For Whom the Bell Tolls: Chapter 27 Summary & Analysis

El Sordo does not like the hill where he is fighting, but he has no choice, since he is being pursued by the fascists. As he climbs up through the snow, his horse is hit by gunfire, and he shoots the horse quickly, to put it out of its misery. When he reaches safety and turns around, three of his five men have been wounded. Sordo himself is wounded as well, and he watches as his men, including the young soldier Joaquin, begin to dig in the dirt to make mounds. They discuss La Pasionaria, who has a son in Russia, and one of the men tells another, who is a Communist, that if he believes in her so much, she should get them “off this hill.”

Sordo sees three dead bodies on the slope below him; there are other dead bodies on the other sides of the hill. Unless they bring up a trench mortar (to throw a bomb), the fascists will not be able to get Sordo and his men off of the hill. He recalls killing a young officer, and he thinks that the fascists are “brave but stupid people.” He thinks that they will bring their planes to the hill, but possibly a mortar, too.

One of Sordo’s men says that Pilar knows that they are dying on the hill and is doing nothing to help, but Sordo says that there is nothing she can do. They discuss La Pasionaria’s rumored Russian son, and Sordo says that the fascists will attack again when the planes come. He looks up at the “bright, high, blue early summer sky,” feeling sure that this is the last time that he will see it. He is not afraid of dying, but he is angry that he is trapped on the hill. Sordo has accepted his death, but there is no “sweetness” in accepting it. To Sordo, living is “a field of grain blowing in the wind on the side of a hill,” “a hawk in the sky,” “an earthen jar of water in the dust of the threshing.” He pats his dead horse, and he feels his wounds “stiffening” painfully.

A voice nearby tells Sordo’s group to “surrender now before the planes blow you to pieces,” and Sordo takes his 9mm pistol and fires at the voice; it comes again, and the man it belongs to shows his head over the top of the rocks below them. Sordo grins, thinking that the fascists are behaving foolishly.

The fascist soldier who has been yelling at Sordo’s group runs by to the shelter of a boulder and meets a sniper there; the sniper says that Sordo’s group has “nothing to expect but to die.” Another officer joins them, saying that it is a “trick”: the first officer starts yelling at Sordo’s group again, cursing the hilltop. The second officer, Paco Berrendo, shakes his head: his best friend, a young lieutenant, is dead on the slope. The first officer, Captain Mora, calls the Republican “the swine who shot my sister and my mother,” and he continues to yell, firing his pistol. He is convinced that no one is alive up on the hill, since he did not see Sordo’s group before.

Berrendo tells Mora that it isn’t smart to go up into the hills, but Mora insists that the “Reds are dead.” He begins to scream, “Shoot me! Kill me!” at the hilltop. Behind the rocks on the hill, El Sordo grins and begins to laugh. Berrendo still doesn’t believe Mora, and Mora begins to “shout filth” at the hilltop. Berrendo is horrified: Mora’s “foul mouth” is “bringing more ill fortune.” Mora decides to set off alone, and El Sordo watches him: he recognizes Mora as a captain, possibly a mayor, and he shoots his automatic rifle at him, killing him instantly. The planes arrive, but El Sordo does not hear them, since he is spraying automatic rifle fire at the hill; Berrendo breaks out from behind the boulder and runs toward El Sordo. El Sordo’s men ready the automatic rifle again, and Joaquin begins to pray.

The planes start to bomb the hilltop, but no one on the hilltop knows it. When the bombing is over, Berrendo throws four grenades onto the hilltop, then walks over to have a look: no one is alive except for Joaquin, whom Berrendo shoots in the back of the head, just as Sordo shot his wounded horse. Berrendo orders the beheading of El Sordo and makes the sign of the cross as he walks down the hill. He does not want to see his orders carried out.