For Whom the Bell Tolls (22 page)

“I don't want any,” Pilar said and covered her glass with her hand.

“Ice last night on ground,” El Sordo said and grinned. “All melt. Ice up there,” El Sordo said and pointed to the snow that showed on the bare crest of the mountains. “Too far.”

Robert Jordan started to pour into El Sordo's glass but the deaf
man shook his head and made a motion for the other to pour for himself.

Robert Jordan poured a big drink of Scotch into the glass and El Sordo watched him eagerly and when he had finished, handed him the water jug and Robert Jordan filled the glass with the cold water that ran in a stream from the earthenware spout as he tipped up the jug.

El Sordo poured himself half a glassful of whiskey and filled the glass with water.

“Wine?” he asked Pilar.

“No. Water.”

“Take it,” he said. “No good,” he said to Robert Jordan and grinned. “Knew many English. Always much whiskey.”

“Where?”

“Ranch,” El Sordo said. “Friends of boss.”

“Where do you get the whiskey?”

“What?” he could not hear.

“You have to shout,” Pilar said. “Into the other ear.”

El Sordo pointed to his better ear and grinned.

“Where do you get the whiskey?” Robert Jordan shouted.

“Make it,” El Sordo said and watched Robert Jordan's hand check on its way to his mouth with the glass.

“No,” El Sordo said and patted his shoulder. “Joke. Comes from La Granja. Heard last night comes English dynamiter. Good. Very happy. Get whiskey. For you. You like?”

“Very much,” said Robert Jordan. “It's very good whiskey.”

“Am contented,” Sordo grinned. “Was bringing tonight with information.”

“What information?”

“Much troop movement.”

“Where?”

“Segovia. Planes you saw.”

“Yes.”

“Bad, eh?”

“Bad.”

“Troop movement?”

“Much between Villacastín and Segovia. On Valladolid road. Much between Villacastín and San Rafael. Much. Much.”

“What do you think?”

“We prepare something?”

“Possibly.”

“They know. Prepare too.”

“It is possible.”

“Why not blow bridge tonight?”

“Orders.”

“Whose orders?”

“General Staff.”

“So.”

“Is the time of the blowing important?” Pilar asked.

“Of all importance.”

“But if they are moving up troops?”

“I will send Anselmo with a report of all movement and concentrations. He is checking the road.”

“You have some one at road?” Sordo asked.

Robert Jordan did not know how much he had heard. You never know with a deaf man.

“Yes,” he said.

“Me, too. Why not blow bridge now?”

“I have my orders.”

“I don't like it,” El Sordo said. “This I do not like.”

“Nor I,” said Robert Jordan.

El Sordo shook his head and took a sip of the whiskey. “You want of me?”

“How many men have you?”

“Eight.”

“To cut the telephone, attack the post at the house of the road-menders, take it, and fall back on the bridge.”

“It is easy.”

“It will all be written out.”

“Don't trouble. And Pablo?”

“Will cut the telephone below, attack the post at the sawmill, take it and fall back on the bridge.”

“And afterwards for the retreat?” Pilar asked. “We are seven men, two women and five horses. You are,” she shouted into Sordo's ear.

“Eight men and four horses.
Faltan caballos,
” he said. “Lacks horses.”

“Seventeen people and nine horses,” Pilar said. “Without accounting for transport.”

Sordo said nothing.

“There is no way of getting horses?” Robert Jordan said into Sordo's best ear.

“In war a year,” Sordo said. “Have four.” He showed four fingers. “Now you want eight for tomorrow.”

“Yes,” said Robert Jordan. “Knowing you are leaving. Having no need to be careful as you have been in this neighborhood. Not having to be cautious here now. You could not cut out and steal eight head of horses?”

“Maybe,” Sordo said. “Maybe none. Maybe more.”

“You have an automatic rifle?” Robert Jordan asked.

Sordo nodded.

“Where?”

“Up the hill.”

“What kind?”

“Don't know name. With pans.”

“How many rounds?”

“Five pans.”

“Does any one know how to use it?”

“Me. A little. Not shoot too much. Not want make noise here. Not want use cartridges.”

“I will look at it afterwards,” Robert Jordan said. “Have you hand grenades?”

“Plenty.”

“How many rounds per rifle?”

“Plenty.”

“How many?”

“One hundred fifty. More maybe.”

“What about other people?”

“For what?”

“To have sufficient force to take the posts and cover the bridge while I am blowing it. We should have double what we have.”

“Take posts don't worry. What time day?”

“Daylight.”

“Don't worry.”

“I could use twenty more men, to be sure,” Robert Jordan said.

“Good ones do not exist. You want undependables?”

“No. How many good ones?”

“Maybe four.”

“Why so few?”

“No trust.”

“For horseholders?”

“Must trust much to be horseholders.”

“I'd like ten more good men if I could get them.”

“Four.”

“Anselmo told me there were over a hundred here in these hills.”

“No good.”

“You said thirty,” Robert Jordan said to Pilar. “Thirty of a certain degree of dependability.”

“What about the people of Elias?” Pilar shouted to Sordo. He shook his head.

“No good.”

“You can't get ten?” Robert Jordan asked. Sordo looked at him with his flat, yellow eyes and shook his head.

“Four,” he said and held up four fingers.

“Yours are good?” Robert Jordan asked, regretting it as he said it.

Sordo nodded.

“
Dentro de la gravedad,
” he said in Spanish. “Within the limits of the danger.” He grinned. “Will be bad, eh?”

“Possibly.”

“Is the same to me,” Sordo said simply and not boasting. “Better four good than much bad. In this war always much bad, very little good. Every day fewer good. And Pablo?” he looked at Pilar.

“As you know,” Pilar said. “Worse every day.”

Sordo shrugged his shoulders.

“Take drink,” Sordo said to Robert Jordan. “I bring mine and four more. Makes twelve. Tonight we discuss all. I have sixty sticks dynamite. You want?”

“What per cent?”

“Don't know. Common dynamite. I bring.”

“We'll blow the small bridge above with that,” Robert Jordan said. “That is fine. You'll come down tonight? Bring that, will you? I've no orders for that but it should be blown.”

“I come tonight. Then hunt horses.”

“What chance for horses?”

“Maybe. Now eat.”

Does he talk that way to every one? Robert Jordan thought. Or is that his idea of how to make foreigners understand?

“And where are we going to go when this is done?” Pilar shouted into Sordo's ear.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“All that must be arranged,” the woman said.

“Of course,” said Sordo. “Why not?”

“It is bad enough,” Pilar said. “It must be planned very well.”

“Yes, woman,” Sordo said. “What has thee worried?”

“Everything,” Pilar shouted.

Sordo grinned at her.

“You've been going about with Pablo,” he said.

So he does only speak that pidgin Spanish for foreigners, Robert Jordan thought. Good. I'm glad to hear him talking straight.

“Where do you think we should go?” Pilar asked.

“Where?”

“Yes, where?”

“There are many places,” Sordo said. “Many places. You know Gredos?”

“There are many people there. All these places will be cleaned up as soon as they have time.”

“Yes. But it is a big country and very wild.”

“It would be very difficult to get there,” Pilar said.

“Everything is difficult,” El Sordo said. “We can get to Gredos as well as to anywhere else. Travelling at night. Here it is very dangerous now. It is a miracle we have been here this long. Gredos is safer country than this.”

“Do you know where I want to go?” Pilar asked him.

“Where? The Paramera? That's no good.”

“No,” Pilar said. “Not the Sierra de Paramera. I want to go to the Republic.”

“That is possible.”

“Would your people go?”

“Yes. If I say to.”

“Of mine, I do not know,” Pilar said. “Pablo would not want to although, truly, he might feel safer there. He is too old to have to go for a soldier unless they call more classes. The gypsy will not wish to go. I do not know about the others.”

“Because nothing passes her for so long they do not realize the danger,” El Sordo said.

“Since the planes today they will see it more,” Robert Jordan said. “But I should think you could operate very well from the Gredos.”

“What?” El Sordo said and looked at him with his eyes very flat. There was no friendliness in the way he asked the question.

“You could raid more effectively from there,” Robert Jordan said.

“So,” El Sordo said. “You know Gredos?”

“Yes. You could operate against the main line of the railway from there. You could keep cutting it as we are doing farther south in Estremadura. To operate from there would be better than returning to the Republic,” Robert Jordan said. “You are more useful there.”

They had both gotten sullen as he talked.

Sordo looked at Pilar and she looked back at him.

“You know Gredos?” Sordo asked. “Truly?”

“Sure,” said Robert Jordan.

“Where would you go?”

“Above Barco de Avila. Better places than here. Raid against the main road and the railroad between Béjar and Plasencia.”

“Very difficult,” Sordo said.

“We have worked against that same railroad in much more dangerous country in Estremadura,” Robert Jordan said.

“Who is we?”

“The
guerrilleros
group of Estremadura.”

“You are many?”

“About forty.”

“Was the one with the bad nerves and the strange name from there?” asked Pilar.

“Yes.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead, as I told you.”

“You are from there, too?”

“Yes.”

“You see what I mean?” Pilar said to him.

And I have made a mistake, Robert Jordan thought to himself. I have told Spaniards we can do something better than they can when the rule is never to speak of your own exploits or abilities. When I should have flattered them I have told them what I think they should do and now they are furious. Well, they will either get over it or they will not. They are certainly much more useful in the Gredos than here. The proof is that here they have done nothing since the train that Kashkin organized. It was not much of a show. It cost the fascists one engine and killed a few troops but they all talk as though it were the high point of the war. Maybe they will shame into going to the Gredos. Yes and maybe I will get thrown out of here too. Well, it is not a very rosy-looking dish anyway that you look into it.

“Listen
Inglés,
” Pilar said to him. “How are your nerves?”

“All right,” said Robert Jordan. “O.K.”

“Because the last dynamiter they sent to work with us, although a formidable technician, was very nervous.”

“We have nervous ones,” Robert Jordan said.

“I do not say that he was a coward because he comported himself very well,” Pilar went on. “But he spoke in a very rare and windy way.” She raised her voice. “Isn't it true, Santiago, that the last dynamiter, he of the train, was a little rare?”

“
Algo raro,
” the deaf man nodded and his eyes went over Robert Jordan's face in a way that reminded him of the round opening at the end of the wand of a vacuum cleaner. “
Si, algo raro, pero bueno
.”

“
Murió,
” Robert Jordan said into the deaf man's ear. “He is dead.”

“How was that?” the deaf man asked, dropping his eyes down from Robert Jordan's eyes to his lips.

“I shot him,” Robert Jordan said. “He was too badly wounded to travel and I shot him.”

“He was always talking of such a necessity,” Pilar said. “It was his obsession.”

“Yes,” said Robert Jordan. “He was always talking of such a necessity and it was his obsession.”

“
Como fué?
” the deaf man asked. “Was it a train?”

“It was returning from a train,” Robert Jordan said. “The train was successful. Returning in the dark we encountered a fascist patrol and as we ran he was shot high in the back but without hitting any bone except the shoulder blade. He travelled quite a long way, but with the wound was unable to travel more. He was unwilling to be left behind and I shot him.”

“
Menos mal,
” said El Sordo. “Less bad.”

“Are you sure your nerves are all right?” Pilar said to Robert Jordan.

“Yes,” he told her. “I am sure that my nerves are all right and I think that when we terminate this of the bridge you would do well to go to the Gredos.”

As he said that, the woman started to curse in a flood of obscene invective that rolled over and around him like the hot white water splashing down from the sudden eruption of a geyser.