"But why are they lost?" Fernando asked.

"I don't know," said Robert Jordan. "Take a book to tell you. Ask Pilar," then he put his arm around Anselmo's shoulder and held him tight as they walked and shook him. "Listen," he said. "I'm glad to see you, hear? You don't know what it means to find somebody in this country in the same place they were left."

It showed what confidence and intimacy he had that he could say anything against the country.

"I am glad to see thee," Anselmo said. "But I was just about to leave."

"Like hell you would have," Robert Jordan said happily. "You'd have frozen first."

"How was it up above?" Anselmo asked.

"Fine," said Robert Jordan. "Everything is fine."

He was very happy with that sudden, rare happiness that can come to any one with a command in a revolutionary arm; the happiness of finding that even one of your flanks holds. If both flanks ever held I suppose it would be too much to take, he thought. I don't know who is prepared to stand that. And if you extend along a flank, any flank, it eventually becomes one man. Yes, one man. This was not the axiom he wanted. But this was a good man. One good man. You are going to be the left flank when we have the battle, he thought. I better not tell you that yet. It's going to be an awfully small battle, he thought. But it's going to be an awfully good one. Well, I always wanted to fight one on my own. I always had an opinion on what was wrong with everybody else's, from Agincourt down. I will have to make this a good one. It is going to be small but very select. If I have to do what I think I will have to do it will be very select indeed.

"Listen," he said to Anselmo. "I'm awfully glad to see you."

"And me to see thee," the old man said.

As they went up the hill in the dark, the wind at their backs, the storm blowing past them as they climbed, Anselmo did not feel lonely. He had not been lonely since the Ingles had clapped him on the shoulder. The Ingles was pleased and happy and they joked together. The Ingles said it all went well and he was not worried. The drink in his stomach warmed him and his feet were warming now climbing.

"Not much on the road," he said to the Ingles.

"Good," the Ingles told him. "You will show me when we get there."

Anselmo was happy now and he was very pleased that he had stayed there at the post of observation.

If he had come in to camp it would have been all right. It would have been the intelligent and correct thing to have done under the circumstances, Robert Jordan was thinking. But he stayed as he was told, Robert Jordan thought. That's the rarest thing that can happen in Spain. To stay in a storm, in a way, corresponds to a lot of things. It's not for nothing that the Germans call an attack a storm. I could certainly use a couple more who would stay. I most certainly could. I wonder if that Fernando would stay. It's just possible. After all, he is the one who suggested coming out just now. Do you suppose he would stay? Wouldn't that be good? He's just about stubborn enough. I'll have to make some inquiries. Wonder what the old cigar store Indian is thinking about now.

"What are you thinking about, Fernando?" Robert Jordan asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"Curiosity," Robert Jordan said. "I am a man of great curiosity."

"I was thinking of supper," Fernando said.

"Do you like to eat?"

"Yes. Very much."

"How's Pilar's cooking?"

"Average," Fernando answered.

He's a second Coolidge, Robert Jordan thought. But, you know, I have just a hunch that he would stay.

The three of them plodded up the hill in the snow.

16

"El Sordo was here," Pilar said to Robert Jordan. They had come in out of the storm to the smoky warmth of the cave and the woman had motioned Robert Jordan over to her with a nod of her head. "He's gone to look for horses."

"Good. Did he leave any word for me?"

"Only that he had gone for horses."

"And we?"

"No se," she said. "Look at him."

Robert Jordan had seen Pablo when he came in and Pablo had grinned at him. Now he looked over at him sitting at the board table and grinned and waved his hand.

"Ingles," Pablo called. "It's still falling, Ingles."

Robert Jordan nodded at him.

"Let me take thy shoes and dry them," Maria said. "I will hang them here in the smoke of the fire."

"Watch out you don't burn them," Robert Jordan told her. "I don't want to go around here barefoot. What's the matter?" he turned to Pilar. "Is this a meeting? Haven't you any sentries out?"

"In this storm? Que va."

There were six men sitting at the table and leaning back against the wall. Anselmo and Fernando were still shaking the snow from their jackets, beating their trousers and rapping their feet against the wall by the entrance.

"Let me take thy jacket," Maria said. "Do not let the snow melt on it."

Robert Jordan slipped out of his jacket, beat the snow from his trousers, and untied his shoes.

"You will get everything wet here," Pilar said.

"It was thee who called me."

"Still there is no impediment to returning to the door for thy brushing."

"Excuse me," Robert Jordan said, standing in his bare feet on the dirt floor. "Hunt me a pair of socks, Maria."

"The Lord and Master," Pilar said and poked a piece of wood into the fire.

"Hay que aprovechar el tiempo," Robert Jordan told her. "You have to take advantage of what time there is."

"It is locked," Maria said.

"Here is the key," and he tossed it over.

"It does not fit this sack."

"It is the other sack. They are on top and at the side."

The girl found the pair of socks, closed the sack, locked it and brought them over with the key.

"Sit down and put them on and rub thy feet well," she said. Robert Jordan grinned at her.

"Thou canst not dry them with thy hair?" he said for Pilar to hear.

"What a swine," she said. "First he is the Lord of the Manor. Now he is our ex-Lord Himself. Hit him with a chunk of wood, Maria."

"Nay," Robert Jordan said to her. "I am joking because I am happy."

"You are happy?"

"Yes," he said. "I think everything goes very well."

"Roberto," Maria said. "Go sit down and dry thy feet and let me bring thee something to drink to warm thee."

"You would think that man had never dampened foot before," Pilar said. "Nor that a flake of snow had ever fallen."

Maria brought him a sheepskin and put it on the dirt floor of the cave.

"There," she said. "Keep that under thee until thy shoes are dry."

The sheepskin was fresh dried and not tanned and as Robert Jordan rested his stocking feet on it he could feel it crackle like parchment.

The fire was smoking and Pilar called to Maria, "Blow up the fire, worthless one. This is no smokehouse."

"Blow it thyself," Maria said. "I am searching for the bottle that El Sordo left."

"It is behind his packs," Pilar told her. "Must you care for him as a sucking child?"

"No," Maria said. "As a man who is cold and wet. And a man who has just come to his house. Here it is." She brought the bottle to where Robert Jordan sat. "It is the bottle of this noon. With this bottle one could make a beautiful lamp. When we have electricity again, what a lamp we can make of this bottle." She looked at the pinch-bottle admiringly. "How do you take this, Roberto?"

"I thought I was Ingles," Robert Jordan said to her.

"I call thee Roberto before the others," she said in a low voice and blushed. "How do you want it, Roberto?"

"Roberto," Pablo said thickly and nodded his head at Robert Jordan. "How do you want it, Don Roberto?"

"Do you want some?" Robert Jordan asked him.