This novel traces three days in the life of Robert Jordan, an American Spanish professor who has volunteered to fight for the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. Jordan is a dynamite expert, and is ordered by General Golz, a Russian leader of the International Brigades, to bomb a bridge as part of their offensive against the Fascists. Golz is only interested in the offensive as a means of practicing his military tactics and he …showed first 75 words of 1271 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1271 total…escape. He tells Maria that they will always be one person, and refuses to be shot out of mercy. His comrades give him a machine gun so that he can defend himself from the approaching enemy. Jordan fights pain and suicidal thoughts with the hope that he can buy time for the fleeing guerillas. The novel closes here, as Jordan awaits his certain death on the pine-covered ground he appeared on in the first scene.