For Whom The Bell Tolls

Robert Jordan while he spoke was looking up the road at the remainder of Pilar's band. They were close now and he saw Primitivo and Rafael were supporting Fernando. He looked to be shot through the groin for he was holding himself there with both hands while the man and the boy held him on either side. His right leg was dragging, the side of the shoe scraping on the road as they walked him. Pilar was climbing the bank into the timber carrying three rifles. Robert Jordan could not see her face but her head was up and she was climbing as fast as she could.

"How does it go?" Primitivo called.

"Good. We're almost finished," Robert Jordan shouted back.

There was no need to ask how it went with them. As he looked away the three were on the edge of the road and Fernando was shaking his head as they tried to get him up the bank.

"Give me a rifle here," Robert Jordan heard him say in a choky voice.

"No, hombre. We will get thee to the horses."

"What would I do with a horse?" Fernando said. "I am very well here."

Robert Jordan did not hear the rest for he was speaking to Anselmo.

"Blow it if tanks come," he said. "But only if they come onto it. Blow it if armored cars come. If they come onto it. Anything else Pablo will stop."

"I will not blow it with thee beneath it."

"Take no account of me. Blow it if thou needest to. I fix the other wire and come back. Then we will blow it together."

He started running for the center of the bridge.

Anselmo saw Robert Jordan run up the bridge, coil of wire over his arm, pliers hanging from one wrist and the submachine gun slung over his back. He saw him climb down under the rail of the bridge and out of sight. Anselmo held the wire in his hand, his right hand, and he crouched behind the stone marker and looked down the road and across the bridge. Halfway between him and the bridge was the sentry, who had settled now closer to the road, sinking closer onto the smooth road surface as the sun weighed on his back. His rifle, lying on the road, the bayonet fixed, pointed straight toward Anselmo. The old man looked past him along the surface of the bridge crossed by the shadows of the bridge rail to where the road swung to the left along the gorge and then turned out of sight behind the rocky wall. He looked at the far sentry box with the sun shining on it and then, conscious of the wire in his hand, he turned his head to where Fernando was speaking to Primitivo and the gypsy.

"Leave me here," Fernando said. "It hurts much and there is much hemorrhage inside. I feel it in the inside when I move."

"Let us get thee up the slope," Primitivo said. "Put thy arms around our shoulders and we will take thy legs."

"It is inutile," Fernando said. "Put me here behind a stone. I am as useful here as above."

"But when we go," Primitivo said.

"Leave me here," Fernando said. "There is no question of my travelling with this. Thus it gives one horse more. I am very well here. Certainly they will come soon."

"We can take thee up the hill," the gypsy said. "Easily."

He was, naturally, in a deadly hurry to be gone, as was Primitivo. But they had brought him this far.

"Nay," Fernando said. "I am very well here. What passes with Eladio?"

The gypsy put his finger on his head to show where the wound had been.

"Here," he said. "After thee. When we made the rush."

"Leave me," Fernando said. Anselmo could see he was suffering much. He held both hands against his groin now and put his head back against the bank, his legs straight out before him. His face was gray and sweating.

"Leave me now please, for a favor," he said. His eyes were shut with pain, the edges of the lips twitching. "I find myself very well here."

"Here is a rifle and cartridges," Primitivo said.

"Is it mine?" Fernando asked, his eyes shut.

"Nay, the Pilar has thine," Primitivo said. "This is mine."

"I would prefer my own," Fernando said. "I am more accustomed to it."

"I will bring it to thee," the gypsy lied to him. "Keep this until it comes."

"I am in a very good position here," Fernando said. "Both for up the road and for the bridge." He opened his eyes, turned his head and looked across the bridge, then shut them as the pain came.

The gypsy tapped his head and motioned with his thumb to Primitivo for them to be off.

"Then we will be down for thee," Primitivo said and started up the slope after the gypsy, who was climbing fast.

Fernando lay back against the bank. In front of him was one of the whitewashed stones that marked the edge of the road. His head was in the shadow but the sun shone on his plugged and bandaged wound and on his hands that were cupped over it. His legs and his feet also were in the sun. The rifle lay beside him and there were three clips of cartridges shining in the sun beside the rifle. A fly crawled on his hands but the small tickling did not come through the pain.

"Fernando!" Anselmo called to him from where he crouched, holding the wire. He had made a loop in the end of the wire and twisted it close so he could hold it in his fist.