“How much longer do you think we will have this detail?”
“I don’t know,” the corporal said. “But I wish we could have it for all of the war.”
“Six hours is too long to be on guard,” the soldier who was cooking said.
“We will have three-hour watches as long as this storm holds,” the corporal said. “That is only normal.”
“What about all those staff cars?” the soldier on the bunk asked. “I did not like the look of all those staff cars.”
“Nor I,” the corporal said. “All such things are of evil omen.”
“And aviation,” the soldier who was cooking said. “Aviation is another bad sign.”
“But we have formidable aviation,” the corporal said. “The Reds have no aviation such as we have. Those planes this morning were something to make any man happy.”
“I have seen the Red planes when they were something serious,” the soldier on the bunk said. “I have seen those two motor bombers when they were a horror to endure.”
“Yes. But they are not as formidable as our aviation,” the corporal said. “We have an aviation that is insuperable.”
This was how they were talking in the sawmill while Anselmo waited in the snow watching the road and the light in the sawmill window.
I hope I am not for the killing, Anselmo was thinking. I think that after the war there will have to be some great penance done for the killing. If we no longer have religion after the war then I think there must be some form of civic penance organized that all may be cleansed from the killing or else we will never have a true and human basis for living. The killing is necessary, I know, but still the doing of it is very bad for a man and I think that, after all this is over and we have won the war, there must be a penance of some kind for the cleansing of us all.
Anselmo was a very good man and whenever he was alone for long, and he was alone much of the time, this problem of the killing returned to him.
I wonder about the Inglés, he thought. He told me that he did not mind it. Yet he seems to be both sensitive and kind. It may be that in the younger people it does not have an importance. It may be that in foreigners, or in those who have not had our religion, there is not the same attitude. But I think any one doing it will be brutalized in time and I think that even though necessary, it is a great sin and that afterwards we must do something very strong to atone for it.
It was dark now and he looked at the light across the road and shook his arms against his chest to warm them. Now, he thought, he would certainly leave for the camp; but something kept him there beside the tree above the road. It was snowing harder and Anselmo thought: if only we could blow the bridge tonight. On a night like this it would be nothing to take the posts and blow the bridge and it would all be over and done with. On a night like this you could do anything.
Then he stood there against the tree stamping his feet softly and he did not think any more about the bridge. The coming of the dark always made him feel lonely and tonight he felt so lonely that there was a hollowness in him as of hunger. In the old days he could help this loneliness by the saying of prayers and often coming home from hunting he would repeat a great number of the same prayer and it made him feel better. But he had not prayed once since the movement. He missed the prayers but he thought it would be unfair and hypocritical to say them and he did not wish to ask any favors or for any different treatment than all the men were receiving.
No, he thought, I am lonely. But so are all the soldiers and the Wives of all the soldiers and all those who have lost families or parents. I have no wife, but I am glad that she died before the movement. She would not have understood it. I have no children and I never will have any children. I am lonely in the day when I am not working but when the dark comes it is a time of great loneliness. But one thing I have that no man nor any God can take from me and that is that I have worked well for the Republic. I have worked hard for the good that we will all share later. I have worked my best from the first of the movement and I have done nothing that I am ashamed of.