Robert Jordan saw him reach for his rifle and step forward out of the box listening.
He stood in the road with the sun shining on him.
The knitted cap was on the side of his head and the sun was on his unshaved face as he looked up into the sky toward where the planes were bombing.
There was no mist on the road now and Robert Jordan saw the man, clearly and sharply, standing there on the road looking up at the sky.
The sun shone bright on him through the trees.
Robert Jordan felt his own breath tight now as though a strand of wire bound his chest and, steadying his elbows, feeling the corrugations of the forward grip against his fingers, he put the oblong of the foresight, settled now in the notch of the rear, onto the center of the man's chest and squeezed the trigger gently.
He felt the quick, liquid, spastic lurching of the gun against his shoulder and on the road the man, looking surprised and hurt, slid forward on his knees and his forehead doubled to the road.
His rifle fell by him and lay there with one of the man's fingers twisted through the trigger guard, his wrist bent forward.
The rifle lay, bayonet forward on the road.
Robert Jordan looked away from the man lying with his head doubled under on the road to the bridge, and the sentry box at the other end.
He could not see the other sentry and he looked down the slope to the right where he knew Agustin was hidden.
Then he heard Anselmo shoot, the shot smashing an echo back from the gorge.
Then he heard him shoot again.
With that second shot came the cracking boom of grenades from around the corner below the bridge.
Then there was the noise of grenades from well up the road to the left.
Then he heard rifle-firing up the road and from below came the noise of Pablo's cavalry automatic rifle spat-spat-spat-spatting into the noise of grenades.
He saw Anselmo scrambling down the steep cut to the far end of the bridge and he slung the submachine gun over his shoulder and picked up the two heavy packs from behind the pine trunks and with one in each hand, the packs pulling his arms so that he felt the tendons would pull out of his shoulders, he ran lurching down the steep slope to the road.
As he ran he heard Agustin shouting, "_Buena caza, Ingles.
Buena caza!_" and he thought,
"Nice hunting, like hell, nice hunting," and just then he heard Anselmo shoot at the far end of the bridge, the noise of the shot clanging in the steel girders.
He passed the sentry where he lay and ran onto the bridge, the packs swinging.
The old man came running toward him, holding his carbine in one hand. "_Sin novedad_," he shouted.
"There's nothing wrong. _Tuve que rematarlo_.
I had to finish him."
Robert Jordan, kneeling, opening the packs in the center of the bridge taking out his material, saw that tears were running down Anselmo's cheeks through the gray beard stubble.
"_Yo mate uno tambien_," he said to Anselmo.
"I killed one too," and jerked his head toward where the sentry lay hunched over in the road at the end of the bridge.
"Yes, man, yes," Anselmo said.
"We have to kill them and we kill them."
Robert Jordan was climbing down into the framework of the bridge.
The girders were cold and wet with dew under his hands and he climbed carefully, feeling the sun on his back, bracing himself in a bridge truss, hearing the noise of the tumbling water below him, hearing firing, too much firing, up the road at the upper post.
He was sweating heavily now and it was cool under the bridge.
He had a coil of wire around one arm and a pair of pliers hung by a thong from his wrist.
"Hand me that down a package at a time, _viejo_," he called up to Anselmo.
The old man leaned far over the edge handing down the oblong blocks of explosive and Robert Jordan reached up for them, shoved them in where he wanted them, packed them close, braced them,
"Wedges, _viejo!_ Give me wedges!" smelling the fresh shingle smell of the new whittled wedges as he tapped them in tight to hold the charge between the girders.
Now as he worked, placing, bracing, wedging, lashing tight with wire, thinking only of demolition, working fast and skillfully as a surgeon works, he heard a rattle of firing from below on the road.
Then there was the noise of a grenade.
Then another, booming through the rushing noise the water made.
Then it was quiet from that direction.
"Damn," he thought.
"I wonder what hit them then?"
There was still firing up the road at the upper post.
Too damned much firing, and he was lashing two grenades side by side on top of the braced blocks of explosive, winding wire over their corrugations so they would hold tight and firm and lashing it tight; twisting it with the pliers.
He felt of the whole thing and then, to make it more solid, tapped in a wedge above the grenades that blocked the whole charge firmly in against the steel.
"The other side now, _viejo_," he shouted up to Anselmo and climbed across through the trestling, like a bloody Tarzan in a rolled steel forest, he thought, and then coming out from under the dark, the stream tumbling below him, he looked up and saw Anselmo's face as he reached the packages of explosive down to him.
Goddamn good face, he thought.
Not crying now.
That's all to the good.
And one side done.