This will pull them.
I wish you could string them through.
But with the length of wire you are using it's O.K., Robert Jordan thought as he felt the cotter pins that held the rings that would release the levers on the hand grenades.
He checked that the grenades, lashed on their sides, had room for the levers to spring when the pins were pulled (the wire that lashed them ran through under the levers), then he attached a length of wire to one ring, wired it onto the main wire that ran to the ring of the outside grenade, paid off some slack from the coil and passed it around a steel brace and then handed the coil up to Anselmo.
"Hold it carefully," he said.
He climbed up onto the bridge, took the coil from the old man and walked back as fast as he could pay out wire toward where the sentry was slumped in the road, leaning over the side of the bridge and paying out wire from the coil as he walked.
"Bring the sacks," he shouted to Anselmo as he walked backwards.
As he passed he stooped down and picked up the submachine gun and slung it over his shoulder again.
It was then, looking up from paying out wire, that he saw, well up the road, those who were coming back from the upper post.
There were four of them, he saw, and then he had to watch his wire so it would be clear and not foul against any of the outer work of the bridge.
Eladio was not with them.
Robert Jordan carried the wire clear past the end of the bridge, took a ioop around the last stanchion and then ran along the road until he stopped beside a stone marker.
He cut the wire and handed it to Anselmo.
"Hold this, _viejo_," he said.
"Now walk back with me to the bridge.
Take up on it as you walk.
No. I will."
At the bridge he pulled the wire back out through the hitch so it now ran clear and unfouled to the grenade rings and handed it, stretching alongside the bridge but running quite clear, to Anselmo.
"Take this back to that high stone," he said.
"Hold it easily but firmly.
Do not put any force on it.
When thou pullest hard, hard, the bridge will blow. _Comprendes?_"
"Yes."
"Treat it softly but do not let it sag so it will foul.
Keep it lightly firm but not pulling until thou pullest. _Comprendes?_"
"Yes."
"When thou pullest really pull.
Do not jerk."
Robert Jordan while he spoke was looking up the road at the remainder of Pilar's band.
They were close now and he saw Primitivo and Rafael were supporting Fernando.
He looked to be shot through the groin for he was holding himself there with both hands while the man and the boy held him on either side.
His right leg was dragging, the side of the shoe scraping on the road as they walked him.
Pilar was climbing the bank into the timber carrying three rifles.
Robert Jordan could not see her face but her head was up and she was climbing as fast as she could.
"How does it go?" Primitivo called.
"Good.
We're almost finished," Robert Jordan shouted back.
There was no need to ask how it went with them.
As he looked away the three were on the edge of the road and Fernando was shaking his head as they tried to get him up the bank.
"Give me a rifle here," Robert Jordan heard him say in a choky voice.
"No, hombre.
We will get thee to the horses."
"What would I do with a horse?" Fernando said.
"I am very well here."
Robert Jordan did not hear the rest for he was speaking to Anselmo.
"Blow it if tanks come," he said.
"But only if they come onto it.
Blow it if armored cars come.
If they come onto it.
Anything else Pablo will stop."