«Hold this, ‘viejo’,» he said. «Now walk back with me to the bridge. Take up on it as you walk. No. I will.»
At the bridge he pulled the wire back out through the hitch so it now ran clear and unfouled to the grenade rings and handed it, stretching alongside the bridge but running quite clear, to Anselmo.
«Take this back to that high stone,» he said. «Hold it easily but firmly. Do not put any force on it. When thou pullest hard, hard, the bridge will blow. ‘Comprendes?'»
«Yes.»
«Treat it softly but do not let it sag so it will foul. Keep it lightly firm but not pulling until thou pullest. ‘Comprendes?'»
«Yes.»
«When thou pullest really pull. Do not jerk.»
Robert Jordan while he spoke was looking up the road at the remainder of Pilar’s band. They were close now and he saw Primitivo and Rafael were supporting Fernando. He looked to be shot through the groin for he was holding himself there with both hands while the man and the boy held him on either side. His right leg was dragging, the side of the shoe scraping on the road as they walked him. Pilar was climbing the bank into the timber carrying three rifles. Robert Jordan could not see her face but her head was up and she was climbing as fast as she could.
«How does it go?» Primitivo called.
«Good. We’re almost finished,» Robert Jordan shouted back.
There was no need to ask how it went with them. As he looked away the three were on the edge of the road and Fernando was shaking his head as they tried to get him up the bank.
«Give me a rifle here,» Robert Jordan heard him say in a choky voice.
«No, hombre. We will get thee to the horses.»
«What would I do with a horse?» Fernando said. «I am very well here.»
Robert Jordan did not hear the rest for he was speaking to Anselmo.
«Blow it if tanks come,» he said. «But only if they come onto it. Blow it if armored cars come. If they come onto it. Anything else Pablo will stop.»
«I will not blow it with thee beneath it.»
«Take no account of me. Blow it if thou needest to. I fix the other wire and come back. Then we will blow it together.»
He started running for the center of the bridge.
Anselmo saw Robert Jordan run up the bridge, coil of wire over his arm, pliers hanging from one wrist and the submachine gun slung over his back. He saw him climb down under the rail of the bridge and out of sight. Anselmo held the wire in his hand, his right hand, and he crouched behind the stone marker and looked down the road and across the bridge. Halfway between him and the bridge was the sentry, who had settled now closer to the road, sinking closer onto the smooth road surface as the sun weighed on his back.
His rifle, lying on the road, the bayonet fixed, pointed straight toward Anselmo. The old man looked past him along the surface of the bridge crossed by the shadows of the bridge rail to where the road swung to the left along the gorge and then turned out of sight behind the rocky wall. He looked at the far sentry box with the sun shining on it and then, conscious of the wire in his hand, he turned his head to where Fernando was speaking to Primitivo and the gypsy.
«Leave me here,» Fernando said. «It hurts much and there is much hemorrhage inside. I feel it in the inside when I move.»
«Let us get thee up the slope,» Primitivo said. «Put thy arms around our shoulders and we will take thy legs.»
«It is inutile,» Fernando said. «Put me here behind a stone. I am as useful here as above.»
«But when we go,» Primitivo said.
«Leave me here,» Fernando said. «There is no question of my travelling with this. Thus it gives one horse more. I am very well here. Certainly they will come soon.»
«We can take thee up the hill,» the gypsy said. «Easily.»
He was, naturally, in a deadly hurry to be gone, as was Primitivo. But they had brought him this far.
«Nay,» Fernando said. «I am very well here. What passes with Eladio?»
The gypsy put his finger on his head to show where the wound had been.
«Here,» he said. «After thee. When we made the rush.»
«Leave me,» Fernando said. Anselmo could see he was suffering much. He held both hands against his groin now and put his head back against the bank, his legs straight out before him. His face was gray and sweating.
«Leave me now please, for a favor,» he said. His eyes were shut with pain, the edges of the lips twitching. «I find myself very well here.»
«Here is a rifle and cartridges,» Primitivo said.
«Is it mine?» Fernando asked, his eyes shut.
«Nay, the Pilar has thine,» Primitivo said. «This is mine.»
«I would prefer my own,» Fernando said. «I am more accustomed to it.»
«I will bring it to thee,» the gypsy lied to him. «Keep this until it comes.»
«I am in a very good position here,» Fernando said. «Both for up the road and for the bridge.» He opened his eyes, turned his head and looked across the bridge, then shut them as the pain came.
The gypsy tapped his head and motioned with his thumb to Primitivo for them to be off.
«Then we will be down for thee,» Primitivo said and started up the slope after the gypsy, who was climbing fast.
Fernando lay back against the bank. In front of him was one of the whitewashed stones that marked the edge of the road. His head was in the shadow but the sun shone on his plugged and bandaged wound and on his hands that were cupped over it. His legs and his feet also were in the sun. The rifle lay beside him and there were three clips of cartridges shining in the sun beside the rifle. A fly crawled on his hands but the small tickling did not come through the pain.
«Fernando!» Anselmo called to him from where he crouched, holding the wire. He had made a loop in the end of the wire and twisted it close so he could hold it in his fist.
«Fernando!» he called again.
Fernando opened his eyes and looked at him.
«How does it go?» Fernando asked.
«Very good,» Anselmo said. «Now in a minute we will be blowing it.»
«I am pleased. Anything you need me for advise me,» Fernando said and shut his eyes again and the pain lurched in him.
Anselmo looked away from him and out onto the bridge.
He was watching for the first sight of the coil of wire being handed up onto the bridge and for the ‘Inglés’s’ sunburnt head and face to follow it as he would pull himself up the side. At the same time he was watching beyond the bridge for anything to come around the far corner of the road. He did not feel afraid now at all and he had not been afraid all the day. It goes so fast and it is so normal, he thought.
I hated the shooting of the guard and it made me an emotion but that is passed now. How could the ‘Inglés’ say that the shooting of a man is like the shooting of an animal? In all hunting I have had an elation and no feeling of wrong. But to shoot a man gives a feeling as though one had struck one’s own brother when you are grown men. And to shoot him various times to kill him. Nay, do not think of that. That gave thee too much emotion and thee ran blubbering down the bridge like a woman.
That is over, he told himself, and thou canst try to atone for it as for the others. But now thou has what thou asked for last night coming home across the hills. Thou art in battle and thou hast no problem. If I die on this morning now it is all right.
Then he looked at Fernando lying there against the bank with his hands cupped over the groove of his hip, his lips blue, his eyes tight shut, breathing heavily and slowly, and he thought, If I die may it be quickly. Nay I said I would ask nothing more if I were granted what I needed for today. So I will not ask. Understand? I ask nothing. Nothing in any way. Give me what I asked for and I leave all the rest according to discretion.
He listened to the noise that came, far away, of the battle at the pass and he said to himself, Truly this is a great day. I should realize and know what a day this is.
But there was no lift or any excitement in his heart. That was all gone and there was nothing but a calmness. And now, as he crouched behind the marker stone with the looped wire in his hand and another loop of it around his wrist and the gravel beside the road under his knees he was not lonely nor did he feel in any way alone.
He was one with the wire in his hand and one with the bridge, and one with the charges the ‘Inglés’ had placed. He was one with the ‘Inglés’ still working under the bridge and he was one with all of the battle and with the Republic.
But there
