I think you better get down now, he thought. You'd better get fixed
around some way where you will be useful instead of leaning against this
tree like a tramp. You have had much luck. There are many worse things
than this. Everyone has to do this, one day or another. You are not afraid
of it once you know you have to do it, are you? No, he said, truly. It
was lucky the nerve was crushed, though. I cannot even feel that there
is anything below the break. He touched the lower part of his leg and it
was as though it were not part of his body.
He looked down the hill slope again and he thought. I hate to leave
it, that is all. I hate to leave it very much and I hope I have done some
good in it. I have tried to with what talent I had. Have, you mean. All
right. have.
I have fought for what I believed in for a year now. If we win here
we will win everywhere. The world is a fine place and worth the fighting
for and I hate very much to leave it. And you had a lot of luck, he told
himself, to have had such a good life. You've had just as good life as
grandfather's though not as long. You've had as good a life as anyone because
of these last days. You do not want to complain when you have been so lucky.
I wish there was some way to pass on what I've learned, though. Christ,
I was learning fast there at the end. I'd like to talk to Karkov. That
is in Madrid. Just over the hills there, and down across the plain. Down
out of the grey rocks and the pines, the heather and the gorse, across
te yellow high plateau you see it rising, white and beautiful.