Anselmo pointed. The finger was trembling. He looked at Robert Jordan and shook his head.
"Mine too," Robert Jordan showed him. "Always. That is normal."
"Not for me," Fernando said. He put his right forefinger out to show them. Then the left forefinger.
"Canst thou spit?" Agustin asked him and winked at Robert Jordan.
Fernando hawked and spat proudly onto the floor of the cave, then rubbed it in the dirt with his foot.
"You filthy mule," Pilar said to him. "Spit in the fire if thou must vaunt thy courage."
"I would not have spat on the floor, Pilar, if we were not leaving this place," Fernando said primly.
"Be careful where you spit today," Pilar told him. "It may be some place you will not be leaving."
"That one speaks like a black cat," Agustin said. He had the nervous necessity to joke that is another form of what they all felt.
"I joke," said Pilar.
"Me too," said Agustin. "But me cago en la leche, but I will be content when it starts."
"Where is the gypsy?" Robert Jordan asked Eladio.
"With the horses," Eladio said. "You can see him from the cave mouth."
"How is he?"
Eladio grinned. "With much fear," he said. It reassured him to speak of the fear of another.
"Listen, Ingles-" Pilar began. Robert Jordan looked toward her and as he did he saw her mouth open and the unbelieving look come on her face and he swung toward the cave mouth reaching for his pistol. There, holding the blanket aside with one hand, the short automatic rifle muzzle with its flash-cone jutting above his shoulder, was Pablo standing short, wide, bristly-faced, his small red-rimmed eyes looking toward no one in particular.
"Thou-" Pilar said to him unbelieving. "Thou."
"Me," said Pablo evenly. He came into the cave.
"Hola, Ingles," he said. "I have five from the bands of Elias and Alejandro above with their horses."
"And the exploder and the detonators?" Robert Jordan said. "And the other material?"
"I threw them down the gorge into the river," Pablo said still looking at no one. "But I have thought of a way to detonate using a grenade."
"So have I," Robert Jordan said.
"Have you a drink of anything?" Pablo asked wearily.
Robert Jordan handed him the flask and he swallowed fast, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
"What passes with you?" Pilar asked.
"Nada," Pablo said, wiping his mouth again. "Nothing. I have come back."
"But what?"
"Nothing. I had a moment of weakness. I went away but I am come back."
He turned to Robert Jordan. "En el fondo no soy cobarde," he said. "At bottom I am not a coward."
But you are very many other things, Robert Jordan thought. Damned if you're not. But I'm glad to see you, you son of a bitch.
"Five was all I could get from Elias and Alejandro," Pablo said. "I have ridden since I left here. Nine of you could never have done it. Never. I knew that last night when the Ingles explained it. Never. There are seven men and a corporal at the lower post. Suppose there is an alarm or that they fight?"
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.