His rage began to thin as he exaggerated more and more and spread his scorn and contempt so widely and unjustly that he could no longer believe in it himself. If that were true what are you here for? It's not true and you know it. Look at all the good ones. Look at all the fine ones. He could not bear to be unjust. He hated injustice as he hated cruelty and he lay in his rage that blinded his mind until gradually the anger died down and the red, black, blinding, killing anger was all gone and his mind now as quiet, empty-calm and sharp, cold-seeing as a man is after he has had sexual intercourse with a woman that he does not love.
"And you, you poor rabbit," he leaned over and said to Maria, who smiled in her sleep and moved close against him. "I would have struck thee there awhile back if thou had spoken. What an animal a man is in a rage."
He lay close to the girl now with his arms around her and his chin on her shoulder and lying there he figured out exactly what he would have to do and how he would have to do it.
And it isn't so bad, he thought. It really isn't so bad at all. I don't know whether any one has ever done it before. But there will always be people who will do it from now on, given a similar jam. If we do it and if they hear about it. If they hear about it, yes. If they do not just wonder how it was we did it. We are too short of people but there is no sense to worry about that. I will do the bridge with what we have. God, I'm glad I got over being angry. It was like not being able to breathe in a storm. That being angry is another damned luxury you can't afford.
"It's all figured out, guapa," he said softly against Maria's shoulder. "You haven't been bothered by any of it. You have not known about it. We'll be killed but we'll blow the bridge. You have not had to worry about it. That isn't much of a wedding present. But is not a good night's sleep supposed to be priceless? You had a good night's sleep. See if you can wear that like a ring on your finger. Sleep, guapa. Sleep well, my beloved. I do not wake thee. That is all I can do for thee now."
He lay there holding her very lightly, feeling her breathe and feeling her heart beat, and keeping track of the time on his wrist watch.
36
Andres had challenged at the government position. That is, he had lain down where the ground fell sharply away below the triple belt of wire and shouted up at the rock and earth parapet. There was no continual defensive line and he could easily have passed this position in the dark and made his way farther into the government territory before running into some one who would challenge him. But it seemed safer and simpler to get it over here.
"Salud!" he had shouted. "Salud, milicianos!"
He heard a bolt snick as it was pulled back. Then, from farther down the parapet, a rifle fired. There was a crashing crack and a downward stab of yellow in the dark. Andres had flattened at the click, the top of his head hard against the ground.
"Don't shoot, Comrades," Andres shouted. "Don't shoot! I want to come in."
"How many are you?" some one called from behind the parapet.
"One. Me. Alone."
"Who are you?"
"Andres Lopez of Villaconejos. From the band of Pablo. With a message."
"Have you your rifle and equipment?"
"Yes, man."
"We can take in none without rifle and equipment," the voice said. "Nor in larger groups than three."
"I am alone," Andres shouted. "It is important. Let me come in."
He could hear them talking behind the parapet but not what they were saying. Then the voice shouted again, "How many are you?"
"One. Me. Alone. For the love of God."
They were talking behind the parapet again. Then the voice came, "Listen, fascist."
"I am not a fascist," Andres shouted. "I am a guerrillero from the band of Pablo. I come with a message for the General Staff."
"He's crazy," he heard some one say. "Toss a bomb at him."
"Listen," Andres said. "I am alone. I am completely by myself. I obscenity in the midst of the holy mysteries that I am alone. Let me come in."
"He speaks like a Christian," he heard some one say and laugh.
Then some one else said, "The best thing is to toss a bomb down on him."
"No," Andres shouted. "That would be a great mistake. This is important. Let me come in."
It was for this reason that he had never enjoyed trips back and forth between the lines. Sometimes it was better than others. But it was never good.
"You are alone?" the voice called down again.
"Me cago en la leche," Andres shouted. "How many times must I tell thee? I AM ALONE."
"Then if you should be alone stand up and hold thy rifle over thy head."
Andres stood up and put the carbine above his head, holding it in both hands.
"Now come through the wire. We have thee covered with the maquina," the voice called.
Andres was in the first zigzag belt of wire. "I need my hands to get through the wire," he shouted.
"Keep them up," the voice commanded.
"I am held fast by the wire," Andres called.
"It would have been simpler to have thrown a bomb at him," a voice said.
"Let him sling his rifle," another voice said. "He cannot come through there with his hands above his head. Use a little reason."
"All these fascists are the same," the other voice said. "They demand one condition after another."
"Listen," Andres shouted. "I am no fascist but a guerrillero from the band of Pablo. We've killed more fascists than the typhus."
"I have never heard of the band of Pablo," the man who was evidently in command of the post said. "Neither of Peter nor of Paul nor of any of the other saints nor apostles. Nor of their bands. Sling thy rifle over thy shoulder and use thy hands to come through the wire."
"Before we loose the maquina on thee," another shouted.
"Que poco amables sois!" Andres said. "You're not very amiable."
He was working his way through the wire.
"Amables," some one shouted at him. "We are in a war, man."
"It begins to appear so," Andres said.
"What's he say?"
Andres heard a bolt click again.
"Nothing," he shouted. "I say nothing. Do not shoot until I get through this fornicating wire."
"Don't speak badly of our wire," some one shouted. "Or we'll toss a bomb on you."
"Quiero decir, que buena alambrada," Andres shouted. "What beautiful wire. God in a latrine. What lovely wire. Soon I will be with thee, brothers."
"Throw a bomb at him," he heard the one voice say. "I tell you that's the soundest way to deal with the whole thing."
"Brothers," Andres said. He was wet through with sweat and he knew the bomb advocate was perfectly capable of tossing a grenade at any moment. "I have no importance."
"I believe it," the bomb man said.
"You are right," Andres said. He was working carefully through the third belt of wire and he was very close to the parapet. "I have no importance of any kind. But the affair is serious. Muy, muy serio."
"There is no more serious thing than liberty," the bomb man shouted. "Thou thinkest there is anything more serious than liberty?" he asked challengingly.
"No, man," Andres said, relieved. He knew now he was up against the crazies; the ones with the black-and-red scarves. "Viva la Libertad!"
"Viva la F. A. I. Viva la C. N. T.," they shouted back at him from the parapet. "Viva el anarco-sindicalismo and liberty."
"Viva nosotros," Andres shouted. "Long life to us."
"He is a coreligionary of ours," the bomb man said. "And I might have killed him with this."
He looked at the grenade in his hand and was deeply moved as Andres climbed over the parapet. Putting his arms around him, the grenade still in one hand, so that it rested against Andres's shoulder blade as he embraced him, the bomb man kissed him on both cheeks.
"I am content that nothing happened to thee, brother," he said. "I am very content."
"Where is thy officer?" Andres asked.
"I command
here," a man said. "Let me see thy papers."
He took them into a dugout and looked at them with the light of a candle. There was the little square of folded silk with the colors of the Republic and the seal of the S. I. M. in the center. There was the Salvoconducto or safe-conduct pass giving his name, age, height, birthplace and mission that Robert Jordan had written out on a sheet from his notebook and sealed with the S. I. M. rubber stamp and there were the four folded sheets of the dispatch to Golz which were tied around with a cord and sealed with wax and the impression of the metal S. I. M. seal that was set in the top end of the wooden handle of the rubber stamp.
"This I have seen," the man in command of the post said and handed back the piece of silk. "This you all have, I know. But its possession proves nothing without this." He lifted the Salvoconducto and read it through again. "Where were you born?"
"Villaconejos," Andres said.
"And what do they raise there?"
"Melons," Andres said. "As all the world knows."
"Who do you know there?"
"Why? Are you from there?"
"Nay. But I have been there. I am from Aranjuez."
"Ask me about any one."
"Describe Jose Rincon."
"Who keeps the bodega?"
"Naturally."
"With a shaved head and a big belly and a cast in one eye."
"Then this is valid," the man said and handed him back the paper. "But what do you do on their side?"
"Our father had installed himself at Villacastin before the movement," Andres said. "Down there beyond the mountains on the plain. It was there we were surprised by the movement. Since the movement I have fought with the band of Pablo. But I am in a great hurry, man, to take that dispatch."
"How goes it in the country of the fascists?" the man commanding asked. He was in no hurry.
"Today we had much tomate," Andres said proudly. "Today there was plenty of dust on the road all day. Today they wiped out the band of Sordo."
"And who is Sordo?" the other asked deprecatingly.
"The leader of one of the best bands in the mountains."
"All of you should come in to the Republic and join the army," the officer said. "There is too much of this silly guerilla nonsense going on. All of you should come in and submit to our Libertarian discipline. Then when we wished to send out guerillas we would send them out as they are needed."
Andres was a man endowed with almost supreme patience. He had taken the coming in through the wire calmly. None of this examination had flustered him. He found it perfectly normal that this man should have no understanding of them nor of what they were doing and that he should talk idiocy was to be expected. That it should all go slowly should be expected too; but now he wished to go.
"Listen, Compadre," he said. "It is very possible that you are right. But I have orders to deliver that dispatch to the General commanding the Thirty-Fifth Division, which makes an attack at daylight in these hills and it is already late at night and I must go."
"What attack? What do you know of an attack?"
"Nay. I know nothing. But I must go now to Navacerrada and go on from there. Wilt thou send me to thy commander who will give me transport to go on from there? Send one with me now to respond to him that there be no delay."
"I distrust all of this greatly," he said. "It might have been better to have shot thee as thou approached the wire."
"You have seen my papers, Comrade, and I have explained my mission," Andres told him patiently.
"Papers can be forged," the officer said. "Any fascist could invent such a mission. I will go with thee myself to the Commander."
"Good," Andres said. "That you should come. But that we should go quickly."
"Thou, Sanchez. Thou commandest in my place," the officer said. "Thou knowest thy duties as well as I do. I take this so-called Comrade to the Commander."
They started down the shallow trench behind the crest of the hill and in the dark Andres smelt the foulness the defenders of the hill crest had made all through the bracken on that slope. He did not like these people who were like dangerous children; dirty, foul, undisciplined, kind, loving, silly and ignorant but always dangerous because they were armed. He, Andres, was without politics except that he was for the Republic. He had heard these people talk many times and he thought what they said was often beautiful and fine to hear but he did not like them. It is not liberty not to bury the mess one makes, he thought. No animal has more liberty than the cat; but it buries the mess it makes. The cat is the best anarchist. Until they learn that from the cat I cannot respect them.
Ahead of him the officer stopped suddenly.
"You have your carabine still," he said.
"Yes," Andres said. "Why not?"
"Give it to me," the officer said. "You could shoot me in the back with it."
"Why?" Andres asked him. "Why would I shoot thee in the back?"
"One never knows," the officer said. "I trust no one. Give me the carbine."
Andres unslung it and handed it to him.
"If it pleases thee to carry it," he said.
"It is better," the officer said. "We are safer that way."
They went on down the hill in the dark.
37
Now Robert Jordan lay with the girl and he watched time passing on his wrist. It went slowly, almost imperceptibly, for it was a small watch and he could not see the second hand. But as he watched the minute hand he found he could almost check its motion with his concentration. The girl's head was under his chin and when he moved his head to look at the watch he felt the cropped head against his cheek, and it was as soft but as alive and silkily rolling as when a marten's fur rises under the caress of your hand when you spread the trap jaws open and lift the marten clear and, holding it, stroke the fur smooth. His throat swelled when his cheek moved against Maria's hair and there was a hollow aching from his throat all through him as he held his arms around her; his head dropped, his eyes close to the watch where the lance-pointed, luminous splinter moved slowly up the left face of the dial. He could see its movement clearly and steadily now and he held Maria close now to slow it. He did not want to wake her but he could not leave her alone now in this last time and he put his lips behind her ear and moved them up along her neck, feeling the smooth skin and the soft touch of her hair on them. He could see the hand moving on the watch and he held her tighter and ran the tip of his tongue along her cheek and onto the lobe of her ear and along the lovely convolutions to the sweet, firm rim at the top, and his tongue was trembling. He felt the trembling run through all of the hollow aching and he saw the hand of the watch now mounting in sharp angle toward the top where the hour was. Now while she still slept he turned her head and put his lips to hers. They lay there, just touching lightly against the sleep-firm mouth and he swung them softly across it, feeling them brush lightly. He turned himself toward her and he felt her shiver along the long, light lovely body and then she sighed, sleeping, and then she, still sleeping, held him too and then, unsleeping, her lips were against his firm and hard and pressing and he said, "But the pain."
And she said, "Nay, there is no pain."
"Rabbit."
"Nay, speak not."
"My rabbit."
"Speak not. Speak not."
Then they were together so that as the hand on the watch moved, unseen now, they knew that nothing could ever happen to the one that did not happen to the other, that no other thing could happen more than this; that this was all and always; this was what had been and now and whatever was to come. This, that they were not to have, they were having. They were having now and before and always and now and now and now. Oh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet. Now and forever now. Come now, now, for there is no now but now. Yes, now. Now, please now, only now, not anything else only this now, and where are you and where am I and where is the other one, and not why, not ever why, only this now; and on and always please t
hen always now, always now, for now always one now; one only one, there is no other one but one now, one, going now, rising now, sailing now, leaving now, wheeling now, soaring now, away now, all the way now, all of all the way now; one and one is one, is one, is one, is one, is still one, is still one, is one descendingly, is one softly, is one longingly, is one kindly, is one happily, is one in goodness, is one to cherish, is one now on earth with elbows against the cut and slept-on branches of the pine tree with the smell of the pine boughs and the night; to earth conclusively now, and with the morning of the day to come. Then he said, for the other was only in his head and he had said nothing, "Oh, Maria, I love thee and I thank thee for this."
Maria said, "Do not speak. It is better if we do not speak."
"I must tell thee for it is a great thing."
"Nay."
"Rabbit----"
But she held him tight and turned her head away and he asked softly, "Is it pain, rabbit?"
"Nay," she said. "It is that I am thankful too to have been another time in la gloria."
Then afterwards they lay quiet, side by side, all length of ankle, thigh, hip and shoulder touching, Robert Jordan now with the watch where he could see it again and Maria said, "We have had much good fortune."