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.
16
“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.