climbed it many times before. Yet whoever was above had been very careful not
to leave any trail.
The young man, whose name was
Robert Jordan, was extremely hungry and he was worried. He was often hungry but
he was not usually worried because he did not give any importance to what
happened to himself and he knew from experience how simple it was to move
behind the enemy lines in all this country. It was as simple to move behind
them as it was to cross through them, if you had a good guide. It was only
giving importance to what happened to you if you were caught that made it
difficult; that and deciding whom to trust. You had to trust the people you
worked with completely or not at all, and you had to make decisions about the
trusting. He was not worried about any of that. But there were other things.
This Anselmo had been a good
guide and he could travel wonderfully in the mountains. Robert Jordan could
walk well enough himself and he knew from following him since before daylight
that the old man could walk him to death. Robert Jordan trusted the man,
Anselmo, so far, in everything except judgment. He had not yet had an
opportunity to test his judgment, and, anyway, the judgment was his own
responsibility. No, he did not worry about Anselmo and the problem of the
bridge was no more difficult than many other problems. He knew how to blow any
sort of bridge that you could name and he had blown them of all sizes and
constructions. There was enough explosive and all equipment in the two packs to
blow this bridge properly even if it were twice as big as Anselmo reported it,
as he remembered it when he had walked over it on his way to La Granja on a
walking trip in 1933, and as Golz had read him the description of it night
before last in that upstairs room in the house outside of the Escorial.
"To blow the bridge is nothing,"
Golz had said, the lamplight on his scarred, shaved head, pointing with a
pencil on the big map. "You understand?"
"Yes, I understand."
"Absolutely nothing. Merely
to blow the bridge is a failure."
"Yes, Comrade General."
"To blow the bridge at a
stated hour based on the time set for the attack is how it should be done. You
see that naturally. That is your right and how it should be done."
Golz looked at the pencil, then
tapped his teeth with it.
Robert Jordan had said nothing.
"You understand that is your
right and how it should be done," Golz went on, looking at him and nodding
his head. He tapped on the map now with the pencil. "That is how I should
do it. That is what we cannot have."
"Why, Comrade General?"
"Why?" Golz said,
angrily. "How many attacks have you seen and you ask me why? What is to
guarantee that my orders are not changed? What is to guarantee that the attack
is not annulled? What is to guarantee that the attack is not postponed? What is
to guarantee that it starts within six hours of when it should start? Has any
attack ever been as it should?"
"It will start on time if it
is your attack," Robert Jordan said.
"They are never my
attacks," Golz said. "I make them. But they are not mine. The
artillery is not mine. I must put in for it. I have never been given what I ask
for even when they have it to give. That is the least of it. There are other
things. You know how those people are. It is not necessary to go into all of
it. Always there is something. Always some one will interfere. So now be sure
you understand."
"So when is the bridge to be
blown?" Robert Jordan had asked.
"After the attack starts. As
soon as the attack has started and not before. So that no reinforcements will
come up over that road." He pointed with his pencil. "I must know
that nothing will come up over that road."
"And when is the
attack?"
"I will tell you. But you
are to use the date and hour only as an indication of a probability. You must
be ready for that time. You will blow the bridge after the attack has started.
You see?" he indicated with the pencil. "That is the only road on
which they can bring up reinforcements. That is the only road on which they can
get up tanks, or artillery, or even move a truck toward the pass which I
attack. I must know that bridge is gone. Not before, so it can be repaired if
the attack is postponed. No. It must go when the attack starts and I must know
it is gone. There are only two sentries. The man who will go with you has just
come from there. He is a very reliable man, they say. You will see. He has
people in the mountains. Get as many men as you need. Use as few as possible,
but use enough. I do not have to tell you these things."
"And how do I determine that
the attack has started?"
"It is to be made with a
full division. There will be an aerial bombardment as preparation. You are not
deaf, are you?"
"Then I may take it that
when the planes unload, the attack has started?"
"You could not always take
it like that," Golz said and shook his head. "But in this case, you
may. It is my attack."
"I understand it,"
Robert Jordan had said. "I do not say I like it very much."
"Neither do I like it very
much. If you do not want to undertake it, say so now. If you think you cannot
do it, say so now."
"I will do it," Robert
Jordan had said. "I will do it all right."
"That is all I have to
know," Golz said. "That nothing comes up over that bridge. That is
absolute."
"I understand."
"I do not like to ask people
to do such things and in such a way," Golz went on. "I could not
order you to do it. I understand what you may be forced to do through my
putting such conditions. I explain very carefully so that you understand and that
you understand all of the possible difficulties and the importance."
"And how will you advance on
La Granja if that bridge is
blown?"
"We go forward prepared to
repair it after we have stormed the pass. It is a very complicated and
beautiful operation. As complicated and as beautiful as always. The plan has
been manufactured in Madrid. It is another of Vicente Rojo, the unsuccessful
professor's, masterpieces. I make the attack and I make it, as always, not in
sufficient force. It is a very possible operation, in spite of that. I am much
happier about it than usual. It can be successful with that bridge eliminated.
We can take Segovia. Look, I show you how it goes. You see? It is not the top
of the pass where we attack. We hold that. It is much beyond. Look — Here —
Like this — "
"I would rather not
know," Robert Jordan said.
"Good," said Golz.
"It is less of baggage to carry with you on the other side, yes?"
"I would always rather not
know. Then, no matter what can happen, it was not me that talked."
"It is better not to
know," Golz stroked his forehead with the pencil. "Many times I wish
I did not know myself. But you do know the one thing you must know about the
bridge?"
"Yes. I know that."
"I believe you do,"
Golz said. "I will not make you any little speech. Let us now have a
drink. So much talking makes me very thirsty, Comrade Hordan. You have a funny
name in Spanish, Comrade Hordown."
"How do you say Golz in
Spanish, Comrade General?"
"Hotze," said Golz
grinning, making the sound deep in his throat as though hawking with a bad
cold. "Hotze," he croaked. "Comrade Heneral Khotze. If I had
known how they pronounced Golz in Spanish I would pick me out a better name
before I come to war here. When I think I come to command a division and I can
pick out any name I want and I pick out Hotze. Heneral Hotze. Now it is too
late to change. How do you like partizan work?" It was the Russian term
for guerilla work behind the
lines.
"Very much," Robert
Jordan said. He grinned. "It is very healthy in the open air."
"I like it very much when I
was your age, too," Golz said. "They tell me you blow bridges very
well. Very scientific. It is only hearsay. I have never seen you do anything
myself. Maybe nothing ever happens really. You really blow them?" he was
teasing now. "Drink this," he handed the glass of Spanish brandy to
Robert Jordan. "You really blow them?"
"Sometimes."
"You better not have any
sometimes on this bridge. No, let us not talk any more about this bridge. You
understand enough now about that bridge. We are very serious so we can make
very strong jokes. Look, do you have many girls on the other side of the
lines?"
"No, there is no time for
girls."
"I do not agree. The more
irregular the service, the more irregular the life. You have very irregular
service. Also you need a haircut."
"I have my hair cut as it
needs it," Robert Jordan said. He would be damned if he would have his
head shaved like Golz. "I have enough to think about without girls,"
he said sullenly.
"What sort of uniform am I
supposed to wear?" Robert Jordan asked.
"None," Golz said.
"Your haircut is all right. I tease you. You are very different from
me," Golz had said and filled up the glasses again.
"You never think about only
girls. I never think at all. Why should I? I am Général Sovietique. I never
think. Do not try to trap me into thinking."
Some one on his staff, sitting on
a chair working over a map on a drawing board, growled at him in the language
Robert Jordan did not understand.
"Shut up," Golz had
said, in English. "I joke if I want. I am so serious is why I can joke.
Now drink this and then go. You understand, huh?"
"Yes," Robert Jordan
had said. "I understand."
They had shaken hands and he had
saluted and gone out to the staff car where the old man was waiting asleep and
in that car they had ridden over the road past Guadarrama, the old man still
asleep, and up the Navacerrada road to the Alpine Club hut where he, Robert
Jordan, slept for three hours before they started.
That was the last he had seen of
Golz with his strange white face that never tanned, his hawk eyes, the big nose
and thin lips and the shaven head crossed with wrinkles and with scars.
Tomorrow night they would be outside the Escorial in the dark along the road;
the long lines of trucks loading the infantry in the darkness; the men, heavy
loaded, climbing up into the trucks; the machine-gun sections lifting their
guns into the trucks; the tanks being run up on the skids onto the long-bodied
tank trucks; pulling the Division out to move them in the night for the attack
on the pass. He would not think about that. That was not his business. That was
Golz's business. He had only one thing to do and that was what he should think
about and he must think it out clearly and take everything as it came along,
and not worry. To worry was as bad as to be afraid. It simply made things more
difficult.
He sat now by the stream watching
the clear water flowing between the rocks and, across the stream, he noticed
there was a thick bed of watercress. He crossed the stream, picked a double
handful, washed the muddy roots clean in the current and then sat down again
beside his pack and ate the clean, cool green leaves and the crisp,
peppery-tasting stalks. He knelt by the stream and, pushing his automatic
pistol around on his belt to the small of his back so that it would not be wet,
he lowered himself with a hand on each of two boulders and drank from the
stream. The water was achingly cold.
Pushing himself up on his hands
he turned his head and saw the old man coming down the ledge. With him was
another man, also in a black peasant's smock and the dark gray trousers that
were almost a uniform in that province, wearing rope-soled shoes and with a
carbine slung over his back. This man was bareheaded. The two of them came
scrambling down the rock like goats.
They came up to him and Robert Jordan
got to his feet.
"Salud, Camarada," he
said to the man with the carbine and smiled.
"Salud," the other
said, grudgingly. Robert Jordan looked at the man's heavy, beard-stubbled face.
It was almost round and his head was round and set close on his shoulders. His
eyes were small and set too wide apart and his ears were small and set close to
his head. He was a heavy man about five feet ten inches tall and his hands and
feet were large. His nose had been broken and his mouth was cut at one corner
and the line of the scar across the upper lip and lower jaw showed through the
growth of beard over his face.
The old man nodded his head at
this man and smiled.
"He is the boss here,"
he grinned, then flexed his arms as though to make the muscles stand out and
looked at the man with the carbine in a half-mocking admiration. "A very
strong man."
"I can see it," Robert
Jordan said and smiled again. He did not like the look of this man and inside
himself he was not smiling at all.
"What have you to justify
your identity?" asked the man with the carbine.
Robert Jordan unpinned a safety
pin that ran through his pocket flap and took a folded paper out of the left
breast pocket of his flannel shirt and handed it to the man, who opened it,
looked at it doubtfully and turned it in his hands.
So he cannot read, Robert Jordan
noted.
"Look at the seal," he
said.
The old man pointed to the seal
and the man with the carbine studied it, turning it in his fingers.
"What seal is that?"
"Have you never seen
it?"
"No."
"There are two," said
Robert Jordan. "One is S. I. M., the service of the military intelligence.
The other is the General Staff."
"Yes, I have seen that seal
before. But here no one commands but me," the other said sullenly.
"What have you in the packs?"
"Dynamite," the old man
said proudly. "Last night we crossed the lines in the dark and all day we
have carried this dynamite over the mountain."
"I can use dynamite,"
said the man with the carbine. He handed back the paper to Robert Jordan and
looked him over. "Yes. I have use for dynamite. How much have you brought
me?"
"I have brought you no
dynamite," Robert Jordan said to him evenly. "The dynamite is for
another purpose. What is your name?"
"What is that to you?"
"He is Pablo," said the
old man. The man with the carbine looked at them both sullenly.
"Good. I have heard much
good of you," said Robert Jordan.
"What have you heard of
me?" asked Pablo.
"I have heard that you are
an excellent guerilla leader, that you are loyal to the republic and prove your
loyalty through your acts, and that you are a man both serious and valiant. I
bring you greetings from the General Staff."
"Where did you hear all this?"
asked Pablo. Robert Jordan registered that he was not taking any of the
flattery.
"I heard it from Buitrago to
the Escorial," he said, naming all the stretch of country on the other
side of the lines.
"I know no one in Buitrago
nor in Escorial," Pablo told him.
"There are many people on
the other side of the mountains who were not there before. Where are you
from?"
"Avila. What are you going
to do with the dynamite?"
"Blow up a bridge."
"What bridge?"
"That is my business."
"If it is in this territory,
it is my business. You cannot blow bridges close to where you live. You must
live in one place and operate in another. I know my business. One who is alive,
now, after a year, knows his business."
"This is my business,"
Robert Jordan said. "We can discuss it together. Do you wish to help us
with the sacks?"
"No," said Pablo and
shook his head.
The old man turned toward him
suddenly and spoke rapidly and furiously in a dialect that Robert Jordan could
just follow. It was like reading Quevedo. Anselmo was speaking old Castilian
and it went something like this, "Art thou a brute? Yes. Art thou a beast?
Yes, many times. Hast thou a brain? Nay. None. Now we come for something of
consummate importance and thee, with thy dwelling place to be undisturbed, puts
thy fox-hole before the interests of humanity. Before the interests of thy
people. I this and that in the this and that of thy father. I this and that and
that in thy this. Pick up that bag."
Pablo looked down.
"Every one has to do what he
can do according to how it can be truly done," he said. "I live here
and I operate beyond Segovia. If you make a disturbance here, we will be hunted
out of these mountains. It is only by doing nothing here that we are able to live
in these mountains. It is the principle of the fox."
"Yes," said Anselmo
bitterly. "It is the principle of the fox when we need the wolf."
"I am more wolf than
thee," Pablo said and Robert Jordan knew that he would pick up the sack.
"Hi. Ho...." Anselmo
looked at him. "Thou art more wolf than me and I am sixty-eight years
old."
He spat on the ground and shook
his head.
"You have that many
years?" Robert Jordan asked, seeing that now, for the moment, it would be
all right and trying to make it go easier.
"Sixty-eight in the month of
July."
"If we should ever see that
month," said Pablo. "Let me help you with the pack," he said to
Robert Jordan. "Leave the other to the old man." He spoke, not
sullenly, but almost sadly now. "He is an old man of great strength."
"I will carry the
pack," Robert Jordan said.
"Nay," said the old
man. "Leave it to this other strong man."
"I will take it," Pablo
told him, and in his sullenness there was a sadness that was disturbing to
Robert Jordan. He knew that sadness and to see it here worried him.
"Give me the carbine
then," he said and when Pablo handed it to him, he slung it over his back
and, with the two men climbing ahead of him, they went heavily, pulling and
climbing up the granite shelf and over its upper edge to where there was a
green clearing in the forest.
They skirted the edge of the
little meadow and Robert Jordan, striding easily now without the pack, the
carbine pleasantly rigid over his shoulder after the heavy, sweating pack
weight, noticed that the grass was cropped down in several places and signs
that picket pins had been driven into the earth. He could see a trail through
the grass where horses had been led to the stream to drink and there was the
fresh manure of several horses. They picket them here to feed at night and keep
them out of sight in the timber in the daytime, he thought. I wonder how many
horses this Pablo has?
He remembered now noticing,
without realizing it, that Pablo's trousers were worn soapy shiny in the knees
and thighs. I wonder if he has a pair of boots or if he rides in those
alpargatas, he thought. He must have quite an outfit. But I don't like that
sadness, he thought. That sadness is bad. That's the sadness they get before
they quit or before they betray. That is the sadness that comes before the
sell-out.
Ahead of them a horse whinnied in
the timber and then, through the brown trunks of the pine trees, only a little
sunlight coming down through their thick, almost-touching tops, he saw the
corral made by roping around the tree trunks. The horses had their heads
pointed toward the men as they approached, and at the foot of a tree, outside
the corral, the saddles were piled together and covered with a tarpaulin.
As they came up, the two men with
the packs stopped, and Robert Jordan knew it was for him to admire the horses.
"Yes," he said.
"They are beautiful." He turned to Pablo. "You have your cavalry
and all."
There were five horses in the
rope corral, three bays, a sorrel, and a buckskin. Sorting them out carefully
with his eyes after he had seen them first together, Robert Jordan looked them
over individually. Pablo and Anselmo knew how good they were and while Pablo
stood now proud and less sad-looking, watching them lovingly, the old man acted
as though they were some great surprise that he had produced, suddenly,
himself.
"How do they look to
you?" he asked.
"All these I have
taken," Pablo said and Robert Jordan was pleased to hear him speak
proudly.
"That," said Robert
Jordan, pointing to one of the bays, a big stallion with a white blaze on his
forehead and a single white foot, the near front, "is much horse."
He was a beautiful horse that
looked as though he had come out of a painting by Velásquez.
"They are all good,"
said Pablo. "You know horses?"
"Yes."
"Less bad," said Pablo.
"Do you see a defect in one of these?"
Robert Jordan knew that now his
papers were being examined by the man who could not read.
The horses all still had their
heads up looking at the man. Robert Jordan slipped through between the double
rope of the corral and slapped the buckskin on the haunch. He leaned back
against the ropes of the enclosure and watched the horses circle the corral,
stood watching them a minute more, as they stood still, then leaned down and
came out through the ropes.
"The sorrel is lame in the
off hind foot," he said to Pablo, not looking at him. "The hoof is
split and although it might not get worse soon if shod properly, she could
break down if she travels over much hard ground."
"The hoof was like that when
we took her," Pablo said.
"The best horse that you
have, the white-faced bay stallion, has a swelling on the upper part of the
cannon bone that I do not like."
"It is nothing," said
Pablo. "He knocked it three days ago. If it were to be anything it would
have become so already."
He pulled back the tarpaulin and
showed the saddles. There were two ordinary vaquero's or herdsman's saddles,
like American stock saddles, one very ornate vaquero's saddle, with hand-tooled
leather and heavy, hooded stirrups, and two military saddles in black leather.
"We killed a pair of guardia
civil," he said, explaining the military saddles.
"That is big game."
"They had dismounted on the
road between Segovia and Santa Maria del Real. They had dismounted to ask
papers of the driver of a cart. We were able to kill them without injuring the
horses."
"Have you killed many civil
guards?" Robert Jordan asked.
"Several," Pablo said.
"But only these two without injury to the horses."
"It was Pablo who blew up
the train at Arevalo," Anselmo said. "That was Pablo."
"There was a foreigner with
us who made the explosion," Pablo said. "Do you know him?"
"What is he called?"
"I do not remember. It was a
very rare name."
"What did he look
like?"
"He was fair, as you are,
but not as tall and with large hands and a broken nose."
"Kashkin," Robert
Jordan said. "That would be Kashkin."
"Yes," said Pablo.
"It was a very rare name. Something like that. What has become of
him?"
"He is dead since
April."
"That is what happens to
everybody," Pablo said, gloomily. "That is the way we will all
finish."
"That is the way all men
end," Anselmo said. "That is the way men have always ended. What is
the matter with you, man? What hast thou in the stomach?"
"They are very strong,"
Pablo said. It was as though he were talking to himself. He looked at the
horses gloomily. "You do not realize how strong they are. I see them
always stronger, always better armed. Always with more material. Here am I with
horses like these. And what can I look forward to? To be hunted and to die.
Nothing more."
"You hunt as much as you are
hunted," Anselmo said.
"No," said Pablo.
"Not any more. And if we leave these mountains now, where can we go?
Answer me that? Where now?"
"in Spain there are many
mountains. There are the Sierra de Gredos if one leaves here."
"Not for me," Pablo
said. "I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow
a bridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for us with
planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, they will find us
and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?" He turned to Robert
Jordan. "What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tell me what
I must do?"
"I have not told you
anything you must do," Robert Jordan said to him.
"You will though,"
Pablo said. "There. There is the badness."
He pointed at the two heavy packs
that they had lowered to the ground while they had watched the horses. Seeing
the horses had seemed to bring this all to a head in him and seeing that Robert
Jordan knew horses had seemed to loosen his tongue. The three of them stood now
by the rope corral and the patchy sunlight shone on the coat of the bay
stallion. Pablo looked at him and then pushed with his foot against the heavy
pack. "There is the badness."
"I come only for my
duty," Robert Jordan told him. "I come under orders from those who
are conducting the war. If I ask you to help me, you can refuse and I will find
others who will help me. I have not even asked you for help yet. I have to do
what I am ordered to do and I can promise you of its importance. That I am a
foreigner is not my fault. I would rather have been born here."
"To me, now, the most
important is that we be not disturbed here," Pablo said. "To me, now,
my duty is to those who are with me and to myself."
"Thyself. Yes," Anselmo
said. "Thyself now since a long time. Thyself and thy horses. Until thou
hadst horses thou wert with us. Now thou art another capitalist more."
"That is unjust," said
Pablo. "I expose the horses all the time for the cause."
"Very little," said
Anselmo scornfully. "Very little in my judgment. To steal, yes. To eat
well, yes. To murder, yes. To fight, no."
"You are an old man who will
make himself trouble with his mouth."
"I am an old man who is
afraid of no one," Anselmo told him. "Also I am an old man without
horses."
"You are an old man who may
not live long."
"I am an old man who will
live until I die," Anselmo said. "And I am not afraid of foxes."
Pablo said nothing but picked up
the pack.
"Nor of wolves either,"
Anselmo said, picking up the other pack. "If thou art a wolf."
"Shut thy mouth," Pablo
said to him. "Thou art an old man who always talks too much."
"And would do whatever he
said he would do," Anselmo said, bent under the pack. "And who now is
hungry. And thirsty. Go on, guerilla leader with the sad face. Lead us to
something to eat."
It is starting badly enough,
Robert Jordan thought. But Anselmo's a man. They are wonderful when they are
good, he thought. There is no people like them when they are good and when they
go bad there is no people that is worse. Anselmo must have known what he was
doing when he brought us here. But I don't like it. I don't like any of it.
The only good sign was that Pablo
was carrying the pack and that he had given him the carbine. Perhaps he is
always like that, Robert Jordan thought. Maybe he is just one of the gloomy
ones.
No, he said to himself, don't
fool yourself. You do not know how he was before; but you do know that he is
going bad fast and without hiding it. When he starts to hide it he will have
made a decision. Remember that, he told himself. The first friendly thing he
does, he will have made a decision. They are awfully good horses, though, he
thought, beautiful horses. I wonder what could make me feel the way those
horses make Pablo feel. The old man was right. The horses made him rich and as
soon as he was rich he wanted to enjoy life. Pretty soon he'll feel bad because
he can't join the Jockey Club, I guess, he thought. Pauvre Pablo. Il a manqué
son Jockey.
That idea made him feel better.
He grinned, looking at the two bent backs and the big packs ahead of him moving
through the trees. He had not made any jokes with himself all day and now that
he had made one he felt much better. You're getting to be as all the rest of
them, he told himself. You're getting gloomy, too. He'd certainly been solemn
and gloomy with Golz. The job had overwhelmed him a little. Slightly
overwhelmed, he thought. Plenty overwhelmed. Golz was gay and he had wanted him
to be gay too before he left, but he hadn't been.
All the best ones, when you
thought it over, were gay. It was much better to be gay and it was a sign of
something too. It was like having immortality while you were still alive. That
was a complicated one. There were not many of them left though. No, there were
not many of the gay ones left. There were very damned few of them left. And if
you keep on thinking like that, my boy, you won't be left either. Turn off the
thinking now, old timer, old comrade. You're a bridge-blower now. Not a
thinker. Man, I'm hungry, he thought. I hope Pablo eats well.