“So have I,” Robert Jordan said.
“Have you a drink of anything?” Pablo asked wearily.
Robert Jordan handed him the flask and he swallowed fast, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
“What passes with you?” Pilar asked.
“Nada,” Pablo said, wiping his mouth again. “Nothing. I have come back.”
“But what?”
“Nothing. I had a moment of weakness. I went away but I am come back.”
He turned to Robert Jordan. “En el fondo no soy cobarde,” he said. “At bottom I am not a coward.”
But you are very many other things, Robert Jordan thought. Damned if you’re not. But I’m glad to see you, you son of a bitch.
“Five was all I could get from Elias and Alejandro,” Pablo said. “I have ridden since I left here. Nine of you could never have done it. Never. I knew that last night when the Inglés explained it. Never. There are seven men and a corporal at the lower post. Suppose there is an alarm or that they fight?”
He looked at Robert Jordan now. “When I left I thought you would know that it was impossible and would give it up. Then after I had thrown away thy material I saw it in another manner.”
“I am glad to see thee,” Robert Jordan said. He walked over to him. “We are all right with the grenades. That will work. The other does not matter now.”
“Nay,” Pablo said. “I do nothing for thee. Thou art a thing of bad omen. All of this comes from thee. Sordo also. But after I had thrown away thy material I found myself too lonely.”
“Thy mother–” Pilar said.
“So I rode for the others to make it possible for it to be successful. I have brought the best that I could get. I have left them at the top so I could speak to you, first. They think I am the leader.”
“Thou art,” Pilar said. “If thee wishes.” Pablo looked at her and said nothing. Then he said simply and quietly, “I have thought much since the thing of Sordo. I believe if we must finish we must finish together. But thou, Inglés. I hate thee for bringing this to us.”
“But Pablo–” Fernando, his pockets full of grenades, a bandolier of cartridges over his shoulder, he still wiping in his pan of stew with a piece of bread, began. “Do you not believe the operation can be successful? Night before last you said you were convinced it would be.”
“Give him some more stew,” Pilar said viciously to Maria. Then to Pablo, her eyes softening, “So you have come back, eh?”
“Yes, woman,” Pablo said.
“Well, thou art welcome,” Pilar said to him. “I did not think thou couldst be the ruin thou appeared to be.”
“Having done such a thing there is a loneliness that cannot be borne,” Pablo said to her quietly.
“That cannot be borne,” she mocked him. “That cannot be borne by thee for fifteen minutes.”
“Do not mock me, woman. I have come back.”
“And thou art welcome,” she said. “Didst not hear me the first time? Drink thy coffee and let us go. So much theatre tires me.”
“Is that coffee?” Pablo asked.
“Certainly,” Fernando said.
“Give me some, Maria,” Pablo said. “How art thou?” He did not look at her.
“Well,” Maria told him and brought him a bowl of coffee. “Do you want stew?” Pablo shook his head.
“No me gusta estar solo,” Pablo went on explaining to Pilar as though the others were not there. “I do not like to be alone. Sabes? Yesterday all day alone working for the good of all I was not lonely. But last night. Hombre! Qué mal lo pasé!”
“Thy predecessor the famous Judas Iscariot hanged himself,” Pilar said.
“Don’t talk to me that way, woman,” Pablo said. “Have you not seen? I am back. Don’t talk of Judas nor nothing of that. I am back.”
“How are these people thee brought?” Pilar asked him. “Hast brought anything worth bringing?”
“Son buenos,” Pablo said. He took a chance and looked at Pilar squarely, then looked away.
“Buenos y bobos. Good ones and stupids. Ready to die and all. A tu gusto. According to thy taste. The way you like them.”