"But different."
"Go to thy instruction," he said and patted her on the head.
She smiled at him again, then said to Primitivo,
"Do you want anything from below?"
"No, daughter," he said.
They both saw that he was still not yet recovered.
"_Salud_, old one," she said to him.
"Listen," Primitivo said.
"I have no fear to die but to leave them alone thus--" his voice broke.
"There was no choice," Robert Jordan told him.
"I know.
But all the same."
"There was no choice," Robert Jordan repeated.
"And now it is better not to speak of it."
"Yes.
But there alone with no aid from us--"
"Much better not to speak of it," Robert Jordan said.
"And thou, _guapa_, get thee to thy instruction."
He watched her climb down through the rocks.
Then he sat there for a long time thinking and watching the high country.
Primitivo spoke to him but he did not answer.
It was hot in the sun but he did not notice the heat while he sat watching the hill slopes and the long patches of pine trees that stretched up the highest slope.
An hour passed and the sun was far to his left now when he saw them coming over the crest of the slope and he picked up his glasses.
The horses showed small and minute as the first two riders came into sight on the long green slope of the high hill.
Then there were four more horsemen coming down, spread out across the wide hill and then through his glasses he saw the double column of men and horses ride into the sharp clarity of his vision.
As he watched them he felt sweat come from his armpits and run down his flanks.
One man rode at the head of the column.
Then came more horsemen.
Then came the riderless horses with their burdens tied across the saddles.
Then there were two riders.
Then came the wounded with men walking by them as they rode.
Then came more cavalry to close the column.
Robert Jordan watched them ride down the slope and out of sight into the timber.
He could not see at that distance the load one saddle bore of a long rolled poncho tied at each end and at intervals so that it bulged between each lashing as a pod bulges with peas.
This was tied across the saddle and at each end it was lashed to the stirrup leathers.
Alongside this on the top of the saddle the automatic rifle Sordo had served was lashed arrogantly.
Lieutenant Berrendo, who was riding at the head of the column, his flankers out, his point pushed well forward, felt no arrogance.
He felt only the hollowness that comes after action.
He was thinking: taking the heads is barbarous.
But proof and identification is necessary.
I will have trouble enough about this as it is and who knows? This of the heads may appeal to them.
There are those of them who like such things.
It is possible they will send them all to Burgos.
It is a barbarous business.
The planes were _muchos_.
Much.
Much.
But we could have done it all, and almost without losses, with a Stokes mortar.
Two mules to carry the shells and a mule with a mortar on each side of the pack saddle.
What an army we would be then!