He put his hand out and said, “Suerte, Pablo,” and their two hands gripped in the dark.
Robert Jordan, when he put his hand out, expected that it would be like grasping something reptilian or touching a leper. He did not know what Pablo’s hand would feel like. But in the dark Pablo’s hand gripped his hard and pressed it frankly and he returned the grip. Pablo had a good hand in the dark and feeling it gave Robert Jordan the strangest feeling he had felt that morning. We must be allies now, he thought. There was always much handshaking with allies. Not to mention decorations and kissing on both cheeks, he thought. I’m glad we do not have to do that. I suppose all allies are like this. They always hate each other au fond. But this Pablo is a strange man.
“Suerte, Pablo,” he said and gripped the strange, firm, purposeful hand hard. “I will cover thee well. Do not worry.”
“I am sorry for having taken thy material,” Pablo said. “It was an equivocation.”
“But thou has brought what we needed.”
“I do not hold this of the bridge against thee, Inglés,” Pablo said. “I see a successful termination for it.”
“What are you two doing? Becoming maricones?” Pilar said suddenly beside them in the dark. “That is all thou hast lacked,” she said to Pablo. “Get along, Inglés, and cut thy good-bys short before this one steals the rest of thy explosive.”
“Thou dost not understand me, woman,” Pablo said. “The Inglés and I understand one another.”
“Nobody understands thee. Neither God nor thy mother,” Pilar said. “Nor I either. Get along, Inglés. Make thy good-bys with thy cropped head and go. Me cago en tu padre, but I begin to think thou art afraid to see the bull come out.”
“Thy mother,” Robert Jordan said.
“Thou never hadst one,” Pilar whispered cheerfully. “Now go, because I have a great desire to start this and get it over with. Go with thy people,” she said to Pablo. “Who knows how long their stern resolution is good for? Thou hast a couple that I would not trade thee for. Take them and go.”
Robert Jordan slung his pack on his back and walked over to the horses to find Maria.
“Good-by, guapa,” he said. “I will see thee soon.”
He had an unreal feeling about all of this now as though he had said it all before or as though it were a train that were going, especially as though it were a train and he was standing on the platform of a railway station.
“Good-by, Roberto,” she said. “Take much care.”
“Of course,” he said. He bent his head to kiss her and his pack rolled forward against the back of his head so that his forehead bumped hers hard. As this happened he knew this had happened before too.
“Don’t cry,” he said, awkward not only from the load.
“I do not,” she said. “But come back quickly.”
“Do not worry when you hear the firing. There is bound to be much firing.”
“Nay. Only come back quickly.”
“Good-by, guapa,” he said awkwardly.
“Salud, Roberto.”
Robert Jordan had not felt this young since he had taken the train at Red Lodge to go down to Billings to get the train there to go away to school for the first time. He had been afraid to go and he did not want any one to know it and, at the station, just before the conductor picked up the box he would step up on to reach the steps of the day coach, his father had kissed him good-by and said, “May the Lord watch between thee and me while we are absent the one from the other.” His father had been a very religious man and he had said it simply and sincerely. But his moustache had been moist and his eyes were damp with emotion and Robert Jordan had been so embarrassed by all of it, the damp religious sound of the prayer, and by his father kissing him good-by, that he had felt suddenly so much older than his father and sorry for him that he could hardly bear it.