"Nay," she put her hand on his shoulder.
"Thou hast no fear to catch.
I know that.
I am sorry I joked too roughly with thee.
We are all in the same caldron."
Then she spoke to Robert Jordan. "I will send up food and wine.
Dost need anything more?"
"Not in this moment.
Where are the others?"
"Thy reserve is intact below with the horses," she grinned.
"Everything is out of sight.
Everything to go is ready.
Maria is with thy material."
"If by any chance we _should_ have aviation keep her in the cave."
"Yes, my Lord _Ingles_," Pilar said. "_Thy_ gypsy (I give him to thee) I have sent to gather mushrooms to cook with the hares.
There are many mushrooms now and it seemed to me we might as well eat the hares although they would be better tomorrow or the day after."
"I think it is best to eat them," Robert Jordan said, and Pilar put her big hand on his shoulder where the strap of the submachine gun crossed his chest, then reached up and mussed his hair with her fingers.
"What an _Ingles_," Pilar said.
"I will send the Maria with the _puchero_ when they are cooked."
The firing from far away and above had almost died out and now there was only an occasional shot.
"You think it is over?" Pilar asked.
"No," Robert Jordan said.
"From the sound that we have heard they have attacked and been beaten off. Now I would say the attackers have them surrounded. They have taken cover and they wait for the planes."
Pilar spoke to Primitivo,
"Thou. Dost understand there was no intent to insult thee?"
"_Ya lo se_," said Primitivo.
"I have put up with worse than that from thee.
Thou hast a vile tongue.
But watch thy mouth, woman.
Sordo was a good comrade of mine."
"And not of mine?" Pilar asked him.
"Listen, flat face.
In war one cannot say what one feels.
We have enough of our own without taking Sordo's."
Primitivo was still sullen.
"You should take a physic," Pilar told him.
"Now I go to prepare the meal."
"Did you bring the documentation of the _requete?_" Robert Jordan asked her.
"How stupid I am," she said.
"I forgot it.
I will send the Maria."
26
It was three o'clock in the afternoon before the planes came.
The snow had all been gone by noon and the rocks were hot now in the sun.
There were no clouds in the sky and Robert Jordan sat in the rocks with his shirt off browning his back in the sun and reading the letters that had been in the pockets of the dead cavalryman.
From time to time he would stop reading to look across the open slope to the line of the timber, look over the high country above and then return to the letters.
No more cavalry had appeared.
At intervals there would be the sound of a shot from the direction of El Sordo's camp.
But the firing was desultory.
From examining his military papers he knew the boy was from Tafalla in Navarra, twenty-one years old, unmarried, and the son of a blacksmith.