Sordo said nothing.
“There is no way of getting horses?” Robert Jordan said into Sordo’s best ear.
“In war a year,” Sordo said. “Have four.” He showed four fingers. “Now you want eight for tomorrow.”
“Yes,” said Robert Jordan. “Knowing you are leaving. Having no need to be careful as you have been in this neighborhood. Not having to be cautious here now. You could not cut out and steal eight head of horses?”
“Maybe,” Sordo said. “Maybe none. Maybe more.”
“You have an automatic rifle?” Robert Jordan asked.
Sordo nodded.
“Where?”
“Up the hill.”
“What kind?”
“Don’t know name. With pans.”
“How many rounds?”
“Five pans.”
“Does any one know how to use it?”
“Me. A little. Not shoot too much. Not want make noise here. Not want use cartridges.”
“I will look at it afterwards,” Robert Jordan said. “Have you hand grenades?”
Plenty.
“How many rounds per rifle?”
“Plenty.”
“How many?”
“One hundred fifty. More maybe.”
“What about other people?”
“For what?”
“To have sufficient force to take the posts and cover the bridge While I am blowing it. We should have double what we have.”
“Take posts don’t worry. What time day?”
“Daylight.”
“Don’t worry.”
“I could use twenty more men, to be sure,” Robert Jordan said.
“Good ones do not exist. You want undependables?”
“No. How many good ones?”
“Maybe four.”
“Why so few?”
“No trust.”
“For horseholders?”
“Must trust much to be horseholders.”
“I’d like ten more good men if I could get them.”
“Four.”
“Anselmo told me there were over a hundred here in these hills.”
“No good.”
“You said thirty,” Robert Jordan said to Pilar. “Thirty of a certain degree of dependability.”
“What about the people of Elias?” Pilar shouted to Sordo. He shook his head.
“No good.”
“You can’t get ten?” Robert Jordan asked. Sordo looked at him with his flat, yellow eyes and shook his head.
“Four,” he said and held up four fingers.
“Yours are good?” Robert Jordan asked, regretting it as he said it.
Sordo nodded.
“Dentro de la gravedad,” he said in Spanish. “Within the limits of the danger.” He grinned. “Will be bad, eh?”
“Possibly.”
“Is the same to me,” Sordo said simply and not boasting. “Better four good than much bad. In this war always much bad, very little good. Every day fewer good. And Pablo?” he looked at Pilar.
“As you know,” Pilar said. “Worse every day.”
Sordo shrugged his shoulders.
“Take drink,” Sordo said to Robert Jordan. “I bring mine and four more. Makes twelve. Tonight we discuss all. I have sixty sticks dynamite. You want?”
“What per cent?”
“Don’t know. Common dynamite. I bring.”
“We’ll blow the small bridge above with that,” Robert Jordan said. “That is fine. You’ll come down tonight? Bring that, will you? I’ve no orders for that but it should be blown.”
“I come tonight. Then hunt horses.”
“What chance for horses?”
“Maybe. Now eat.”
Does he talk that way to every one? Robert Jordan thought. Or is that his idea of how to make foreigners understand?
“And where are we going to go when this is done?” Pilar shouted into Sordo’s ear.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“All that must be arranged,” the woman said.
“Of course,” said Sordo. “Why not?”
“It is bad enough,” Pilar said. “It must be planned very well.”
“Yes, woman,” Sordo said. “What has thee worried?”
“Everything,” Pilar shouted.
Sordo grinned at her.
“You’ve been going about with Pablo,” he said.
So he does only speak that pidgin Spanish for foreigners, Robert Jordan thought. Good. I’m glad to hear him talking straight.
“Where do you think we should go?” Pilar asked.
“Where?”
“Yes, where?”
“There are many places,” Sordo said. “Many places. You know Gredos?”
“There are many people there. All these places will be cleaned up as soon as they have time.”
“Yes. But it is a big country and very wild.”
“It would be very difficult to get there,” Pilar said.
“Everything is difficult,” El Sordo said. “We can get to Gredos as well as to anywhere else. Travelling at night. Here it is very dangerous now. It is a miracle we have been here this long. Gredos is safer country than this.”