Do not worry.
They will or they won't.
There are no more decisions and in a little while you will know.
Suppose the attack is successful.
Golz said it could be.
That there was a possibility.
With our tanks coming down that road, the people coming through from the right and down and past La Granja and the whole left of the mountains turned.
Why don't you ever think of how it is to win?
You've been on the defensive for so long that you can't think of that.
Sure.
But that was before all that stuff went up this road.
That was before all the planes came.
Don't be so naive.
But remember this that as long as we can hold them here we keep the fascists tied up.
They can't attack any other country until they finish with us and they can never finish with us.
If the French help at all, if only they leave the frontier open and if we get planes from America they can never finish with us.
Never, if we get anything at all.
These people will fight forever if they're well armed.
No you must not expect victory here, not for several years maybe.
This is just a holding attack.
You must not get illusions about it now.
Suppose we got a break-through today?
This is our first big attack.
Keep your sense of proportion.
But what if we should have it?
Don't get excited, he told himself.
Remember what went up the road.
You've done what you could about that.
We should have portable short-wave sets, though.
We will, in time.
But we haven't yet.
You just watch now and do what you should.
Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be.
But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.
It's been that way all this year.
It's been that way so many times.
All of this war is that way.
You are getting very pompous in the early morning, he told himself.
Look there what's coming now.
He saw the two men in blanket capes and steel helmets come around the corner of the road walking toward the bridge, their rifles slung over their shoulders.
One stopped at the far end of the bridge and was out of sight in the sentry box.
The other came on across the bridge, walking slowly and heavily.
He stopped on the bridge and spat into the gorge, then came on slowly to the near end of the bridge where the other sentry spoke to him and then started off back over the bridge.
The sentry who was relieved walked faster than the other had done (because he's going to coffee, Robert Jordan thought) but he too spat down into the gorge.
I wonder if that is superstition? Robert Jordan thought.
I'll have to take me a spit in that gorge too.
If I can spit by then.
No.
It can't be very powerful medicine.
It can't work.