"She is against gypsies."
"What an error," Anselmo said.
"She has gypsy blood," Rafael said. "She knows of what she speaks." He grinned. "But she has a tongue that scalds and that bites like a bull whip. With this tongue she takes the hide from any one. In strips. She is of an unbelievable barbarousness."
"How does she get along with the girl, Maria?" Robert Jordan asked.
"Good. She likes the girl. But let any one come near her seriously--" He shook his head and clucked with his tongue.
"She is very good with the girl," Anselmo said. "She takes good care of her."
"When we picked the girl up at the time of the train she was very strange," Rafael said. "She would not speak and she cried all the time and if any one touched her she would shiver like a wet dog. Only lately has she been better. Lately she has been much better. Today she was fine. Just now, talking to you, she was very good. We would have left her after the train. Certainly it was not worth being delayed by something so sad and ugly and apparently worthless. But the old woman tied a rope to her and when the girl thought she could not go further, the old woman beat her with the end of the rope to make her go. Then when she could not really go further, the old woman carried her over her shoulder. When the old woman could not carry her, I carried her. We were going up that hill breast high in the gorse and heather. And when I could no longer carry her, Pablo carried her. But what the old woman had to say to us to make us do it!" He shook his head at the memory. "It is true that the girl is long in the legs but is not heavy. The bones are light and she weighs little. But she weighs enough when we had to carry her and stop to fire and then carry her again with the old woman lashing at Pablo with the rope and carrying his rifle, putting it in his hand when he would drop the girl, making him pick her up again and loading the gun for him while she cursed him; taking the shells from his pouches and shoving them down into the magazine and cursing him. The dusk was coming well on then and when the night came it was all right. But it was lucky that they had no cavalry."
"It must have been very hard at the train," Anselmo said. "I was not there," he explained to Robert Jordan. "There was the band of Pablo, of El Sordo, whom we will see tonight, and two other bands of these mountains. I had gone to the other side of the lines."
"In addition to the blond one with the rare name--" the gypsy said.
"Kashkin."
"Yes. It is a name I can never dominate. We had two with a machine gun. They were sent also by the army. They could not get the gun away and lost it. Certainly it weighed no more than that girl and if the old woman had been over them they would have gotten it away." He shook his head remembering, then went on. "Never in my life have I seen such a thing as when the explosion was produced. The train was coming steadily. We saw it far away. And I had an excitement so great that I cannot tell it. We saw steam from it and then later came the noise of the whistle. Then it came chu-chu-chu-chu-chu-chu steadily larger and larger and then, at the moment of the explosion, the front wheels of the engine rose up and all of the earth seemed to rise in a great cloud of blackness and a roar and the engine rose high in the cloud of dirt and of the wooden ties rising in the air as in a dream and then it fell onto its side like a great wounded animal and there was an explosion of white steam before the clods of the other explosion had ceased to fall on us and the maquina commenced to speak ta-tat-tat-ta!" went the gypsy shaking his two clenched fists up and down in front of him, thumbs up, on an imaginary machine gun. "Ta! Ta! Tat! Tat! Tat! Ta!" he exulted. "Never in my life have I seen such a thing, with the troops running from the train and the maquina speaking into them and the men falling. It was then that I put my hand on the maquina in my excitement and discovered that the barrel burned and at that moment the old woman slapped me on the side of the face and said, 'Shoot, you fool! Shoot or I will kick your brains in!' Then I commenced to shoot but it was very hard to hold my gun steady and the troops were running up the far hill. Later, after we had been down at the train to see what there was to take, an officer forced some troops back toward us at the point of a pistol. He kept waving the pistol and shouting at them and we were all shooting at him but no one hit him. Then some troops lay down and commenced firing and the officer walked up and down behind them with his pistol and still we could not hit him and the maquina could not fire on him because of the position of the train. This officer shot two men as they lay and still they would not get up and he was cursing them and finally they got up, one two and three at a time and came running toward us and the train. Then they lay flat again and fired. Then we left, with the maquina still speaking over us as we left. It was then I found the girl where she had run from the train to the rocks and she ran with us. It was those troops who hunted us until that night."
"It must have been something very hard," Anselmo said. "Of much emotion."
"It was the only good thing we have done," said a deep voice. "What are you doing now, you lazy drunken obscene unsayable son of an unnameable unmarried gypsy obscenity? What are you doing?"
Robert Jordan saw a woman of about fifty almost as big as Pablo, almost as wide as she was tall, in black peasant skirt and waist, with heavy wool socks on heavy legs, black rope-soled shoes and a brown face like a model for a granite monument. She had big but nice-looking hands and her thick curly black hair was twisted into a knot on her neck.
"Answer me," she said to the gypsy, ignoring the others.
"I was talking to these comrades. This one comes as a dynamiter."
"I know all that," the mujer of Pablo said. "Get out of here now and relieve Andres who is on guard at the top."
"Me voy," the gypsy said. "I go." He turned to Robert Jordan. "I will see thee at the hour of eating."
"Not even in a joke," said the woman to him. "Three times you have eaten today according to my count. Go now and send me Andres.
"Hola," she said to Robert Jordan and put out her hand and smiled. "How are you and how is everything in the Republic?"
"Good," he said and returned her strong hand grip. "Both with me and with the Republic."
"I am happy," she told him. She was looking into his face and smiling and he noticed she had fine gray eyes. "Do you come for us to do another train?"
"No," said Robert Jordan, trusting her instantly. "For a bridge."
"No es nada," she said. "A bridge is nothing. When do we do another train now that we have horses?"
"Later. This bridge is of great importance."
"The girl told me your comrade who was with us at the train is dead."
"Yes."
"What a pity. Never have I seen such an explosion. He was a man of talent. He pleased me very much. It is not possible to do another train now? There are many men here now in the hills. Too many. It is already hard to get food. It would be better to get out. And we have horses."
"We have to do this bridge."
"Where is it?"
"Quite close."
"All the better," the mujer of Pablo said. "Let us blow all the bridges there are here and get out. I am sick of this place. Here is too much concentration of people. No good can come of it. Here is a stagnation that is repugnant."
She sighted Pablo through the trees.
"Borracho!" she called to him. "Drunkard. Rotten drunkard!" She turned back to Robert Jordan cheerfully. "He's taken a leather wine bottle to drink alone in the woods," she said. "He's drinking all the time. This life is ruining him. Young man, I am very content that you have come." She clapped him on the back. "Ah," she said. "You're bigger than you look," and ran her hand over his shoulder, feeling the muscle under the flannel shirt. "Good. I am very content that you have come."
"And I equally."
"We will understand each other," she said. "Have a cup of wine."
"We have already had some," Robert Jordan said. "But, will you?"
"Not until dinner," she said. "It gives me heartburn." Then she sighted Pablo again. "Borracho!" she shouted. "Drunkard!" She turned to Robert Jordan and shook h
er head. "He was a very good man," she told him. "But now he is terminated. And listen to me about another thing. Be very good and careful about the girl. The Maria. She has had a bad time. Understandest thou?"
"Yes. Why do you say this?"
"I saw how she was from seeing thee when she came into the cave. I saw her watching thee before she came out."
"I joked with her a little."
"She was in a very bad state," the woman of Pablo said. "Now she is better, she ought to get out of here."
"Clearly, she can be sent through the lines with Anselmo."
"You and the Anselmo can take her when this terminates."
Robert Jordan felt the ache in his throat and his voice thickening. "That might be done," he said.
The mujer of Pablo looked at him and shook her head. "Ayee. Ayee," she said. "Are all men like that?"
"I said nothing. She is beautiful, you know that."
"No she is not beautiful. But she begins to be beautiful, you mean," the woman of Pablo said. "Men. It is a shame to us women that we make them. No. In seriousness. Are there not homes to care for such as her under the Republic?"
"Yes," said Robert Jordan. "Good places. On the coast near Valencia. In other places too. There they will treat her well and she can work with children. There are the children from evacuated villages. They will teach her the work."
"That is what I want," the mujer of Pablo said. "Pablo has a sickness for her already. It is another thing which destroys him. It lies on him like a sickness when he sees her. It is best that she goes now."
"We can take her after this is over."
"And you will be careful of her now if I trust you? I speak to you as though I knew you for a long time."
"It is like that," Robert Jordan said, "when people understand one another."
"Sit down," the woman of Pablo said. "I do not ask any promise because what will happen, will happen. Only if you will not take her out, then I ask a promise."
"Why if I would not take her?"
"Because I do not want her crazy here after you will go. I have had her crazy before and I have enough without that."
"We will take her after the bridge," Robert Jordan said. "If we are alive after the bridge, we will take her."
"I do not like to hear you speak in that manner. That manner of speaking never brings luck."
"I spoke in that manner only to make a promise," Robert Jordan said. "I am not of those who speak gloomily."
"Let me see thy hand," the woman said. Robert Jordan put his hand out and the woman opened it, held it in her own big hand, rubbed her thumb over it and looked at it, carefully, then dropped it. She stood up. He got up too and she looked at him without smiling.
"What did you see in it?" Robert Jordan asked her. "I don't believe in it. You won't scare me."
"Nothing," she told him. "I saw nothing in it."
"Yes you did. I am only curious. I do not believe in such things."
"In what do you believe?"
"In many things but not in that."
"In what?"
"In my work."
"Yes, I saw that."
"Tell me what else you saw."
"I saw nothing else," she said bitterly. "The bridge is very difficult you said?"
"No. I said it is very important."
"But it can be difficult?"
"Yes. And now I go down to look at it. How many men have you here?"
"Five that are any good. The gypsy is worthless although his intentions are good. He has a good heart. Pablo I no longer trust."
"How many men has El Sordo that are good?"
"Perhaps eight. We will see tonight. He is coming here. He is a very practical man. He also has some dynamite. Not very much, though. You will speak with him."
"Have you sent for him?"
"He comes every night. He is a neighbor. Also a friend as well as a comrade."
"What do you think of him?"
"He is a very good man. Also very practical. In the business of the train he was enormous."
"And in the other bands?"
"Advising them in time, it should be possible to unite fifty rifles of a certain dependability."
"How dependable?"
"Dependable within the gravity of the situation."
"And how many cartridges per rifle?"
"Perhaps twenty. Depending how many they would bring for this business. If they would come for this business. Remember thee that in this of a bridge there is no money and no loot and in thy reservations of talking, much danger, and that afterwards there must be a moving from these mountains. Many will oppose this of the bridge."
"Clearly."
"In this way it is better not to speak of it unnecessarily."
"I am in accord."
"Then after thou hast studied thy bridge we will talk tonight with El Sordo."
"I go down now with Anselmo."
"Wake him then," she said. "Do you want a carbine?"
"Thank you," he told her. "It is good to have but I will not use it. I go to look, not to make disturbances. Thank you for what you have told me. I like very much your way of speaking."
"I try to speak frankly."
"Then tell me what you saw in the hand."
"No," she said and shook her head. "I saw nothing. Go now to thy bridge. I will look after thy equipment."
"Cover it and that no one should touch it. It is better there than in the cave."
"It shall be covered and no one shall touch it," the woman of Pablo said. "Go now to thy bridge."
"Anselmo," Robert Jordan said, putting his hand on the shoulder of the old man who lay sleeping, his head on his arms.
The old man looked up. "Yes," he said. "Of course. Let us go."
3
They came down the last two hundred yards, moving carefully from tree to tree in the shadows and now, through the last pines of the steep hillside, the bridge was only fifty yards away. The late afternoon sun that still came over the brown shoulder of the mountain showed the bridge dark against the steep emptiness of the gorge. It was a steel bridge of a single span and there was a sentry box at each end. It was wide enough for two motor cars to pass and it spanned, in solid-flung metal grace, a deep gorge at the bottom of which, far below, a brook leaped in white water through rocks and boulders down to the main stream of the pass.
The sun was in Robert Jordan's eyes and the bridge showed only in outline. Then the sun lessened and was gone and looking up through the trees at the brown, rounded height that it had gone behind, he saw, now, that he no longer looked into the glare, that the mountain slope was a delicate new green and that there were patches of old snow under the crest.
Then he was watching the bridge again in the sudden short trueness of the little light that would be left, and studying its construction. The problem of its demolition was not difficult. As he watched he took out a notebook from his breast pocket and made several quick line sketches. As he made the drawings he did not figure the charges. He would do that later. Now he was noting the points where the explosive should be placed in order to cut the support of the span and drop a section of it into the gorge. It could be done unhurriedly, scientifically and correctly with a half dozen charges laid and braced to explode simultaneously; or it could be done roughly with two big ones. They would need to be very big ones, on opposite sides and should go at the same time. He sketched quickly and happily; glad at last to have the problem under his hand; glad at last actually to be engaged upon it. Then he shut his notebook, pushed the pencil into its leather holder in the edge of the flap, put the notebook in his pocket and buttoned the pocket.
While he had sketched, Anselmo had been watching the road, the bridge and the sentry boxes. He thought they had come too close to the bridge for safety and when the sketching was finished, he was relieved.
As Robert Jordan buttoned the flap of his pocket and then lay flat behind the pine trunk, looking out from behind it, Anselmo put his hand on his elbow and pointed with one finger.
In the sentry box that faced toward them up the road, the sentry was sitting holding his rifle, the bayonet fixed, between his knees. He was smoking a cigarette and he wore a knitted cap and blanket style cape. At fifty yards, you could not see anything about his face. Robert Jordan put up his field glasses, shading the lenses carefully with his cupped hands even though there was now no sun to make a glint, and there was the rail of the bridge as clear as though you could reach out and touch it and there was the face of the sentry so clear he could see the sunken cheeks, the ash on the cigarette and the greasy shine of the bayonet. It was a peasant's face, the cheeks hollow under the high cheekbones, the beard stubbled, the eyes shaded by the heavy brows, big hands holding the rifle, heavy boots showing beneath the folds of the blanket cape. There was a worn, blackened leather wine bottle on the wall of the sentry box, there were some newspapers and there was no telephone. There could, of course, be a telephone on the side he could not see; but there were no wires running from the box that were visible. A telephone line ran along the road and its wires were carried over the bridge. There was a charcoal brazier outside the sentry box, made from an old petrol tin with the top cut off and holes punched in it, which rested on two stones; but he held no fire. There were some fire-blackened empty tins in the ashes under it.
Robert Jordan handed the glasses to Anselmo who lay flat beside him. The old man grinned and shook his head. He tapped his skull beside his eye with one finger.
"Ya lo veo," he said in Spanish. "I have seen him," speaking from the front of his mouth with almost no movement of his lips in the way that is quieter than any whisper. He looked at the sentry as Robert Jordan smiled at him and, pointing with one finger, drew the other across his throat. Robert Jordan nodded but he did not smile.
The sentry box at the far end of the bridge faced away from them and down the road and they could not see into it. The road, which was broad and oiled and well constructed, made a turn to the left at the far end of the bridge and then swung out of sight around a curve to the right. At this point it was enlarged from the old road to its present width by cutting into the solid bastion of the rock on the far side of the gorge; and its left or western edge, looking down from the pass and the bridge, was marked and protected by a line of upright cut blocks of stone where its edge fell sheer away to the gorge. The gorge was almost a canyon here, where the brook, that the bridge was flung over, merged with the main stream of the pass.
For Whom the Bell Tolls Page 4