"The fornicator ducked back."
"Who is a whore of whores is Pilar," the man with his chin in the dirt said.
"That whore knows we are dying here."
"She could do no good," Sordo said.
The man had spoken on the side of his good ear and he had heard him without turning his head.
"What could she do?"
"Take these sluts from the rear."
"_Que va_," Sordo said.
"They are spread around a hillside.
How would she come on them?
There are a hundred and fifty of them.
Maybe more now."
"But if we hold out until dark," Joaquin said.
"And if Christmas comes on Easter," the man with his chin on the ground said.
"And if thy aunt had _cojones_ she would be thy uncle," another said to him.
"Send for thy Pasionaria.
She alone can help us."
"I do not believe that about the son," Joaquin said.
"Or if he is there he is training to be an aviator or something of that sort."
"He is hidden there for safety," the man told him.
"He is studying dialectics.
Thy Pasionaria has been there.
So have Lister and Modesto and others.
The one with the rare name told me."
"That they should go to study and return to aid us," Joaquin said.
"That they should aid us now," another man said. "That all the cruts of Russian sucking swindlers should aid us now."
He fired and said, "_Me cago en tal_; I missed him again."
"Save thy cartridges and do not talk so much or thou wilt be very thirsty," Sordo said.
"There is no water on this hill."
"Take this," the man said and rolling on his side he pulled a wineskin that he wore slung from his shoulder over his head and handed it to Sordo.
"Wash thy mouth out, old one.
Thou must have much thirst with thy wounds."
"Let all take it," Sordo said.
"Then I will have some first," the owner said and squirted a long stream into his mouth before he handed the leather bottle around.
"Sordo, when thinkest thou the planes will come?" the man with his chin in the dirt asked.
"Any time," said Sordo.
"They should have come before."
"Do you think these sons of the great whore will attack again?"
"Only if the planes do not come."
He did not think there was any need to speak about the mortar.
They would know it soon enough when the mortar came.
"God knows they've enough planes with what we saw yesterday."
"Too many," Sordo said.
His head hurt very much and his arm was stiffening so that the pain of moving it was almost unbearable.
He looked up at the bright, high, blue early summer sky as he raised the leather wine bottle with his good arm.
He was fifty-two years old and he was sure this was the last time he would see that sky.
He was not at all afraid of dying but he was angry at being trapped on this hill which was only utilizable as a place to die.
If we could have gotten clear, he thought.
If we could have made them come up the long valley or if we could have broken loose across the road it would have been all right.
But this chancre of a hill.