Agustín is loaded with ammunition, but he says he will climb like a goat. Eladio is very nervous for his brother Andrés, and defensive when Agustín mocks him. Robert Jordan asks about the reliability of their bombs, holding up examples. At one point Pilar mentions Pablo, and Agustín spews obscenities. Tension is very high in the cave.
Robert Jordan thinks they are as sunk as Sordo; they can only take one post with what they have. If there is no miracle and Golz does not get the message, the others, including Maria, will be killed and he will not even get his bridge. He thinks instead of sleeping with her, he should have searched for more people. But he knows that he could not have risked losing men. He calms himself: "There isn't any need to deny everything there's been just because you are going to lose it." Chapter 38, pg. 386 Pilar also knows there are too few. She says the palm reading was nonsense. He tells her he did not believe and was not worried. She tells him she cares for him very much and he says that he does not want to hear that now. She tells him again that they will be well. With a forced smile he agrees. Pilar makes a witty joke about death and Agustín says she speaks like a black cat.
Pablo enters, and they are shocked. He brings five men. He threw the detonator he stole in the river but has figured out a way to explode it with a grenade (as has Robert Jordan). Pablo tells them that at the bottom he is not a coward. He tells Robert Jordan that he does not come back to help him, that he hates him for bringing this upon them, but that he became lonely and knows they must finish together. He will be the leader because this is what he has told the five men. Pilar welcomes him but with an edge. She says that his predecessor Judas Iscariot hanged himself, making reference to the man in the New Testament who betrayed Jesus. She tells him that there are good men and stupid men, all ready to die, the way he likes them. He looks her in the eye and says he is ready for what the day brings. She tells him that if a man has something once, it does not leave, but adds that he was indeed a long way gone.
