For Whom The Bell Tolls

by Эрнест Миллер Хемингуэй

  "Thy mother," Robert Jordan said.

  "Thou never hadst one," Pilar whispered cheerfully. "Now go, because I have a great desire to start this and get it over with. Go with thy people," she said to Pablo. "Who knows how long their stern resolution is good for? Thou hast a couple that I would not trade thee for. Take them and go."

  Robert Jordan slung his pack on his back and walked over to the horses to find Maria.

  "Good-by, guapa," he said. "I will see thee soon."

  He had an unreal feeling about all of this now as though he had said it all before or as though it were a train that were going, especially as though it were a train and he was standing on the platform of a railway station.

  "Good-by, Roberto," she said. "Take much care."

  "Of course," he said. He bent his head to kiss her and his pack rolled forward against the back of his head so that his forehead bumped hers hard. As this happened he knew this had happened before too.

  "Don't cry," he said, awkward not only from the load.

  "I do not," she said. "But come back quickly."

  "Do not worry when you hear the firing. There is bound to be much firing."

  "Nay. Only come back quickly."

  "Good-by, guapa," he said awkwardly.

  "Salud, Roberto."

  Robert Jordan had not felt this young since he had taken the train at Red Lodge to go down to Billings to get the train there to go away to school for the first time. He had been afraid to go and he did not want any one to know it and, at the station, just before the conductor picked up the box he would step up on to reach the steps of the day coach, his father had kissed him good-by and said, "May the Lord watch between thee and me while we are absent the one from the other." His father had been a very religious man and he had said it simply and sincerely. But his moustache had been moist and his eyes were damp with emotion and Robert Jordan had been so embarrassed by all of it, the damp religious sound of the prayer, and by his father kissing him good-by, that he had felt suddenly so much older than his father and sorry for him that he could hardly bear it.

  After the train started he had stood on the rear platform and watched the station and the water tower grow smaller and smaller and the rails crossed by the ties narrowed toward a point where the station and the water tower stood now minute and tiny in the steady clicking that was taking him away.

  The brakeman said, "Dad seemed to take your going sort of hard, Bob."

  "Yes," he had said watching the sagebrush that ran from the edge of the road bed between the passing telegraph poles across to the streaming-by dusty stretching of the road. He was looking for sage hens.

  "You don't mind going away to school?"

  "No," he had said and it was true.

  It would not have been true before but it was true that minute and it was only now, at this parting, that he ever felt as young again as he had felt before that train left. He felt very young now and very awkward and he was saying good-by as awkwardly as one can be when saying good-by to a young girl when you are a boy in school, saying good-by at the front porch, not knowing whether to kiss the girl or not. Then he knew it was not the good-by he was being awkward about. It was the meeting he was going to. The good-by was only a part of the awkwardness he felt about the meeting.

  You're getting them again, he told himself. But I suppose there is no one that does not feel that he is too young to do it. He would not put a name to it. Come on, he said to himself. Come on. It is too early for your second childhood.

  "Good-by, guapa," he said. "Good-by, rabbit."

  "Good-by, my Roberto," she said and he went over to where Anselmo and Agustin were standing and said, "Vamonos."

  Anselmo swung his heavy pack up. Agustin, fully loaded since the cave, was leaning against a tree, the automatic rifle jutting over the top of his load.

  "Good," he said, "Vamonos."

  The three of them started down the hill.

  "Buena suerte, Don Roberto," Fernando said as the three of them passed him as they moved in single file between the trees. Fernando was crouched on his haunches a little way from where they passed but he spoke with great dignity.

  "Buena suerte thyself, Fernando," Robert Jordan said.

  "In everything thou doest," Agustin said.

  "Thank you, Don Roberto," Fernando said, undisturbed by Agustin.

  "That one is a phenomenon, Ingles," Agustin whispered.

  "I believe thee," Robert Jordan said. "Can I help thee? Thou art loaded like a horse."

  "I am all right," Agustin said. "Man, but I am content we are started."

  "Speak softly," Anselmo said. "From now on speak little and softly."

  Walking carefully, downhill, Anselmo in the lead, Agustin next, Robert Jordan placing his feet carefully so that he would not slip, feeling the dead pine needles under his rope-soled shoes, bumping a tree root with one foot and putting a hand forward and feeling the cold metal jut of the automatic rifle barrel and the folded legs of the tripod, then working sideways down the hill, his shoes sliding and grooving the forest floor, putting his left hand out again and touching the rough bark of a tree trunk, then as he braced himself his hand feeling a smooth place, the base of the palm of his hand coming away sticky from the resinous sap where a blaze had been cut, they dropped down the steep wooded hillside to the point above the bridge where Robert Jordan and Anselmo had watched the first day.

  Now Anselmo was halted by a pine tree in the dark and he took Robert Jordan's wrist and whispered, so low Jordan could hardly hear him, "Look. There is the fire in his brazier."

  It was a point of light below where Robert Jordan knew the bridge joined the road.

  "Here is where we watched," Anselmo said. He took Robert Jordan's hand and bent it down to touch a small fresh blaze low on a tree trunk. "This I marked while thou watched. To the right is where thou wished to put the maquina."

  "We will place it there."

  "Good."

  They put the packs down behind the base of the pine trunks and the two of them followed Anselmo over to the level place where there was a clump of seedling pines.

  "It is here," Anselmo said. "Just here."

  "From here, with daylight," Robert Jordan crouched behind the small trees whispered to Agustin, "thou wilt see a small stretch of road and the entrance to the bridge. Thou wilt see the length of the bridge and a small stretch of road at the other end before it rounds the curve of the rocks."

  Agustin said nothing.

  "Here thou wilt lie while we prepare the exploding and fire on anything that comes from above or below."

  "Where is that light?" Agustin asked.

  "In the sentry box at this end," Robert Jordan whispered.

  "Who deals with the sentries?"

  "The old man and I, as I told thee. But if we do not deal with them, thou must fire into the sentry boxes and at them if thou seest them."

  "Yes. You told me that."

  "After the explosion when the people of Pablo come around that corner, thou must fire over their heads if others come after them. Thou must fire high above them when they appear in any event that others must not come. Understandest thou?"

  "Why not? It is as thou saidst last night."

  "Hast any questions?"

  "Nay. I have two sacks. I can load them from above where it will not be seen and bring them here."

  "But do no digging here. Thou must be as well hid as we were at the top."

  "Nay. I will bring the dirt in them in the dark. You will see. They will not show as I will fix them."

  "Thou are very close. Sabes? In the daylight this clump shows clearly from below."

  "Do not worry, Ingles. Where goest thou?"

  "I go close below with the small maquina of mine. The old man will cross the gorge now to be ready for the box of the other end. It faces in that direction."

  "Then nothing more," said Agustin. "Salud, Ingles. Hast thou tobacco?"

  "Thou canst not smoke. It is too close."

  "Nay. J
ust to hold in the mouth. To smoke later."

  Robert Jordan gave him his cigarette case and Agustin took three cigarettes and put them inside the front flap of his herdsman's flat cap. He spread the legs of his tripod with the gun muzzle in the low pines and commenced unpacking his load by touch and laying the things where he wanted them.

  "Nada mas," he said. "Well, nothing more."

  Anselmo and Robert Jordan left him there and went back to where the packs were.

  "Where had we best leave them?" Robert Jordan whispered.

  "I think here. But canst thou be sure of the sentry with thy small maquina from here?"

  "Is this exactly where we were on that day?"

  "The same tree," Anselmo said so low Jordan could barely hear him and he knew he was speaking without moving his lips as he had spoken that first day. "I marked it with my knife."

  Robert Jordan had the feeling again of it all having happened before, but this time it came from his own repetition of a query and Anselmo's answer. It had been the same with Agustin, who had asked a question about the sentries although he knew the answer.

  "It is close enough. Even too close," he whispered. "But the light is behind us. We are all right here."

  "Then I will go now to cross the gorge and be in position at the other end," Anselmo said. Then he said, "Pardon me, Ingles. So that there is no mistake. In case I am stupid."

  "What?" he breathed very softly.

  "Only to repeat it so that I will do it exactly."

  "When I fire, thou wilt fire. When thy man is eliminated, cross the bridge to me. I will have the packs down there and thou wilt do as I tell thee in the placing of the charges. Everything I will tell thee. If aught happens to me do it thyself as I showed thee. Take thy time and do it well, wedging all securely with the wooden wedges and lashing the grenades firmly."

  "It is all clear to me," Anselmo said. "I remember it all. Now I go. Keep thee well covered, Ingles, when daylight comes."

  "When thou firest," Robert Jordan said, "take a rest and make very sure. Do not think of it as a man but as a target, de acuerdo? Do not shoot at the whole man but at a point. Shoot for the exact center of the belly-if he faces thee. At the middle of the back, if he is looking away. Listen, old one. When I fire if the man is sitting down he will stand up before he runs or crouches. Shoot then. If he is still sitting down shoot. Do not wait. But make sure. Get to within fifty yards. Thou art a hunter. Thou hast no problem."

  "I will do as thou orderest," Anselmo said.

  "Yes. I order it thus," Robert Jordan said.

  I'm glad I remembered to make it an order, he thought. That helps him out. That takes some of the curse off. I hope it does, anyway. Some of it. I had forgotten about what he told me that first day about the killing.

  "It is thus I have ordered," he said. "Now go."

  "Me voy," said Anselmo. "Until soon, Ingles."

  "Until soon, old one," Robert Jordan said.

  He remembered his father in the railway station and the wetness of that farewell and he did not say Salud nor good-by nor good luck nor anything like that.

  "Hast wiped the oil from the bore of thy gun, old one?" he whispered. "So it will not throw wild?"

  "In the cave," Anselmo said. "I cleaned them all with the pullthrough."

  "Then until soon," Robert Jordan said and the old man went off, noiseless on his rope-soled shoes, swinging wide through the trees.

  Robert Jordan lay on the pine-needle floor of the forest and listened to the first stirring in the branches of the pines of the wind that would come with daylight. He took the clip out of the submachine gun and worked the lock back and forth. Then he turned the gun, with the lock open and in the dark he put the muzzle to his lips and blew through the barrel, the metal tasting greasy and oily as his tongue touched the edge of the bore. He laid the gun across his forearm, the action up so that no pine needles or rubbish could get in it, and shucked all the cartridges out of the clip with his thumb and onto a handkerchief he had spread in front of him. Then, feeling each cartridge in the dark and turning it in his fingers, he pressed and slid them one at a time back into the clip. Now the clip was heavy again in his hand and he slid it back into the submachine gun and felt it click home. He lay on his belly behind the pine trunk, the gun across his left forearm and watched the point of light below him. Sometimes he could not see it and then he knew that the man in the sentry box had moved in front of the brazier. Robert Jordan lay there and waited for daylight.

  42

  During the time that Pablo had ridden back from the hills to the cave and the time the band had dropped down to where they had left the horses Andres had made rapid progress toward Golz's headquarters. Where they came onto the main highroad to Navacerrada on which the trucks were rolling back from the mountain there was a control. But when Gomez showed the sentry at the control his safe-conduct from the Lieutenant-Colonel Miranda the sentry put the light from a flashlight on it, showed it to the other sentry with him, then handed it back and saluted.

  "Siga," he said. "Continue. But without lights."

  The motorcycle roared again and Andres was holding tight onto the forward seat and they were moving along the highway, Gomez riding carefully in the traffic. None of the trucks had lights and they were moving down the road in a long convoy. There were loaded trucks moving up the road too, and all of them raised a dust that Andres could not see in that dark but could only feel as a cloud that blew in his face and that he could bite between his teeth.

  They were close behind the tailboard of a truck now, the motorcycle chugging, then Gomez speeded up and passed it and another, and another, and another with the other trucks roaring and rolling down past them on the left. There was a motorcar behind them now and it blasted into the truck noise and the dust with its klaxon again and again; then flashed on lights that showed the dust like a solid yellow cloud and surged past them in a whining rise of gears and a demanding, threatening, bludgeoning of klaxoning.

  Then ahead all the trucks were stopped and riding on, working his way ahead past ambulances, staff cars, an armored car, another, and a third, all halted, like heavy, metal, gun-jutting turtles in the hot yet settled dust, they found another control where there had been a smash-up. A truck, halting, had not been seen by the truck which followed it and the following truck had run into it smashing the rear of the first truck in and scattering cases of small-arms ammunition over the road. One case had burst open on landing and as Gomez and Andres stopped and wheeled the motorcycle forward through the stalled vehicles to show their safe-conduct at the control Andres walked over the brass hulls of the thousand of cartridges scattered across the road in the dust. The second truck had its radiator completely smashed in. The truck behind it was touching its tail gate. A hundred more were piling up behind and an overbooted officer was running back along the road shouting to the drivers to back so that the smashed truck could be gotten off the road.

  There were too many trucks for them to be able to back unless the officer reached the end of the ever mounting line and stopped it from increasing and Andres saw him running, stumbling, with his flashlight, shouting and cursing and, in the dark, the trucks kept coming up.

  The man at the control would not give the safe-conduct back. There were two of them, with rifles slung on their backs and flashlights in their hands and they were shouting too. The one carrying the safe-conduct in his hand crossed the road to a truck going in the downhill direction to tell it to proceed to the next control and tell them there to hold all trucks until his jam was straightened out. The truck driver listened and went on. Then, still holding the safeconduct, the control patrol came over, shouting, to the truck driver whose load was spilled.

  "Leave it and get ahead for the love of God so we can clear this!" he shouted at the driver.

  "My transmission is smashed," the driver, who was bent over by the rear of his truck, said.

  "Obscene your transmission. Go ahead, I say."

  "They do not go ahead when th
e differential is smashed," the driver told him and bent down again.

  "Get thyself pulled then, get ahead so that we can get this other obscenity off the road."

  The driver looked at him sullenly as the control man shone the electric torch on the smashed rear of the truck.

  "Get ahead. Get ahead," the man shouted, still holding the safeconduct pass in his hand.

  "And my paper," Gomez spoke to him. "My safe-conduct. We are in a hurry."

  "Take thy safe-conduct to hell," the man said and handing it to him ran across the road to halt a down-coming truck.

  "Turn thyself at the crossroads and put thyself in position to pull this wreck forward," he said to the driver.

  "My orders are-"

  "Obscenity thy orders. Do as I say."

  The driver let his truck into gear and rolled straight ahead down the road and was gone in the dust.

  As Gomez started the motorcycle ahead onto the now clear right-hand side of the road past the wrecked truck, Andres, holding tight again, saw the control guard halting another truck and the driver leaning from the cab and listening to him.

  Now they went fast, swooping along the road that mounted steadily toward the mountain. All forward traffic had been stalled at the control and there were only the descending trucks passing, passing and passing on their left as the motorcycle climbed fast and steadily now until it began to overtake the mounting traffic which had gone on ahead before the disaster at the control.

  Still without lights they passed four more armored cars, then a long line of trucks loaded with troops. The troops were silent in the dark and at first Andres only felt their presence rising above him, bulking above the truck bodies through the dust as they passed. Then another staff came behind them blasting with its klaxon and flicking its lights off and on, and each time the lights shone Andres saw the troops, steel-helmeted, their rifles vertical, their machine guns pointed up against the dark sky, etched sharp against the night that they dropped into when the light flicked off. Once as he passed close to a troop truck and the lights flashed he saw their faces fixed and sad in the sudden light. In their steel helmets, riding in the trucks in the dark toward something that they only knew was an attack, their faces were drawn with each man's own problem in the dark and the light revealed them as they would not have looked in day, from shame to show it to each other, until the bombardment and the attack would commence, and no man would think about his face.