"What are you riding?" Pilar asked him.
"The gray of Pablo," the man said.
"It is much horse."
"Come on," another man said.
"Let us go.
There is no good in gossiping here."
"How art thou, Elicio?" Pilar said to him as he mounted.
"How would I be?" he said rudely.
"Come on, woman, we have work to do."
Pablo mounted the big bay horse.
"Keep thy mouths shut and follow me," he said.
"I will lead you to the place where we will leave the horses."
40
During the time that Robert Jordan had slept through, the time he had spent planning the destruction of the bridge and the time that he had been with Maria, Andres had made slow progress.
Until he had reached the Republican lines he had travelled across country and through the fascist lines as fast as a countryman in good physical condition who knew the country well could travel in the dark.
But once inside the Republican lines it went very slowly.
In theory he should only have had to show the safe-conduct given him by Robert Jordan stamped with the seal of the S. I. M. and the dispatch which bore the same seal and be passed along toward his destination with the greatest speed.
But first he had encountered the company commander in the front line who had regarded the whole mission with owlishly grave suspicion.
He had followed this company commander to battalion headquarters where the battalion commander, who had been a barber before the movement, was filled with enthusiasm on hearing the account of his mission.
This commander, who was named Gomez, cursed the company commander for his stupidity, patted Andres on the back, gave him a drink of bad brandy and told him that he himself, the ex-barber, had always wanted to be a _guerrillero_.
He had then roused his adjutant, turned over the battalion to him, and sent his orderly to wake up and bring his motorcyclist.
Instead of sending Andres back to brigade headquarters with the motorcyclist, Gomez had decided to take him there himself in order to expedite things and, with Andres holding tight onto the seat ahead of him, they roared, bumping down the shell-pocked mountain road between the double row of big trees, the headlight of the motorcycle showing their whitewashed bases and the places on the trunks where the whitewash and the bark had been chipped and torn by shell fragments and bullets during the fighting along this road in the first summer of the movement.
They turned into the little smashed-roofed mountain-resort town where brigade headquarters was and Gomez had braked the motorcycle like a dirt-track racer and leaned it against the wall of the house where a sleepy sentry came to attention as Gomez pushed by him into the big room where the walls were covered with maps and a very sleepy officer with a green eyeshade sat at a desk with a reading lamp, two telephones and a copy of _Mundo Obrero_.
This officer looked up at Gomez and said,
"What doest thou here?
Have you never heard of the telephone?"
"I must see the Lieutenant-Colonel," Gomez said.
"He is asleep," the officer said.
"I could see the lights of that bicycle of thine for a mile coming down the road.
Dost wish to bring on a shelling?"
"Call the Lieutenant-Colonel," Gomez said.
"This is a matter of the utmost gravity."
"He is asleep, I tell thee," the officer said.
"What sort of a bandit is that with thee?" he nodded toward Andres.
"He is a _guerrillero_ from the other side of the lines with a dispatch of the utmost importance for the General Golz who commands the attack that is to be made at dawn beyond Navacerrada," Gomez said excitedly and earnestly.
"Rouse the _Teniente-Coronel_ for the love of God."
The officer looked at him with his droopy eyes shaded by the green celluloid.
"All of you are crazy," he said.
"I know of no General Golz nor of no attack.
Take this sportsman and get back to your battalion."
"Rouse the _Teniente-Coronel_, I say," Gomez said and Andres saw his mouth tightening.
"Go obscenity yourself," the officer said to him lazily and turned away.
Gomez took his heavy 9 mm. Star pistol out of its holster and shoved it against the officer's shoulder.
"Rouse him, you fascist bastard," he said.
"Rouse him or I'll kill you."
"Calm yourself," the officer said.
"All you barbers are emotional."
Andres saw Gomez's face draw with hate in the light of the reading lamp.
But all he said was,
"Rouse him."