For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway [152]
Lieutenant Berrendo stood on the hilltop and looked down the slope at his own dead and then across the country seeing where they had galloped before Sordo had turned at bay here. He noticed all the dispositions that had been made of the troops and then he ordered the dead men’s horses to be brought up and the bodies tied across the saddles so that they might be packed in to La Granja.
“Take that one, too,” he said. “The one with his hands on the automatic rifle. That should be Sordo. He is the oldest and it was he with the gun. No. Cut the head off and wrap it in a poncho.” He considered a minute. “You might as well take all the heads. And of the others below on the slope and where we first found them. Collect the rifles and pistols and pack that gun on a horse.”
Then he walked down to where the lieutenant lay who had been killed in the first assault. He looked down at him but did not touch him.
“Qué cosa más mala es la guerra,” he said to himself, which meant, “What a bad thing war is.”
Then he made the sign of the cross again and as he walked down the hill he said five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys for the repose of the soul of his dead comrade. He did not wish to stay to see his orders being carried out.
28
After the planes went away Robert Jordan and Primitivo heard the firing start and his heart seemed to start again with it. A cloud of smoke drifted over the last ridge that he could see in the high country and the planes were three steadily receding specks in the sky.
They’ve probably bombed hell out of their own cavalry and never touched Sordo and Company, Robert Jordan said to himself. The damned planes scare you to death but they don’t kill you.
“The combat goes on,” Primitivo said, listening to the heavy firing. He had winced at each bomb thud and now he licked his dry lips.
“Why not?” Robert Jordan said. “Those things never kill anybody.”
Then the firing stopped absolutely and he did not hear another shot. Lieutenant Berrendo’s pistol shot did not carry that far.
When the firing first stopped it did not affect him. Then as the quiet kept on a hollow feeling came in his chest. Then he heard the grenades burst and for a moment his heart rose. Then everything was quiet again and the quiet kept on and he knew that it was over.
Maria came up from the camp with a tin bucket of stewed hare with mushrooms sunken in the rich gravy and a sack with bread, a leather wine bottle, four tin plates, two cups and four spoons. She stopped at the gun and ladled out two plates for Agustín and Eladio, who had replaced Anselmo at the gun, and gave them bread and unscrewed the horn tip of the wine bottle and poured two cups of wine.
Robert Jordan watched her climbing lithely up to his lookout post, the sack over her shoulder, the bucket in one hand, her cropped head bright in the sun. He climbed down and took the bucket and helped her up the last boulder.
“What did the aviation do?” she asked, her eyes frightened.
“Bombed Sordo.”
He had the bucket open and was ladling out stew onto a plate.
“Are they still fighting?”
“No. It is over.”
“Oh,” she said and bit her lip and looked out across the country.
“I have no appetite,” Primitivo said.
“Eat anyway,” Robert Jordan told him.
“I could not swallow food.”
“Take a drink of this, man,” Robert Jordan said and handed him the wine bottle. “Then eat.”
“This of Sordo has taken away desire,” Primitivo said. “Eat, thou. I have no desire.”
Maria went over to him and put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“Eat, old one,” she said. “Each one should take care of his strength.”
Primitivo turned away from her. He took the wine bottle and tipping his head back swallowed