For Whom The Bell Tolls

by Эрнест Миллер Хемингуэй

  "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.

  "Fernando!" he called again.

  Fernando opened his eyes and looked at him.

  "How does it go?" Fernando asked.

  "Very good," Anselmo said. "Now in a minute we will be blowing it."

  "I am pleased. Anything you need me for advise me," Fernando said and shut his eyes again and the pain lurched in him.

  Anselmo looked away from him and out onto the bridge.

  He was watching for the first sight of the coil of wire being handed up onto the bridge and for the Ingles's sunburnt head and face to follow it as he would pull himself up the side. At the same time he was watching beyond the bridge for anything to come around the far corner of the road. He did not feel afraid now at all and he had not been afraid all the day. It goes so fast and it is so normal, he thought. I hated the shooting of the guard and it made me an emotion but that is passed now. How could the Ingles say that the shooting of a man is like the shooting of an animal? In all hunting I have had an elation and no feeling of wrong. But to shoot a man gives a feeling as though one had struck one's own brother when you are grown men. And to shoot him various times to kill him. Nay, do not think of that. That gave thee too much emotion and thee ran blubbering down the bridge like a woman.

  That is over, he told himself, and thou canst try to atone for it as for the others. But now thou has what thou asked for last night coming home across the hills. Thou art in battle and thou hast no problem. If I die on this morning now it is all right.

  Then he looked at Fernando lying there against the bank with his hands cupped over the groove of his hip, his lips blue, his eyes tight shut, breathing heavily and slowly, and he thought, If I die may it be quickly. Nay I said I would ask nothing more if I were granted what I needed for today. So I will not ask. Understand? I ask nothing. Nothing in any way. Give me what I asked for and I leave all the rest according to discretion.

  He listened to the noise that came, far away, of the battle at the pass and he said to himself, Truly this is a great day. I should realize and know what a day this is.

  But there was no lift or any excitement in his heart. That was all gone and there was nothing but a calmness. And now, as he crouched behind the marker stone with the looped wire in his hand and another loop of it around his wrist and the gravel beside the road under his knees he was not lonely nor did he feel in any way alone. He was one with the wire in his hand and one with the bridge, and one with the charges the Ingles had placed. He was one with the Ingles still working under the bridge and he was one with all of the battle and with the Republic.

  But there was no excitement. It was all calm now and the sun beat down on his neck and on his shoulders as he crouched and as he looked up he saw the high, cloudless sky and the slope of the mountain rising beyond the river and he was not happy but he was neither lonely nor afraid.

  Up the hill slope Pilar lay behind a tree watching the road that came down from the pass. She had three loaded rifles by her and she handed one to Primitivo as he dropped down beside her.

  "Get down there," she said. "Behind that tree. Thou, gypsy, over there," she pointed to another tree below. "Is he dead?"

  "Nay. Not yet," Primitivo said.

  "It was bad luck," Pilar said. "If we had had two more it need not have happened. He should have crawled around the sawdust pile. Is he all right there where he is?"

  Primitivo shook his head.

  "When the Ingles blows the bridge will fragments come this far?" the gypsy asked from behind his tree.

  "I don't know," Pilar said. "But Agustin with the maquina is closer than thee. The Ingles would not have placed him there if it were too close."

  "But I remember with the blowing of the train the lamp of the engine blew by over my head and pieces of steel flew by like swallows."

  "Thou hast poetic memories," Pilar said. "Like swallows. Joder! They were like wash boilers. Listen, gypsy, thou hast comported thyself well today. Now do not let thy fear catch up with thee."

  "Well, I only asked if it would blow this far so I might keep well behind the tree trunk," the gypsy said.

  "Keep it thus," Pilar told him. "How many have we killed?"

  "Pues five for us. Two here. Canst thou not see the other at the far end? Look there toward the bridge. See the box? Look! Dost see?" He pointed. "Then there were eight below for Pablo. I watched that post for the Ingles."

  Pilar grunted. Then she said violently and raging, "What passes with that Ingles? What is he obscenitying off under that bridge. Vaya mandanga! Is he building a bridge or blowing one?"

  She raised her head and looked down at Anselmo crouched behind the stone marker.

  "Hey, viejo!" she shouted. "What passes with thy obscenity of an Ingles?"

  "Patience, woman," Anselmo called up, holding the wire lightly but firmly. "He is terminating his work."

  "But what in the name of the great whore does he take so much time about?"

  "Es muy concienzudo!" Anselmo shouted. "It is a scientific labor."

  "I obscenity in the milk of science," Pilar raged to the gypsy. "Let the filth-faced obscenity blow it and be done. Maria!" she shouted in her deep voice up the hill. "Thy Ingles-" and she shouted a flood of obscenity about Jordan's imaginary actions under the bridge.

  "Calm yourself, woman," Anselmo called from the road. "He is doing an enormous work. He is finishing it now."

  "The hell with it," Pilar raged. "It is speed that counts."

  Just then they all heard firing start down the road where Pablo was holding the post he had taken. Pilar stopped cursing and listened. "Ay," she said. "Ayee. Ayee. That's it."

  Robert Jordan heard it as he swung the coil of wire up onto the bridge with one hand and then pulled himself up after it. As his knees rested on the edge of the iron of the bridge and his hands were on the surface he heard the machine gun firing around the bend below. It was a different sound from Pablo's a
utomatic rifle. He got to his feet, leaned over, passed his coil of wire clear and commenced to pay out wire as he walked backwards and sideways along the bridge.

  He heard the firing and as he walked he felt it in the pit of his stomach as though it echoed on his own diaphragm. It was closer now as he walked and he looked back at the bend of the road. But it was still clear of any car, or tank or men. It was still clear when he was halfway to the end of the bridge. It was still clear when he was three quarters of the way, his wire running clear and unfouled, and it was still clear as he climbed around behind the sentry box, holding his wire out to keep it from catching on the iron work. Then he was on the road and it was still clear below on the road and then he was moving fast backwards up the little washed-out gully by the lower side of the road as an outfielder goes backwards for a long fly ball, keeping the wire taut, and now he was almost opposite Anselmo's stone and it was still clear below the bridge.

  Then he heard the truck coming down the road and he saw it over his shoulder just coming onto the long slope and he swung his wrist once around the wire and yelled to Anselmo, "Blow her!" and he dug his heels in and leaned back hard onto the tension of the wire with a turn of it around his wrist and the noise of the truck was coming behind and ahead there was the road with the dead sentry and the long bridge and the stretch of road below, still clear and then there was a cracking roar and the middle of the bridge rose up in the air like a wave breaking and he felt the blast from the explosion roll back against him as he dove on his face in the pebbly gully with his hands holding tight over his head. His face was down against the pebbles as the bridge settled where it had risen and the familiar yellow smell of it rolled over him in acrid smoke and then it commenced to rain pieces of steel.

  After the steel stopped falling he was still alive and he raised his head and looked across the bridge. The center section of it was gone. There were jagged pieces of steel on the bridge with their bright, new torn edges and ends and these were all over the road. The truck had stopped up the road about a hundred yards. The driver and the two men who had been with him were running toward a culvert.

  Fernando was still lying against the bank and he was still breathing. His arms straight by his sides, his hands relaxed.

  Anselmo lay face down behind the white marking stone. His left arm was doubled under his head and his right arm was stretched straight out. The loop of wire was still around his right fist. Robert Jordan got to his feet, crossed the road, knelt by him and made sure that he was dead. He did not turn him over to see what the piece of steel had done. He was dead and that was all.

  He looked very small, dead, Robert Jordan thought. He looked small and gray-headed and Robert Jordan thought, I wonder how he ever carried such big loads if that is the size he really was. Then he saw the shape of the calves and the thighs in the tight, gray herdsman's breeches and the worn soles of the rope-soled shoes and he picked up Anselmo's carbine and the two sacks, practically empty now and went over and picked up the rifle that lay beside Fernando. He kicked a jagged piece of steel off the surface of the road. Then he swung the two rifles over his shoulder, holding them by the muzzles, and started up the slope into the timber. He did not look back nor did he even look across the bridge at the road. They were still firing around the bend below but he cared nothing about that now.

  He was coughing from the TNT fumes and he felt numb all through himself.

  He put one of the rifles down by Pilar where she lay behind the tree. She looked and saw that made three rifles that she had again.

  "You are too high up here," he said. "There's a truck up the road where you can't see it. They thought it was planes. You better get farther down. I'm going down with Agustin to cover Pablo."

  "The old one?" she asked him, looking at his face.

  "Dead."

  He coughed again, wrackingly, and spat on the ground.

  "Thy bridge is blown, Ingles," Pilar looked at him. "Don't forget that."

  "I don't forget anything," he said. "You have a big voice," he said to Pilar. "I have heard thee bellow. Shout up to the Maria and tell her that I am all right."

  "We lost two at the sawmill," Pilar said, trying to make him understand.

  "So I saw," Robert Jordan said. "Did you do something stupid?"

  "Go and obscenity thyself, Ingles," Pilar said. "Fernando and Eladio were men, too."

  "Why don't you go up with the horses?" Robert Jordan said. "I can cover here better than thee."

  "Thou art to cover Pablo."

  "The hell with Pablo. Let him cover himself with mierda."

  "Nay, Ingles. He came back. He has fought much below there. Thou hast not listened? He is fighting now. Against something bad. Do you not hear?"

  "I'll cover him. But obscenity all of you. Thou and Pablo both."

  "Ingles," Pilar said. "Calm thyself. I have been with thee in this as no one could be. Pablo did thee a wrong but he returned."

  "If I had had the exploder the old man would not have been killed. I could have blown it from here."

  "If, if, if-" Pilar said.

  The anger and the emptiness and the hate that had come with the let-down after the bridge, when he had looked up from where he had lain and crouching, seen Anselmo dead, were still all through him. In him, too, was despair from the sorrow that soldiers turn to hatred in order that they may continue to be soldiers. Now it was over he was lonely, detached and unelated and he hated every one he saw.

  "If there had been no snow-" Pilar said. And then, not suddenly, as a physical release could have been (if the woman would have put her arm around him, say) but slowly and from his head he began to accept it and let the hate go out. Sure, the snow. That had done it. The snow. Done itto others. Once you saw it again as it was to others, once you got rid of your own self, the always ridding of self that you had to do in war. Where there could be no self. Where yourself is only to be lost. Then, from his losing of it, he heard Pilar say, "Sordo-"

  "What?" he said.

  "Sordo-"

  "Yes," Robert Jordan said. He grinned at her, a cracked, stiff, too-tightened-facial-tendoned grin. "Forget it. I was wrong. I am sorry, woman. Let us do this well and all together. And the bridge is blown, as thou sayest."

  "Yes. Thou must think of things in their place."

  "Then I go now to Agustin. Put thy gypsy much farther down so that he can see well up the road. Give those guns to Primitivo and take this maquina. Let me show thee."

  "Keep the maquina," Pilar said. "We will not be here any time. Pablo should come now and we will be going."

  "Rafael," Robert Jordan said, "come down here with me. Here. Good. See those coming out of the culvert. There, above the truck? Coming toward the truck? Hit me one of those. Sit. Take it easy."

  The gypsy aimed carefully and fired and as he jerked the bolt back and ejected the shell Robert Jordan said, "Over. You threw against the rock above. See the rock dust? Lower, by two feet. Now, careful. They're running. Good. Sigue tirando."

  "I got one," the gypsy said. The man was down in the road halfway between the culvert and the truck. The other two did not stop to drag him. They ran for the culvert and ducked in.

  "Don't shoot at him," Robert Jordan said. "Shoot for the top part of a front tire on the truck. So if you miss you'll hit the engine. Good." He watched with the glasses. "A little lower. Good. You shoot like hell. Mucho! Mucho! Shoot me the top of the radiator. Anywhere on the radiator. Thou art a champion. Look. Don't let anything come past that point there. See?"

  "Watch me break the windshield in the truck," the gypsy said happily.

  "Nay. The truck is already sick," Robert Jordan said. "Hold thy fire until anything comes down the road. Start firing when it is opposite the culvert. Try to hit the driver. That you all should fire, then," he spoke to Pilar who had come farther down the slope with Primitivo. "You are wonderfully placed here. See how that steepness guards thy flank?"

  "That you should get about thy business with Agustin," Pilar said. "D
esist from thy lecture. I have seen terrain in my time."

  "Put Primitivo farther up there," Robert Jordan said. "There. See, man? This side of where the bank steepens."

  "Leave me," said Pilar. "Get along, Ingles. Thou and thy perfection. Here there is no problem."

  Just then they heard the planes.

  Maria had been with the horses for a long time, but they were no comfort to her. Nor was she any to them. From where she was in the forest she could not see the road nor could she see the bridge and when the firing started she put her arm around the neck of the big white-faced bay stallion that she had gentled and brought gifts to many times when the horses had been in the corral in the trees below the camp. But her nervousness made the big stallion nervous, too, and he jerked his head, his nostrils widening at the firing and the noise of the bombs. Maria could not keep still and she walked around patting and gentling the horses and making them all more nervous and agitated.

  She tried to think of the firing not as just a terrible thing that was happening, but to realize that it was Pablo below with the new men, and Pilar with the others above, and that she must not worry nor get into a panic but must have confidence in Roberto. But she could not do this and all the firing above and below the bridge and the distant sound of the battle that rolled down from the pass like the noise of a far-off storm with a dried, rolling rattle in it and the irregular beat of the bombs was simply a horrible thing that almost kept her from breathing.

  Then later she heard Pilar's big voice from away below on the hillside shouting up some obscenity to her that she could not understand and she thought, Oh, God no, no. Don't talk like that with him in peril. Don't offend any one and make useless risks. Don't give any provocation.

  Then she commenced to pray for Roberto quickly and automatically as she had done at school, saying the prayers as fast as she could and counting them on the fingers of her left hand, praying by tens of each of the two prayers she was repeating. Then the bridge blew and one horse snapped his halter when he rose and jerked his head at the cracking roar and he went off through the trees. Maria caught him finally and brought him back, shivering, trembling, his chest dark with sweat, the saddle down, and coming back through the trees she heard shooting below and she thought I cannot stand this longer. I cannot live not knowing any longer. I cannot breathe and my mouth is so dry. And I am afraid and I am no good and I frighten the horses and only caught this horse by hazard because he knocked the saddle down against a tree and caught himself kicking into the stirrups and now as I get the saddle up, Oh, God, I do not know. I cannot bear it. Oh please have him be all right for all my heart and all of me is at the bridge. The Republic is one thing and we must win is another thing. But, Oh, Sweet Blessed Virgin, bring him back to me from the bridge and I will do anything thou sayest ever. Because I am not here. There isn't any me. I am only with him. Take care of him for me and that will be me and then I will do the things for thee and he will not mind. Nor will it be against the Republic. Oh, please forgive me for I am very confused. I am too confused now. But if thou takest care of him I will do whatever is right. I will do what he says and what you say. With the two of me I will do it. But this now not knowing I cannot endure.