The little tank had nosed a little farther around the corner.

Just then Agustin saw Pablo coming over the edge of the gorge, pulling himself over on hands and knees, his bristly face running with sweat.

"Here comes the son of a bitch," he said.

"Who?"

"Pablo."

Robert Jordan looked, saw Pablo, and then he commenced firing at the part of the camouflaged turret of the tank where he knew the slit above the machine gun would be. The little tank whirred backwards, scuttling out of sight and Robert Jordan picked up the automatic rifle, clamped the tripod against the barrel and swung the gun with its still hot muzzle over his shoulder. The muzzle was so hot it burned his shoulder and he shoved it far behind him turning the stock flat in his hand.

"Bring the sack of pans and my little maquina," he shouted, "and come running."

Robert Jordan ran up the hill through the pines. Agustin was close behind him and behind him Pablo was coming.

"Pilar!" Jordan shouted across the hill. "Come on, woman!"

The three of them were going as fast as they could up the steep slope. They could not run any more because the grade was too severe and Pablo, who had no load but the light cavalry submachine gun, had closed up with the other two.

"And thy people?" Agustin said to Pablo out of his dry mouth.

"All dead," Pablo said. He was almost unable to breathe. Agustin turned his head and looked at him.

"We have plenty of horses now, Ingles," Pablo panted.

"Good," Robert Jordan said. The murderous bastard, he thought. "What did you encounter?"

"Everything," Pablo said. He was breathing in lunges. "What passed with Pilar?"

"She lost Fernando and the brother-"

"Eladio," Agustin said.

"And thou?" Pablo asked.

"I lost Anselmo."

"There are lots of horses," Pablo said. "Even for the baggage."

Agustin bit his lip, looked at Robert Jordan and shook his head. Below them, out of sight through the trees, they heard the tank firing on the road and bridge again.

Robert Jordan jerked his head. "What passed with that?" he said to Pablo. He did not like to look at Pablo, nor to smell him, but he wanted to hear him.

"I could not leave with that there," Pablo said. "We were barricaded at the lower bend of the post. Finally it went back to look for something and I came."

"What were you shooting at, at the bend?" Agustin asked bluntly.

Pablo looked at him, started to grin, thought better of it, and said nothing.

"Did you shoot them all?" Agustin asked. Robert Jordan was thinking, keep your mouth shut. It is none of your business now. They have done all that you could expect and more. This is an intertribal matter. Don't make moral judgments. What do you expect from a murderer? You're working with a murderer. Keep your mouth shut. You knew enough about him before. This is nothing new. But you dirty bastard, he thought. You dirty, rotten bastard.

His chest was aching with climbing as though it would split after the running and ahead now through the trees he saw the horses.

"Go ahead," Agustin was saying. "Why do you not say you shot them?"

"Shut up," Pablo said. "I have fought much today and well. Ask the Ingles."

"And now get us through today," Robert Jordan said. "For it is thee who has the plan for this."

"I have a good plan," Pablo said. "With a little luck we will be all right."

He was beginning to breathe better.

"You're not going to kill any of us, are you?" Agustin said. "For I will kill thee now."

"Shut up," Pablo said. "I have to look after thy interest and that of the band. This is war. One cannot do what one would wish."

"Cabron," said Agustin. "You take all the prizes."

"Tell me what thou encountered below," Robert Jordan said to Pablo.

"Everything," Pablo repeated. He was still breathing as though it were tearing his chest but he could talk steadily now and his face and head were running with sweat and his shoulders and chest were soaked with it. He looked at Robert Jordan cautiously to see if he were really friendly and then he grinned. "Everything," he said again. "First we took the post. Then came a motorcyclist. Then another. Then an ambulance. Then a camion. Then the tank. Just before thou didst the bridge."

"Then-"

"The tank could not hurt us but we could not leave for it commanded the road. Then it went away and I came."

"And thy people?" Agustin put in, still looking for trouble.

"Shut up," Pablo looked at him squarely, and his face was the face of a man who had fought well before any other thing had happened. "They were not of our band."

Now they could see the horses tied to the trees, the sun coming down on them through the pine branches and them tossing their heads and kicking against the botflies and Robert Jordan saw Maria and the next thing he was holding her tight, tight, with the automatic rifle leaning against his side, the flash-cone pressing against his ribs and Maria saying, "Thou, Roberto. Oh, thou."

"Yes, rabbit. My good, good rabbit. Now we go."

"Art thou here truly?"

"Yes. Yes. Truly. Oh, thou!"

He had never thought that you could know that there was a woman if there was battle; nor that any part of you could know it, or respond to it; nor that if there was a woman that she should have breasts small, round and tight against you through a shirt; nor that they, the breasts, could know about the two of them in battle. But it was true and he thought, good. That's good. I would not have believed that and he held her to him once hard, hard, but he did not look at her, and then he slapped her where he never had slapped her and said, "Mount. Mount. Get on that saddle, guapa."

Then they were untying the halters and Robert Jordan had given the automatic rifle back to Agustin and slung his own submachine gun over his back, and he was putting bombs out of his pockets into the saddlebags, and he stuffed one empty pack inside the other and tied that one behind his saddle. Then Pilar came up, so breathless from the climb she could not talk, but only motioned.

Then Pablo stuffed three hobbles he had in his hand into a saddlebag, stood up and said, "Que tal, woman?" and she only nodded, and then they were all mounting.

Robert Jordan was on the big gray he had first seen in the snow of the morning of the day before and he felt that it was much horse between his legs and under his hands. He was wearing rope-soled shoes and the stirrups were a little too short; his submachine gun was slung over his shoulder, his pockets were full of clips and he was sitting reloading the one used clip, the reins under one arm, tight, watching Pilar mount into a strange sort of seat on top of the duffle lashed onto the saddle of the buckskin.

"Cut that stuff loose for God's sake," Primitivo said. "Thou wilt fall and the horse cannot carry it."

"Shut up," said Pilar. "We go to make a life with this."

"Canst ride like that, woman?" Pablo asked her from the guardia civil saddle on the great bay horse.

"Like any milk peddler," Pilar told him. "How do you go, old one?"

"Straight down. Across the road. Up the far slope and into the timber where it narrows."

"Across the road?" Agustin wheeled beside him, kicking his soft-heeled, canvas shoes against the stiff, unresponding belly of one of the horses Pablo had recruited in the night.

"Yes, man. It is the only way," Pablo said. He handed him one of the lead ropes. Primitivo and the gypsy had the others.

"Thou canst come at the end if thou will, Ingles," Pablo said. "We cross high enough to be out of range of that maquina. But we will go separately and riding much and then be together where it narrows above."

"Good," said Robert Jordan.