For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway [69]
“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.”
“Do you know where I want to go?” Pilar asked him.
“Where? The Paramera? That’s no good.”
“No,” Pilar said. “Not the Sierra de Paramera. I want to go to the Republic.”
“That is possible.”
“Would your people go?”
“Yes. If I say to.”
“Of mine, I do not know,” Pilar said. “Pablo would not want to although, truly, he might feel safer there. He is too old to have to go for a soldier unless they call more classes. The gypsy will not wish to go. I do not know about the others.”
“Because nothing passes her for so long they do not realize the danger,” El Sordo said.
“Since the planes today they will see it more,” Robert Jordan said. “But I should think you could operate very well from the Gredos.”
“What?” El Sordo said and looked at him with his eyes very flat. There was no friendliness in the way he asked the question.
“You could raid more effectively from there,” Robert Jordan said.
“So,” El Sordo said. “You know Gredos?”
“Yes. You could operate against the main line of the railway from there. You could keep cutting it as we are doing farther south in Estremadura. To operate from there would be better than returning to the Republic,” Robert Jordan said. “You are more useful there.”
They had both gotten sullen as he talked.
Sordo looked at Pilar and she looked back at him.
“You know Gredos?” Sordo asked. “Truly?”
“Sure,” said Robert Jordan.
“Where would you go?”
“Above Barco de Avila. Better places than here. Raid against the main road and the railroad between Béjar and Plasencia.”
“Very difficult,” Sordo said.
“We have worked against that same railroad in much more dangerous country in Estremadura,” Robert Jordan said.
“Who is we?”
“The guerrilleros group of Estremadura.”
“You are many?”
“About forty.”
“Was the one with the bad nerves and the strange name from there?” asked Pilar.
“Yes.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead, as I told you.”
“You are from there, too?”
“Yes.”
“You see what I mean?” Pilar said to him.
And I have made a mistake, Robert Jordan thought to himself. I have told Spaniards we can do something better than they can when the rule is never to speak of your own exploits or abilities. When I should have flattered them I have told them what I think they should