From examining his military papers he knew the boy was from Tafalla in Navarra, twenty-one years old, unmarried, and the son of a blacksmith. His regiment was the Nth cavalry, which surprised Robert Jordan, for he had believed that regiment to be in the North. He was a Carlist, and he had been wounded at the fighting for Irun at the start of the war.
I’ve probably seen him run through the streets ahead of the bulls at the feria in Pamplona, Robert Jordan thought. You never kill any one that you want to kill in a war, he said to himself. Well, hardly ever, he amended and went on reading the letters.
The first letters he read were very formal, very carefully written and dealt almost entirely with local happenings. They were from his sister and Robert Jordan learned that everything was all right in Tafalla, that father was well, that mother was the same as always but with certain complaints about her back, that she hoped he was well and not in too great danger and she was happy he was doing away with the Reds to liberate Spain from the domination of the Marxist hordes. Then there was a list of those boys from Tafalla who had been killed or badly wounded since she wrote last. She mentioned ten who were killed. That is a great many for a town the size of Tafalla, Robert Jordan thought.
There was quite a lot of religion in the letter and she prayed to Saint Anthony, to the Blessed Virgin of Pilar, and to other Virgins to protect him and she wanted him never to forget that he was also protected by the Sacred Heart of Jesus that he wore still, she trusted, at all times over his own heart where it had been proven innumerable–this was underlined–times to have the power of stopping bullets. She was as always his loving sister Concha.
This letter was a little stained around the edges and Robert Jordan put it carefully back with the military papers and opened a letter with a less severe handwriting. It was from the boy’s novia, his fiancée, and it was quietly, formally, and completely hysterical with concern for his safety. Robert Jordan read it through and then put all the letters together with the papers into his hip pocket. He did not want to read the other letters.
I guess I’ve done my good deed for today, he said to himself. I guess you have all right, he repeated.
“What are those you were reading?” Primitivo asked him.
“The documentation and the letters of that requeté we shot this morning. Do you want to see it?”
“I can’t read,” Primitivo said. “Was there anything interesting?”
“No,” Robert Jordan told him. “They are personal letters.”
“How are things going where he came from? Can you tell from the letters?”
“They seem to be going all right,” Robert Jordan said. “There are many losses in his town.” He looked down to where the blind for the automatic rifle had been changed a little and improved after the snow melted. It looked convincing enough. He looked off across the country.
“From what town is he?” Primitivo asked.
“Tafalla,” Robert Jordan told him.
All right, he said to himself. I’m sorry, if that does any good.
It doesn’t, he said to himself.
All right then, drop it, he said to himself.
All right, it’s dropped.
But it would not drop that easily. How many is that you have killed? he asked himself. I don’t know. Do you think you have a right to kill any one? No. But I have to. How many of those you have killed have been real fascists? Very few. But they are all the enemy to whose force we are opposing force. But you like the people of Navarra better than those of any other part of Spain. Yes. And you kill them. Yes. If you don’t believe it go down there to the camp. Don’t you know it is wrong to kill? Yes. But you do it? Yes. And you still believe absolutely that your cause is right? Yes.
It is right, he told himself, not reassuringly, but proudly. I believe in the people and their right to govern themselves as they wish. But you mustn’t believe in killing, he told himself. You must do it as a necessity but you must not believe in it. If you believe in it the whole thing is wrong.