For Whom the Bell Tolls (30 page)

“What about all those staff cars?” the soldier on the bunk asked. “I did not like the look of all those staff cars.”

“Nor I,” the corporal said. “All such things are of evil omen.”

“And aviation,” the soldier who was cooking said. “Aviation is another bad sign.”

“But we have formidable aviation,” the corporal said. “The Reds have no aviation such as we have. Those planes this morning were something to make any man happy.”

“I have seen the Red planes when they were something serious,” the soldier on the bunk said. “I have seen those two motor bombers when they were a horror to endure.”

“Yes. But they are not as formidable as our aviation,” the corporal said. “We have an aviation that is insuperable.”

This was how they were talking in the sawmill while Anselmo waited in the snow watching the road and the light in the sawmill window.

I hope I am not for the killing, Anselmo was thinking. I think that after the war there will have to be some great penance done for
the killing. If we no longer have religion after the war then I think there must be some form of civic penance organized that all may be cleansed from the killing or else we will never have a true and human basis for living. The killing is necessary, I know, but still the doing of it is very bad for a man and I think that, after all this is over and we have won the war, there must be a penance of some kind for the cleansing of us all.

Anselmo was a very good man and whenever he was alone for long, and he was alone much of the time, this problem of the killing returned to him.

I wonder about the
Inglés,
he thought. He told me that he did not mind it. Yet he seems to be both sensitive and kind. It may be that in the younger people it does not have an importance. It may be that in foreigners, or in those who have not had our religion, there is not the same attitude. But I think any one doing it will be brutalized in time and I think that even though necessary, it is a great sin and that afterwards we must do something very strong to atone for it.

It was dark now and he looked at the light across the road and shook his arms against his chest to warm them. Now, he thought, he would certainly leave for the camp; but something kept him there beside the tree above the road. It was snowing harder and Anselmo thought: if only we could blow the bridge tonight. On a night like this it would be nothing to take the posts and blow the bridge and it would all be over and done with. On a night like this you could do anything.

Then he stood there against the tree stamping his feet softly and he did not think any more about the bridge. The coming of the dark always made him feel lonely and tonight he felt so lonely that there was a hollowness in him as of hunger. In the old days he could help this loneliness by the saying of prayers and often coming home from hunting he would repeat a great number of the same prayer and it made him feel better. But he had not prayed once since the movement. He missed the prayers but he thought it would be unfair and hypocritical to say them and he did not wish to ask any favors or for any different treatment than all the men were receiving.

No, he thought, I am lonely. But so are all the soldiers and the wives of all the soldiers and all those who have lost families or parents.
I have no wife, but I am glad that she died before the movement. She would not have understood it. I have no children and I never will have any children. I am lonely in the day when I am not working but when the dark comes it is a time of great loneliness. But one thing I have that no man nor any God can take from me and that is that I have worked well for the Republic. I have worked hard for the good that we will all share later. I have worked my best from the first of the movement and I have done nothing that I am ashamed of.

All that I am sorry for is the killing. But surely there will be an opportunity to atone for that because for a sin of that sort that so many bear, certainly some just relief will be devised. I would like to talk with the
Inglés
about it but, being young, it is possible that he might not understand. He mentioned the killing before. Or was it I that mentioned it? He must have killed much, but he shows no signs of liking it. In those who like it there is always a rottenness.

It must really be a great sin, he thought. Because certainly it is the one thing we have no right to do even though, as I know, it is necessary. But in Spain it is done too lightly and often without true necessity and there is much quick injustice which, afterward, can never be repaired. I wish I did not think about it so much, he thought. I wish there were a penance for it that one could commence now because it is the only thing that I have done in all my life that makes me feel badly when I am alone. All the other things are forgiven or one had a chance to atone for them by kindness or in some decent way. But I think this of the killing must be a very great sin and I would like to fix it up. Later on there may be certain days that one can work for the state or something that one can do that will remove it. It will probably be something that one pays as in the days of the Church, he thought, and smiled. The Church was well organized for sin. That pleased him and he was smiling in the dark when Robert Jordan came up to him. He came silently and the old man did not see him until he was there.

“
Hola
,
viejo,
” Robert Jordan whispered and clapped him on the back. “How's the old one?”

“Very cold,” Anselmo said. Fernando was standing a little apart, his back turned against the driving snow.

“Come on,” Robert Jordan whispered. “Get on up to camp and get warm. It was a crime to leave you here so long.”

“That is their light,” Anselmo pointed.

“Where's the sentry?”

“You do not see him from here. He is around the bend.”

“The hell with them,” Robert Jordan said. “You tell me at camp. Come on, let's go.”

“Let me show you,” Anselmo said.

“I'm going to look at it in the morning,” Robert Jordan said. “Here, take a swallow of this.”

He handed the old man his flask. Anselmo tipped it up and swallowed.

“
Ayee,
” he said and rubbed his mouth. “It is fire.”

“Come on,” Robert Jordan said in the dark. “Let us go.”

It was so dark now you could only see the flakes blowing past and the rigid dark of the pine trunks. Fernando was standing a little way up the hill. Look at that cigar store Indian, Robert Jordan thought. I suppose I have to offer him a drink.

“Hey, Fernando,” he said as he came up to him. “A swallow?”

“No,” said Fernando. “Thank you.”

Thank
you,
I mean, Robert Jordan thought. I'm glad cigar store Indians don't drink. There isn't too much of that left. Boy, I'm glad to see this old man, Robert Jordan thought. He looked at Anselmo and then clapped him on the back again as they started up the hill.

“I'm glad to see you,
viejo,
” he said to Anselmo. “If I ever get gloomy, when I see you it cheers me up. Come on, let's get up there.”

They were going up the hill in the snow.

“Back to the palace of Pablo,” Robert Jordan said to Anselmo. It sounded wonderful in Spanish.

“
El Palacio del Miedo,
” Anselmo said. “The Palace of Fear.”

“
La cueva de los huevos perdidos,
” Robert Jordan capped the other happily. “The cave of the lost eggs.”

“What eggs?” Fernando asked.

“A joke,” Robert Jordan said. “Just a joke. Not eggs, you know. The others.”

“But why are they lost?” Fernando asked.

“I don't know,” said Robert Jordan. “Take a book to tell you.
Ask Pilar,” then he put his arm around Anselmo's shoulder and held him tight as they walked and shook him. “Listen,” he said. “I'm glad to see you, hear? You don't know what it means to find somebody in this country in the same place they were left.”

It showed what confidence and intimacy he had that he could say anything against the country.

“I am glad to see thee,” Anselmo said. “But I was just about to leave.”

“Like hell you would have,” Robert Jordan said happily. “You'd have frozen first.”

“How was it up above?” Anselmo asked.

“Fine,” said Robert Jordan. “Everything is fine.”

He was very happy with that sudden, rare happiness that can come to any one with a command in a revolutionary arm; the happiness of finding that even one of your flanks holds. If both flanks ever held I suppose it would be too much to take, he thought. I don't know who is prepared to stand that. And if you extend along a flank, any flank, it eventually becomes one man. Yes, one man. This was not the axiom he wanted. But this was a good man. One good man. You are going to be the left flank when we have the battle, he thought. I better not tell you that yet. It's going to be an awfully small battle, he thought. But it's going to be an awfully good one. Well, I always wanted to fight one on my own. I always had an opinion on what was wrong with everybody else's, from Agincourt down. I will have to make this a good one. It is going to be small but very select. If I have to do what I think I will have to do it will be very select indeed.

“Listen,” he said to Anselmo. “I'm awfully glad to see you.”

“And me to see thee,” the old man said.

As they went up the hill in the dark, the wind at their backs, the storm blowing past them as they climbed, Anselmo did not feel lonely. He had not been lonely since the
Inglés
had clapped him on the shoulder. The
Inglés
was pleased and happy and they joked together. The
Inglés
said it all went well and he was not worried. The drink in his stomach warmed him and his feet were warming now climbing.

“Not much on the road,” he said to the
Inglés
.

“Good,” the
Inglés
told him. “You will show me when we get there.”

Anselmo was happy now and he was very pleased that he had stayed there at the post of observation.

If he had come in to camp it would have been all right. It would have been the intelligent and correct thing to have done under the circumstances, Robert Jordan was thinking. But he stayed as he was told, Robert Jordan thought. That's the rarest thing that can happen in Spain. To stay in a storm, in a way, corresponds to a lot of things. It's not for nothing that the Germans call an attack a storm. I could certainly use a couple more who would stay. I most certainly could. I wonder if that Fernando would stay. It's just possible. After all, he is the one who suggested coming out just now. Do you suppose he would stay? Wouldn't that be good? He's just about stubborn enough. I'll have to make some inquiries. Wonder what the old cigar store Indian is thinking about now.

“What are you thinking about, Fernando?” Robert Jordan asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity,” Robert Jordan said. “I am a man of great curiosity.”

“I was thinking of supper,” Fernando said.

“Do you like to eat?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“How's Pilar's cooking?”

“Average,” Fernando answered.

He's a second Coolidge, Robert Jordan thought. But, you know, I have just a hunch that he would stay.

The three of them plodded up the hill in the snow.

“El Sordo was here,” Pilar said to Robert Jordan. They had come in out of the storm to the smoky warmth of the cave and the woman had motioned Robert Jordan over to her with a nod of her head. “He's gone to look for horses.”

“Good. Did he leave any word for me?”

“Only that he had gone for horses.”

“And we?”

“
No sé,
” she said. “Look at him.”

Robert Jordan had seen Pablo when he came in and Pablo had grinned at him. Now he looked over at him sitting at the board table and grinned and waved his hand.

“
Inglés,
” Pablo called. “It's still falling,
Inglés
.”

Robert Jordan nodded at him.

“Let me take thy shoes and dry them,” Maria said. “I will hang them here in the smoke of the fire.”

“Watch out you don't burn them,” Robert Jordan told her. “I don't want to go around here barefoot. What's the matter?” he turned to Pilar. “Is this a meeting? Haven't you any sentries out?”

“In this storm?
Qué va
.”

There were six men sitting at the table and leaning back against the wall. Anselmo and Fernando were still shaking the snow from their jackets, beating their trousers and rapping their feet against the wall by the entrance.

“Let me take thy jacket,” Maria said. “Do not let the snow melt on it.”

Robert Jordan slipped out of his jacket, beat the snow from his trousers, and untied his shoes.

“You will get everything wet here,” Pilar said.

“It was thee who called me.”

“Still there is no impediment to returning to the door for thy brushing.”

“Excuse me,” Robert Jordan said, standing in his bare feet on the dirt floor. “Hunt me a pair of socks, Maria.”

“The Lord and Master,” Pilar said and poked a piece of wood into the fire.

“
Hay que aprovechar el tiempo,
” Robert Jordan told her. “You have to take advantage of what time there is.”

“It is locked,” Maria said.

“Here is the key,” and he tossed it over.

“It does not fit this sack.”

“It is the other sack. They are on top and at the side.”

The girl found the pair of socks, closed the sack, locked it and brought them over with the key.

“Sit down and put them on and rub thy feet well,” she said. Robert Jordan grinned at her.

“Thou canst not dry them with thy hair?” he said for Pilar to hear.