"Do men catch a wise stag without hounds?"
"Sometimes," Robert Jordan said.
"Not Pablo," Agustin said.
"Clearly, he is only a garbage of what he once was.
But it is not for nothing that he is alive and comfortable in these hills and able to drink himself to death while there are so many others that have died against a wall."
"Is he as smart as they say?"
"He is much smarter."
"He has not seemed of great ability here."
"_Como que no?_ If he were not of great ability he would have died last night.
It seems to me you do not understand politics, _Ingles_, nor guerilla warfare.
In politics and this other the first thing is to continue to exist.
Look how he continued to exist last night.
And the quantity of dung he ate both from me and from thee."
Now that Pablo was back in the movements of the unit, Robert Jordan did not wish to talk against him and as soon as he had uttered it he regretted saying the thing about his ability.
He knew himself how smart Pablo was.
It was Pablo who had seen instantly all that was wrong with the orders for the destruction of the bridge.
He had made the remark only from dislike and he knew as he made it that it was wrong.
It was part of the talking too much after a strain.
So now he dropped the matter and said to Anselmo,
"And to go into La Granja in daylight?"
"It is not bad," the old man said.
"I will not go with a military band."
"Nor with a bell around his neck," Agustin said.
"Nor carrying a banner."
"How will you go?"
"Above and down through the forest."
"But if they pick you up."
"I have papers."
"So have we all but thou must eat the wrong ones quickly."
Anselmo shook his head and tapped the breast pocket of his smock.
"How many times have I contemplated that," he said.
"And never did I like to swallow paper."
"I have thought we should carry a little mustard on them all," Robert Jordan said.
"In my left breast pocket I carry our papers.
In my right the fascist papers.
Thus one does not make a mistake in an emergency."
It must have been bad enough when the leader of the first patrol of cavalry had pointed toward the entry because they were all talking very much.
Too much, Robert Jordan thought.
"But look, Roberto," Agustin said.
"They say the government moves further to the right each day.
That in the Republic they no longer say Comrade but Senor and Senora.
Canst shift thy pockets?"
"When it moves far enough to the right I will carry them in my hip pocket," Robert Jordan said, "and sew it in the center."
"That they should stay in thy shirt," Agustin said.
"Are we to win this war and lose the revolution?"
"Nay," Robert Jordan said.
"But if we do not win this war there will be no revolution nor any Republic nor any thou nor any me nor anything but the most grand _carajo_."
"So say I," Anselmo said.
"That we should win the war." "And afterwards shoot the anarchists and the Communists and all this _canalla_ except the good Republicans," Agustin said.
"That we should win this war and shoot nobody," Anselmo said.