For Whom the Bell Tolls

El Sordo and four other men hide among the rocks on a hilltop; they are the last five men alive after the fascists’ attack on their base, hunkered down with their machine gun.

One of the fascists calls out for them to surrender or die when the planes arrive, but El Sordo gestures for his men to remain completely silent as the man calls out again and again. Another fascist, Lieutenant Berrendo, tells his leader that he believes it is a trick, and their sniper agrees, both men unwilling to go up to the rocks. Their leader calls them cowards and claims the Republicans are all dead, walking up the rocks to prove it; El Sordo kills him. As El Sordo and his men focus on shooting the other two fascists, planes arrive. They move to fire at the aircraft, but the planes bomb them, and Lieutenant Berrendo throws in grenades. When he approaches El Sordo’s men, he shoots Joaquín, the only man left alive but gravely wounded.

Berrendo orders his men to cut off the heads of each man to take away, then turns and says a prayer for his leader, murmuring that war is a terrible thing even as he refuses to watch the brutality he has ordered his men to enact.