Pablo stopped and dismounted in the dark. Robert Jordan heard the creaking and the heavy breathing as they all dismounted and the clinking of a bridle as a horse tossed his head. He smelled the horses and the unwashed and sour slept-in-clothing smell of the new men and the wood-smoky sleep-stale smell of the others who had been in the cave. Pablo was standing close to him and he smelled the brassy, dead-wine smell that came from him like the taste of a copper coin in your mouth. He lit a cigarette, cupping his hand to hide the light, pulled deep on it, and heard Pablo say very softly, "Get the grenade sack, Pilar, while we hobble these."
 "Agust璯," Robert Jordan said in a whisper, "you and Anselmo come now with me to the bridge. Have you the sack of pans for the _m嫭uina?_"
 "Yes," Agust璯 said. "Why not?"
 Robert Jordan went over to where Pilar was unpacking one of the horses with the help of Primitivo.
 "Listen, woman," he said softly.
 "What now?" she whispered huskily, swinging a cinch hook clear from under the horse's belly.
 "Thou understandest that there is to be no attack on the post until thou hearest the falling of the bombs?"
 "How many times dost thou have to tell me?" Pilar said. "You are getting like an old woman, _Ingl廥_."
 "Only to check," Robert Jordan said. "And after the destruction of the post you fall back onto the bridge and cover the road from above and my left flank."
 "The first time thou outlined it I understood it as well as I will ever understand it," Pilar whispered to him. "Get thee about thy business."
 "That no one should make a move nor fire a shot nor throw a bomb until the noise of the bombardment comes," Robert Jordan said softly.
 "Do not molest me more," Pilar whispered angrily. "I have understood this since we were at Sordo's."
 Robert Jordan went to where Pablo was tying the horses. "I have only hobbled those which are liable to panic," Pablo said. "These are tied so a pull of the rope will release them, see?"
 "Good."
 "I will tell the girl and the gypsy how to handle them," Pablo said. His new men were standing in a group by themselves leaning on their carbines.
 "Dost understand all?" Robert Jordan asked.
 "Why not?" Pablo said. "Destroy the post. Cut the wire. Fall back on the bridge. Cover the bridge until thou blowest."
 "And nothing to start until the commencement of the bombardment."
 "Thus it is."
 "Well then, much luck."
 Pablo grunted. Then he said, "Thou wilt cover us well with the _m嫭uina_ and with thy small _m嫭uina_ when we come back, eh, _Ingl廥?_"
 "_Dela primera_," Robert Jordan said. "Off the top of the basket."
 "Then," Pablo said. "Nothing more. But in that moment thou must be very careful, _Ingl廥_. It will not be simple to do that unless thou art very careful."
 "I will handle the _m嫭uina_ myself," Robert Jordan said to him.
 "Hast thou much experience? For I am of no mind to be shot by Agust璯 with his belly full of good intentions."
 "I have much experience. Truly. And if Agust璯 uses either _m嫭uina_ I will see that he keeps it way above thee. Above, above and above."
 "Then nothing more," Pablo said. Then he said softly and confidentially, "There is still a lack of horses."
 The son of a bitch, Robert Jordan thought. Or does he think I did not understand him the first time.
 "I go on foot," he said. "The horses are thy affair."
 "Nay, there will be a horse for thee, _Ingl廥_," Pablo said softly. "There will be horses for all of us."
 "That is thy problem," Robert Jordan said. "Thou dost not have to count me. Hast enough rounds for thy new _m嫭uina?_"
 "Yes," Pablo said. "All that the cavalryman carried. I have fired only four to try it. I tried it yesterday in the high hills."
 "We go now," Robert Jordan said. "We must be there early and well hidden."
 "We all go now," Pablo said. "_Suerte, Ingl廥_."
 I wonder what the bastard is planning now, Robert Jordan said. But I am pretty sure I know. Well, that is his, not mine. Thank God I do not know these new men.
 He put his hand out and said, "_Suerte_, Pablo," and their two hands gripped in the dark.
 Robert Jordan, when he put his hand out, expected that it would be like grasping something reptilian or touching a leper. He did not know what Pablo's hand would feel like. But in the dark Pablo's hand gripped his hard and pressed it frankly and he returned the grip. Pablo had a good hand in the dark and feeling it gave Robert Jordan the strangest feeling he had felt that morning. We must be allies now, he thought. There was always much handshaking with allies. Not to mention decorations and kissing on both cheeks, he thought. I'm glad we do not have to do that. I suppose all allies are like this. They always hate each other _au fond_. But this Pablo is a strange man.
 "_Suerte_, Pablo," he said and gripped the strange, firm, purposeful hand hard. "I will cover thee well. Do not worry."
 "I am sorry for having taken thy material," Pablo said. "It was an equivocation."
 "But thou has brought what we needed."
 "I do not hold this of the bridge against thee, _Ingl廥_," Pablo said. "I see a successful termination for it."
 "What are you two doing? Becoming _maricones?_" Pilar said suddenly beside them in the dark. "That is all thou hast lacked," she said to Pablo. "Get along, _Ingl廥_, and cut thy good-bys short before this one steals the rest of thy explosive."
 "Thou dost not understand me, woman," Pablo said. "The _Ingl廥_ and I understand one another."
 "Nobody understands thee. Neither God nor thy mother," Pilar said. "Nor I either. Get along, _Ingl廥_. Make thy good-bys with thy cropped head and go. _Me cago en tu padre_, but I begin to think thou art afraid to see the bull come out."
 "Thy mother," Robert Jordan said.
 "Thou never hadst one," Pilar whispered cheerfully. "Now go, because I have a great desire to start this and get it over with. Go with thy people," she said to Pablo. "Who knows how long their stern resolution is good for? Thou hast a couple that I would not trade thee for. Take them and go."
 Robert Jordan slung his pack on his back and walked over to the horses to find Maria.
 "Good-by, _guapa_," he said. "I will see thee soon."
 He had an unreal feeling about all of this now as though he had said it all before or as though it were a train that were going, especially as though it were a train and he was standing on the platform of a railway station.
 "Good-by, Roberto," she said. "Take much care."
 "Of course," he said. He bent his head to kiss her and his pack rolled forward against the back of his head so that his forehead bumped hers hard. As this happened he knew this had happened before too.
 "Don't cry," he said, awkward not only from the load.
 "I do not," she said. "But come back quickly."
 "Do not worry when you hear the firing. There is bound to be much firing."
 "Nay. Only come back quickly."
 "Good-by, _guapa_," he said awkwardly.
 "_Salud_, Roberto."
 Robert Jordan had not felt this young since he had taken the train at Red Lodge to go down to Billings to get the train there to go away to school for the first time. He had been afraid to go and he did not want any one to know it and, at the station, just before the conductor picked up the box he would step up on to reach the steps of the day coach, his father had kissed him good-by and said, "May the Lord watch between thee and me while we are absent the one from the other." His father had been a very religious man and he had said it simply and sincerely. But his moustache had been moist and his eyes were damp with emotion and Robert Jordan had been so embarrassed by all of it, the damp religious sound of the prayer, and by his father kissing him good-by, that he had felt suddenly so much older than his father and sorry for him that he could hardly bear it.
 After the train started he had stood on the rear platform and watched the station and the water tower grow smaller and smaller and the rails crossed by the ties narrowed toward a point where the station and the water tower stood now minute and tiny in the steady clicking that was taking him away.
 The brakeman said, "Dad seemed to take your going sort of hard, Bob."
 "Yes," he had said watching the sagebrush that ran from the edge of the road bed between the passing telegraph poles across to the streaming-by dusty stretching of the road. He was looking for sage hens.
 "You don't mind going away to school?"
 "No," he had said and it was true.
 It would not have been true before but it was true that minute and it was only now, at this parting, that he ever felt as young again as he had felt before that train left. He felt very young now and very awkward and he was saying good-by as awkwardly as one can be when saying good-by to a young girl when you are a boy in school, saying good-by at the front porch, not knowing whether to kiss the girl or not. Then he knew it was not the good-by he was being awkward about. It was the meeting he was going to. The good-by was only a part of the awkwardness he felt about the meeting.
 You're getting them again, he told himself. But I suppose there is no one that does not ............