For Whom The Bell Tolls

He looked at Robert Jordan now. "When I left I thought you would know that it was impossible and would give it up. Then after I had thrown away thy material I saw it in another manner."

"I am glad to see thee," Robert Jordan said. He walked over to him. "We are all right with the grenades. That will work. The other does not matter now."

"Nay," Pablo said. "I do nothing for thee. Thou art a thing of bad omen. All of this comes from thee. Sordo also. But after I had thrown away thy material I found myself too lonely."

"Thy mother--" Pilar said.

"So I rode for the others to make it possible for it to be successful. I have brought the best that I could get. I have left them at the top so I could speak to you, first. They think I am the leader."

"Thou art," Pilar said. "If thee wishes." Pablo looked at her and said nothing. Then he said simply and quietly, "I have thought much since the thing of Sordo. I believe if we must finish we must finish together. But thou, Ingles. I hate thee for bringing this to us."

"But Pablo--" Fernando, his pockets full of grenades, a bandolier of cartridges over his shoulder, he still wiping in his pan of stew with a piece of bread, began. "Do you not believe the operation can be successful? Night before last you said you were convinced it would be."

"Give him some more stew," Pilar said viciously to Maria. Then to Pablo, her eyes softening, "So you have come back, eh?"

"Yes, woman," Pablo said.

"Well, thou art welcome," Pilar said to him. "I did not think thou couldst be the ruin thou appeared to be."

"Having done such a thing there is a loneliness that cannot be borne," Pablo said to her quietly.

"That cannot be borne," she mocked him. "That cannot be borne by thee for fifteen minutes."

"Do not mock me, woman. I have come back."

"And thou art welcome," she said. "Didst not hear me the first time? Drink thy coffee and let us go. So much theatre tires me."

"Is that coffee?" Pablo asked.

"Certainly," Fernando said.

"Give me some, Maria," Pablo said. "How art thou?" He did not look at her.

"Well," Maria told him and brought him a bowl of coffee. "Do you want stew?" Pablo shook his head.

"No me gusta estar solo," Pablo went on explaining to Pilar as though the others were not there. "I do not like to be alone. Sabes? Yesterday all day alone working for the good of all I was not lonely. But last night. Hombre! Que mal lo pase!"

"Thy predecessor the famous Judas Iscariot hanged himself," Pilar said.

"Don't talk to me that way, woman," Pablo said. "Have you not seen? I am back. Don't talk of Judas nor nothing of that. I am back."

"How are these people thee brought?" Pilar asked him. "Hast brought anything worth bringing?"

"Son buenos," Pablo said. He took a chance and looked at Pilar squarely, then looked away.

"Buenos y bobos. Good ones and stupids. Ready to die and all. A tu gusto. According to thy taste. The way you like them."

Pablo looked Pilar in the eyes again and this time he did not look away. He kept on looking at her squarely with his small, redrimmed pig eyes.

"Thou," she said and her husky voice was fond again. "Thou. I suppose if a man has something once, always something of it remains."

"Listo," Pablo said, looking at her squarely and flatly now. "I am ready for what the day brings."

"I believe thou art back," Pilar said to him. "I believe it. But, hombre, thou wert a long way gone."

"Lend me another swallow from thy bottle," Pablo said to Robert Jordan. "And then let us be going."

39

In the dark they came up the hill through the timber to the narrow pass at the top. They were all loaded heavily and they climbed slowly. The horses had loads too, packed over the saddles.

"We can cut them loose if it is necessary," Pilar had said. "But with that, if we can keep it, we can make another camp."

"And the rest of the ammunition?" Robert Jordan had asked as they lashed the packs.

"In those saddlebags."

Robert Jordan felt the weight of his heavy pack, the dragging on his neck from the pull of his jacket with its pockets full of grenades, the weight of his pistol against his thigh, and the bulging of his trouser pockets where the clips for the submachine gun were. In his mouth was the taste of the coffee, in his right hand he carried the submachine gun and with his left hand he reached and pulled up the collar of his jacket to ease the pull of the pack straps.

"Ingles," Pablo said to him, walking close beside him in the dark.

"What, man?"

"These I have brought think this is to be successful because I have brought them," Pablo said. "Do not say anything to disillusion them."

"Good," Robert Jordan said. "But let us make it successful."

"They have five horses, sabes?" Pablo said cautiously.

"Good," said Robert Jordan. "We will keep all the horses together."

"Good," said Pablo, and nothing more.