You’re not good at this, Jordan, he said. Not so good at this. And who is so good at this? I don’t know and I don’t really care right now. But you are not. That’s right. You’re not at all. Oh not at all, at all. I think it would be all right to do it now? Don’t you?
No, it isn’t. Because there is something you can do yet. As long as you know what it is you have to do it. As long as you remember what it is you have to wait for that. Come on. Let them come. Let them come. Let them come!
Think about them being away, he said. Think about them going through the timber. Think about them crossing a creek. Think about them riding through the heather. Think about them going up the slope. Think about them O.K. tonight. Think about them travelling, all night. Think about them hiding up tomorrow. Think about them. God damn it, think about them. That’s just as far as I can think about them, he said.
Think about Montana. I can’t. Think about Madrid. I can’t. Think about a cool drink of water. All right. That’s what it will be like. Like a cool drink of water. You’re a liar. It will just be nothing. That’s all it will be. Just nothing. Then do it. Do it. Do it now. It’s all right to do it now. Go on and do it now. No, you have to wait. What for? You know all right. Then wait.
I can’t wait any longer now, he said. If I wait any longer I’ll pass out. I know because I’ve felt it starting to go three times now and I’ve held it. I held it all right. But I don’t know about any more. What I think is you’ve got an internal hemorrhage there from where that thigh bone’s cut around inside. Especially on that turning business. That makes the swelling and that’s what weakens you and makes you start to pass. It would be all right to do it now. Really, I’m telling you that it would be all right.
And if you wait and hold them up even a little while or just get the officer that may make all the difference. One thing well done can make–
All right, he said. And he lay very quietly and tried to hold on to himself that he felt slipping away from himself as you feel snow starting to slip sometimes on a mountain slope, and he said, now quietly, then let me last until they come.
Robert Jordan’s luck held very good because he saw, just then, the cavalry ride out of the timber and cross the road. He watched them coming riding up the slope. He saw the trooper who stopped by the gray horse and shouted to the officer who rode over to him. He watched them both looking down at the gray horse. They recognized him of course. He and his rider had been missing since the early morning of the day before.
Robert Jordan saw them there on the slope, close to him now, and below he saw the road and the bridge and the long lines of vehicles below it. He was completely integrated now and he took a good long look at everything. Then he looked up at the sky. There were big white clouds in it. He touched the palm of his hand against the pine needles where he lay and he touched the bark of the pine trunk that he lay behind.
Then he rested easily as he could with his two elbows in the pine needles and the muzzle of the submachine gun resting against the trunk of the pine tree.
As the officer came trotting now on the trail of the horses of the band he would pass twenty yards below where Robert Jordan lay. At that distance there would be no problem. The officer was Lieutenant Berrendo. He had come up from La Granja when they had been ordered up after the first report of the attack on the lower post. They had ridden hard and had then had to swing back, because the bridge had been blown, to cross the gorge high above and come around through the timber. Their horses were wet and blown and they had to be urged into the trot.