Just then, while he was watching all of the country that was visible, he saw the gypsy coming through the rocks to the left. He was walking with a loose, high-hipped, sloppy swing, his carbine was slung on his back, his brown face was grinning and he carried two big hares, one in each hand. He carried them by the legs, heads swinging.
“Hola, Roberto,” he called cheerfully.
Robert Jordan put his hand to his mouth, and the gypsy looked startled. He slid over behind the rocks to where Robert Jordan was crouched beside the brush-shielded automatic rifle. He crouched down and laid the hares in the snow. Robert Jordan looked up at him.
“You hijo de la gran puta!” he said softly. “Where the obscenity have you been?”
“I tracked them,” the gypsy said. “I got them both. They had made love in the snow.”
“And thy post?”
“It was not for long,” the gypsy whispered. “What passes? Is there an alarm?”
“There is cavalry out.”
“Rediós!” the gypsy said. “Hast thou seen them?”
“There is one at the camp now,” Robert Jordan said. “He came for breakfast.”
“I thought I heard a shot or something like one,” the gypsy said. “I obscenity in the milk! Did he come through here?”
“Here. Thy post.”
“Ay, mi madre!” the gypsy said. “I am a poor, unlucky man.”
“If thou wert not a gypsy, I would shoot thee.”
“No, Roberto. Don’t say that. I am sorry. It was the hares. Before daylight I heard the male thumping in the snow. You cannot imagine what a debauch they were engaged in. I went toward the noise but they were gone. I followed the tracks in the snow and high up I found them together and slew them both. Feel the fatness of the two for this time of year. Think what the Pilar will do with those two. I am sorry, Roberto, as sorry as thee. Was the cavalryman killed?”
“Yes.”
“By thee?”
“Yes.”
“Qué tio!” the gypsy said in open flattery. “Thou art a veritable phenomenon.”
“Thy mother!” Robert Jordan said. He could not help grinning at the gypsy. “Take thy hares to camp and bring us up some breakfast.”
He put a hand out and felt of the hares that lay limp, long, heavy, thick-furred, big-footed and long-eared in the snow, their round dark eyes open.
“They are fat,” he said.
“Fat!” the gypsy said. “There’s a tub of lard on the ribs of each one. In my life have I never dreamed of such hares.”
“Go then,” Robert Jordan said, “and come quickly with the breakfast and bring to me the documentation of that requeté. Ask Pilar for it.”
“You are not angry with me, Roberto?”
“Not angry. Disgusted that you should leave your post. Suppose it had been a troop of cavalry?”
“Rediós,” the gypsy said. “How reasonable you are.”
“Listen to me. You cannot leave a post again like that. Never. I do not speak of shooting lightly.”
“Of course not. And another thing. Never would such an opportunity as the two hares present itself again. Not in the life of one man.”
“Anda!” Robert Jordan said. “And hurry back.”
The gypsy picked up the two hares and slipped back through the rocks and Robert Jordan looked out across the flat opening and the slopes of the hill below. Two crows circled overhead and then lit in a pine tree below. Another crow joined them and Robert Jordan, watching them, thought: those are my sentinels. As long as those are quiet there is no one coming through the trees.
The gypsy, he thought. He is truly worthless. He has no political development, nor any discipline, and you could not rely on him for anything. But I need him for tomorrow. I have a use for him tomorrow. It’s odd to see a gypsy in a war. They should be exempted like conscientious objectors. Or as the physically and mentally unfit. They are worthless. But conscientious objectors weren’t exempted in this war. No one was exempted. It came to one and all alike. Well, it had come here now to this lazy outfit. They had it now.
Agustín and Primitivo came up with the brush and Robert Jordan built a good blind for the automatic rifle, a blind that would conceal the gun from the air and that would look natural from the forest. He showed them where to place a man high in the rocks to the right where he could see all the country below and to the right, and another where he could command the only stretch where the left wall might be climbed.