“Como fué?” the deaf man asked. “Was it a train?”
“It was returning from a train,” Robert Jordan said. “The train was successful. Returning in the dark we encountered a fascist patrol and as we ran he was shot high in the back but without hitting any bone except the shoulder blade. He travelled quite a long way, but with the wound was unable to travel more. He was unwilling to be left behind and I shot him.”
“Menos mal,” said El Sordo. “Less bad.”
“Are you sure your nerves are all right?” Pilar said to Robert Jordan.
“Yes,” he told her. “I am sure that my nerves are all right and I think that when we terminate this of the bridge you would do well to go to the Gredos.”
As he said that, the woman started to curse in a flood of obscene invective that rolled over and around him like the hot white water splashing down from the sudden eruption of a geyser.
The deaf man shook his head at Robert Jordan and grinned in delight. He continued to shake his head happily as Pilar went on vilifying and Robert Jordan knew that it was all right again now. Finally she stopped cursing, reached for the water jug, tipped it up and took a drink and said, calmly, “Then just shut up about what we are to do afterwards, will you, Inglés? You go back to the Republic and you take your piece with you and leave us others alone here to decide what part of these hills we’ll die in.”
“Live in,” El Sordo said. “Calm thyself, Pilar.”
“Live in and die in,” Pilar said. “I can see the end of it well enough. I like thee, Inglés, but keep thy mouth off of what we must do when thy business is finished.”
“It is thy business,” Robert Jordan said. “I do not put my hand in it.”
“But you did,” Pilar said. “Take thy little cropped-headed whore and go back to the Republic but do not shut the door on others who are not foreigners and who loved the Republic when thou wert wiping thy mother’s milk off thy chin.”
Maria had come up the trail while they were talking and she heard this last sentence which Pilar, raising her voice again, shouted at Robert Jordan. Maria shook her head at Robert Jordan violently and shook her finger warningly. Pilar saw Robert Jordan looking at the girl and saw him smile and she turned and said, “Yes. I said whore and I mean it. And I suppose that you’ll go to Valencia together and we can eat goat crut in Gredos.”
“I’m a whore if thee wishes, Pilar,” Maria said. “I suppose I am in all case if you say so. But calm thyself. What passes with thee?”
“Nothing,” Pilar said and sat down on the bench, her voice calm now and all the metallic rage gone out of it. “I do not call thee that. But I have such a desire to go to the Republic.”
“We can all go,” Maria said.
“Why not?” Robert Jordan said. “Since thou seemest not to love the Gredos.”
Sordo grinned at him.
“We’ll see,” Pilar said, her rage gone now. “Give me a glass of that rare drink. I have worn my throat out with anger. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens.”
“You see, Comrade,” El Sordo explained. “It is the morning that is difficult.” He was not talking the pidgin Spanish now and he was looking into Robert Jordan’s eyes calmly and explainingly; not searchingly nor suspiciously, nor with the flat superiority of the old campaigner that had been in them before. “I understand your needs and I know the posts must be exterminated and the bridge covered while you do your work. This I understand perfectly. This is easy to do before daylight or at daylight.”
“Yes,” Robert Jordan said. “Run along a minute, will you?” he said to Maria without looking at her.
The girl walked away out of hearing and sat down, her hands clasped over her ankles.
“You see,” Sordo said. “In that there is no problem. But to leave afterward and get out of this country in daylight presents a grave problem”