“I come from above,” Anselmo said to Robert Jordan.
“Pablo has told us,” Robert Jordan said.
“There were six dead on the hill and they had taken the heads,” Anselmo said. “I was there in the dark.”
Robert Jordan nodded. Pablo sat there looking at the wine bowl and saying nothing. There was no expression on his face and his small pig-eyes were looking at the wine bowl as though he had never seen one before.
“Sit down,” Robert Jordan said to Anselmo.
The old man sat down at the table on one of the hide-covered stools and Robert Jordan reached under the table and brought up the pinch-bottle of whiskey that had been the gift of Sordo. It was about half-full. Robert Jordan reached down the table for a cup and poured a drink of whiskey into it and shoved it along the table to Anselmo.
“Drink that, old one,” he said.
Pablo looked from the wine bowl to Anselmo’s face as he drank and then he looked back at the wine bowl.
As Anselmo swallowed the whiskey he felt a burning in his nose, his eyes and his mouth, and then a happy, comforting warmth in his stomach. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
Then he looked at Robert Jordan and said, “Can I have another?”
“Why not?” Robert Jordan said and poured another drink from the bottle and handed it this time instead of pushing it.
This time there was not the burning when he swallowed but the warm comfort doubled. It was as good a thing for his spirit as a saline injection is for a man who has suffered a great hemorrhage.
The old man looked toward the bottle again.
“The rest is for tomorrow,” Robert Jordan said. “What passed on the road, old one?”
“There was much movement,” Anselmo said. “I have it all noted down as you showed me. I have one watching for me and noting now. Later I will go for her report.”
“Did you see anti-tank guns? Those on rubber tires with the long barrels?”
“Yes,” Anselmo said. “There were four camions which passed on the road. In each of them there was such a gun with pine branches spread across the barrels. In the trucks rode six men with each gun.”
“Four guns, you say?” Robert Jordan asked him.
“Four,” Anselmo said. He did not look at his papers.
“Tell me what else went up the road.”
While Robert Jordan noted Anselmo told him everything he had seen move past him on the road. He told it from the beginning and in order with the wonderful memory of those who cannot read or write, and twice, while he was talking, Pablo reached out for more wine from the bowl.
“There was also the cavalry which entered La Granja from the high country where El Sordo fought,” Anselmo went on.
Then he told the number of the wounded he had seen and the number of the dead across the saddles.
“There was a bundle packed across one saddle that I did not understand,” he said. “But now I know it was the heads.” He went on without pausing. “It was a squadron of cavalry. They had only one officer left. He was not the one who was here in the early morning when you were by the gun. He must have been one of the dead. Two of the dead were officers by their sleeves. They were lashed face down over the saddles, their arms hanging. Also they had the máquina of El Sordo tied to the saddle that bore the heads. The barrel was bent. That is all,” he finished.
“It is enough,” Robert Jordan said and dipped his cup into the wine bowl. “Who beside you has been through the lines to the side of the Republic?”
“Andrés and Eladio.”
“Which is the better of those two?”
“Andrés.”
“How long would it take him to get to Navacerrada from here?”
“Carrying no pack and taking his precautions, in three hours with luck. We came by a longer, safer route because of the material.”
“He can surely make it?”
“No sé, there is no such thing as surely.”