“Do not fire if you see any one from there,” Robert Jordan said. “Roll a rock down as a warning, a small rock, and signal to us with thy rifle, thus,” he lifted the rifle and held it over his head as though guarding it. “Thus for numbers,” he lifted the rifle up and down. “If they are dismounted point thy rifle muzzle at the ground. Thus. Do not fire from there until thou hearest the máquina fire. Shoot at a man’s knees when you shoot from that height. If you hear me whistle twice on this whistle get down, keeping behind cover, and come to these rocks where the máquina is.”
Primitivo raised the rifle.
“I understand,” he said. “It is very simple.”
“Send first the small rock as a warning and indicate the direction and the number. See that you are not seen.”
“Yes,” Primitivo said. “If I can throw a grenade?”
“Not until the máquina has spoken. It may be that cavalry will come searching for their comrade and still not try to enter. They may follow the tracks of Pablo. We do not want combat if it can be avoided. Above all that we should avoid it. Now get up there.”
“Me voy,” Primitivo said, and climbed up into the high rocks with his carbine.
“Thou, Agustín,” Robert Jordan said. “What do you know of the gun?”
Agustín squatted there, tall, black, stubbly joweled, with his sunken eyes and thin mouth and his big work-worn hands.
“Pues, to load it. To aim it. To shoot it. Nothing more.”
“You must not fire until they are within fifty meters and only when you are sure they will be coming into the pass which leads to the cave,” Robert Jordan said.
“Yes. How far is that?”
“That rock.”
“If there is an officer shoot him first. Then move the gun onto the others. Move very slowly. It takes little movement. I will teach Fernando to tap it. Hold it tight so that it does not jump and sight carefully and do not fire more than six shots at a time if you can help it. For the fire of the gun jumps upward. But each time fire at one man and then move from him to another. At a man on a horse, shoot at his belly.”
“Yes.”
“One man should hold the tripod still so that the gun does not jump. Thus. He will load the gun for thee.”
“And where will you be?”
“I will be here on the left. Above, where I can see all and I will cover thy left with this small máquina. Here. If they should come it would be possible to make a massacre. But you must not fire until they are that close.”
“I believe that we could make a massacre. Menuda matanza!”
“But I hope they do not come.”
“If it were not for thy bridge we could make a massacre here and get out.”
“It would avail nothing. That would serve no purpose. The bridge is a part of a plan to win the war. This would be nothing. This would be an incident. A nothing.”
“Qué va, nothing. Every fascist dead is a fascist less.”
“Yes. But with this of the bridge we can take Segovia. The Capital of a Province. Think of that. It will be the first one we will take.”
“Thou believest in this seriously? That we can take Segovia?”
“Yes. It is possible with the bridge blown correctly.”
“I would like to have the massacre here and the bridge, too.”
“Thou hast much appetite,” Robert Jordan told him.
All this time he had been watching the crows. Now he saw one was watching something. The bird cawed and flew up. But the other crow still stayed in the tree. Robert Jordan looked up toward Primitivo’s place high in the rocks. He saw him watching out over the country below but he made no signal. Robert Jordan leaned forward and worked the lock on the automatic rifle, saw the round in the chamber and let the lock down. The crow was still there in the tree. The other circled wide over the snow and then settled again. In the sun and the warm wind the snow was falling from the laden branches of the pines.