"No.
That he is right that it is a trick."
"They are all dead," the captain said.
"Don't you hear me say they are all dead?'
"You mean our comrades on the slope?" Berrendo asked him.
"I agree with you."
"Paco," the captain said, "don't be a fool.
Do you think you are the only one who cared for Julian?
I tell you the Reds are dead.
Look!"
He stood up, then put both hands on top of the boulder and pulled himself up, kneeing-up awkwardly, then getting on his feet.
"Shoot," he shouted, standing on the gray granite boulder and waved both his arms.
"Shoot me!
Kill me!"
On the hilltop El Sordo lay behind the dead horse and grinned.
What a people, he thought.
He laughed, trying to hold it in because the shaking hurt his arm.
"Reds," came the shout from below.
"Red canaille.
Shoot me!
Kill me!"
Sordo, his chest shaking, barely peeped past the horse's crupper and saw the captain on top of the boulder waving his arms.
Another officer stood by the boulder.
The sniper was standing at the other side.
Sordo kept his eye where it was and shook his head happily.
"Shoot me," he said softly to himself.
"Kill me!"
Then his shoulders shook again.
The laughing hurt his arm and each time he laughed his head felt as though it would burst.
But the laughter shook him again like a spasm.
Captain Mora got down from the boulder.
"Now do you believe me, Paco?" he questioned Lieutenant Berrendo.
"No," said Lieutenant Berrendo.
"_Cojones!_" the captain said.
"Here there is nothing but idiots and cowards."
The sniper had gotten carefully behind the boulder again and Lieutenant Berrendo was squatting beside him.
The captain, standing in the open beside the boulder, commenced to shout filth at the hilltop.
There is no language so filthy as Spanish.
There are words for all the vile words in English and there are other words and expressions that are used only in countries where blasphemy keeps pace with the austerity of religion.
Lieutenant Berrendo was a very devout Catholic.
So was the sniper.
They were Carlists from Navarra and while both of them cursed and blasphemed when they were angry they regarded it as a sin which they regularly confessed.
As they crouched now behind the boulder watching the captain and listening to what he was shouting, they both disassociated themselves from him and what he was saying.
They did not want to have that sort of talk on their consciences on a day in which they might die.
Talking thus will not bring luck, the sniper thought.
Speaking thus of the _Virgen_ is bad luck.
This one speaks worse than the Reds.
Julian is dead, Lieutenant Berrendo was thinking. Dead there on the slope on such a day as this is.
And this foul mouth stands there bringing more ill fortune with his blasphemies.
Now the captain stopped shouting and turned to Lieutenant Berrendo.