High Citadel / Landslide
High Citadel / Landslide
Desmond Bagley
Double action thrillers by the classic adventure writer set in the South American Andes and British Columbia.HIGH CITADELWhen Tim O'Hara's plane is hijacked and forced to crash land in the middle of the Andes, his troubles are only beginning. A heavily armed group of communist soldiers intent on killing one of his passengers - an influential political figure - have orders to leave no survivors. Isolated in the biting cold of the Andes, O'Hara's party must fight for their lives with only the most primitive weapons…LANDSLIDEBob Boyd is a geologist, as resilient as the British Columbia timber country where he works for the powerful Matterson Corporation. But his real name and his past are mysteries - wiped out by the accident that nearly killed him. Then Boyd reads a name that opens a door in his memory: Trinavant - and discovers that Bull Matterson and his son will do almost anything to keep the Trinavant family forgotten forever…Includes a unique bonus - My Old Man's Trumpet, a previously unpublished short story about a New Orleans music shop owner.
DESMOND BAGLEY
High Citadel
AND
Landslide
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_320a3c2d-993b-5f73-a118-500ccd1b9a9b)
HARPER
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
High Citadel first published in Great Britain by Collins 1965 Landslide first published in Great Britain by Collins 1967 My Old Man’s Trumpet first published in Argosy magazine 1967
Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works
Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1965, 1967
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007304790
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN 9780007347650
Version: 2018–10–09
CONTENTS
Cover (#uc33f9390-0c46-5665-8bba-82f8595b9424)
Title Page (#u959a3764-a3ec-5352-8740-a9c6e7a100ad)
Copyright (#u270ed2fd-5649-5599-bcab-53a975143a9d)
High Citadel (#u84d357f4-f76a-5b3b-827a-32b36bef6d5e)
Dedication (#ue64bb002-8a44-5045-9ab7-10d279a544dd)
One (#ucf616e3a-2405-5e2f-ae8f-bafc2a455938)
Two (#u23b98c4c-692e-5c74-a088-ad9c1ada2fb2)
Three (#uc25aaa61-6033-5a42-9e31-c33b404e507b)
Four (#u88badec0-2147-50f8-b89b-1e26d5f48d04)
Five (#u108b3c45-9f21-59f6-891e-338b61116473)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Landslide (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#litres_trial_promo)
Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
HIGH CITADEL (#ulink_5e57a241-2c8a-5230-95be-d127870bc30b)
DEDICATION (#ulink_c90f08e7-f9bc-50f7-9a4b-319c565bdbf1)
To John Donaldson and Bob Knittel
ONE (#ulink_ad74ca3a-f1f0-5ac7-92ee-4748d30545c1)
The bell shrilled insistently.
O’Hara frowned in his sleep and burrowed deeper into the pillow. He dragged up the thin sheet which covered him, but that left his feet uncovered and there was a sleepy protest from his companion. Without opening his eyes he put his hand out to the bedside table, seized the alarm clock, and hurled it violently across the room. Then he snuggled into the pillow again.
The bell still rang.
At last he opened his eyes, coming to the realization that it was the telephone ringing. He propped himself up on one elbow and stared hatefully into the darkness. Ever since he had been in the hotel he had been asking Ramón to transfer the telephone to the bedside, and every time he had been assured that it would be done tomorrow. It had been nearly a year.
He got out of bed and padded across the room to the dressing-table without bothering to switch on the light. As he picked up the telephone he tweaked aside the window curtain and glanced outside. It was still dark and the moon was setting – he estimated it was about two hours to dawn.
He grunted into the mouthpiece: ‘O’Hara.’
‘Goddammit, what’s the matter with you?’ said Filson. ‘I’ve been trying to get you for a quarter of an hour.’
‘I was asleep,’ said O’Hara. ‘I usually sleep at night – I believe most people do, with the exception of Yankee flight managers.’
‘Very funny,’ said Filson tiredly. ‘Well, drag your ass down here – there’s a flight scheduled for dawn.’
‘What the hell – I just got back six hours ago. I’m tired.’
‘You think I’m not?’ said Filson. ‘This is important – a Samair 727 touched down in an emergency landing and the flight inspector grounded it. The passengers are mad as hornets, so the skipper and the hostess have sorted out priorities and we’ve got to take passengers to the coast. You know what a connection with Samair means to us; it could be that if we treat ’em nice they’ll use us as a regular feeder.’
‘In a pig’s eye,’ said O’Hara. ‘They’ll use you in an emergency but they’ll never put you on their timetables. All you’ll get are thanks.’
‘It’s worth trying,’ insisted Filson. ‘So get the hell down here.’
O’Hara debated whether to inform Filson that he had already exceeded his month’s flying hours and that it was only two-thirds through the month. He sighed, and said, ‘All right, I’m coming.’ It would cut no ice with Filson to plead regulations; as far as that hard-hearted character was concerned, the I.A.T.A. regulations were meant to be bent, if not broken. If he conformed to every international regulation, his two-cent firm would be permanently in the red.
Besides, O’Hara thought, this was the end of the line for him. If he lost this job survival would be difficult. There were too many broken-down pilots in South America hunting too few jobs and Filson’s string-and-sealing-wax outfit was about as low as you could get. Hell, he thought disgustedly, I’m on a bloody escalator going the wrong way – it takes all the running I can do to stay in the same place.
He put down the hand-set abruptly and looked again into the night, scanning the sky. It looked all right here, but what about the mountains? Always he thought about the mountains, those cruel mountains with their jagged white swords stretched skywards to impale him. Filson had better have a good met. report.
He walked to the door and stepped into the corridor, unlit as usual. They turned off all lights in the public rooms at eleven p.m. – it was that kind of hotel. For the millionth time he wondered what he was doing in this godforsaken country, in this tired town, in this sleazy hotel. Unconcernedly naked, he walked down towards the bathroom. In his philosophy if a woman had seen a naked man before then it didn’t matter – if she hadn’t, it was time she did. Anyway, it was dark.
He showered quickly, washing away the night sweat, and returned to his room and switched on the bedside lamp wondering if it would work. It was always a fifty per cent chance that it wouldn’t – the town’s electricity supply was very erratic. The filament glowed faintly and in the dim light he dressed – long woollen underwear, jeans, a thick shirt and a leather jacket. By the time he had finished he was sweating again in the warm tropical night. But it would be cold over the mountains.
From the dressing-table he took a metal flask and shook it tentatively. It was only half full and he frowned. He could wake Ramón and get a refill but that was not politic; for one thing Ramón did not like being wakened at night, and for another he would ask cutting questions about when his bill was going to be paid. Perhaps he could get something at the airport.
O’Hara was just leaving when he paused at the door and turned back to look at the sprawling figure in the bed. The sheet had slipped revealing dark breasts tipped a darker colour. He looked at her critically. Her olive skin had an underlying coppery sheen and he thought there was a sizeable admixture of Indian in this one. With a rueful grimace he took a thin wallet from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, extracted two notes and tossed them on the bedside table. Then he went out, closing the door quietly behind him.
II
When he pulled his battered car into the parking bay he looked with interest at the unaccustomed bright lights of the airport. The field was low-grade, classed as an emergency strip by the big operators, although to Filson it was a main base. A Samair Boeing 727 lay sleekly in front of the control tower and O’Hara looked at it enviously for a while, then switched his attention to the hangar beyond.
A Dakota was being loaded and, even at that distance, the lights were bright enough for O’Hara to see the emblem on the tail – two intertwined ‘A’s, painted artistically to look like mountain peaks. He smiled gently to himself. It was appropriate that he should fly a plane decorated with the Double-A; alcoholics of the world unite – it was a pity Filson didn’t see the joke. But Filson was very proud of his Andes Airlift and never joked about it. A humourless man, altogether.
He got out of the car and walked around to the main building to find it was full of people, tired people rudely awakened and set down in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. He pushed his way through the crowd towards Filson’s office. An American voice with a Western twang complained loudly and bitterly, ‘This is a damned disgrace – I’m going to speak to Mr Coulson about it when I get back to Rio.’
O’Hara grinned as he pushed open the door of the office. Filson was sitting at his desk in his shirt-sleeves, his face shiny with sweat. He always sweated, particularly in an emergency and since his life was in a continual state of crisis it was a wonder he didn’t melt away altogether. He looked up.
‘So you got here at last.’
‘I’m always pleased at the welcome I get,’ observed O’Hara.
Filson ignored that. ‘All right; this is the dope,’ he said. ‘I’ve contracted with Samair to take ten of their passengers to Santillana – they’re the ones who have to make connections with a ship. You’ll take number one – she’s being serviced now.’ His voice was briskly businesslike and O’Hara could tell by the way he sonorously rolled out the words ‘contracted with Samair’ that he saw himself as a big-time air operator doing business with his peers instead of what he really was – an ageing ex-pilot making a precarious living off two twenty-five-year-old rattling ex-army surplus planes.
O’Hara merely said, ‘Who’s coming with me?’
‘Grivas.’
‘That cocky little bastard.’
‘He volunteered – which is more than you did,’ snapped Filson.
‘Oh?’
‘He was here when the 727 touched down,’ said Filson. He smiled thinly at O’Hara. ‘It was his idea to put it to Samair that we take some of their more urgent passengers, so he phoned me right away. That’s the kind of quick thinking we need in this organization.’
‘I don’t like him in a plane,’ said O’Hara.
‘So you’re a better pilot,’ said Filson reluctantly. ‘That’s why you’re skipper and he’s going as co-pilot.’ He looked at the ceiling reflectively. ‘When this deal with Samair comes off maybe I’ll promote Grivas to the office. He’s too good to be a pilot.’
Filson had delusions of grandeur. O’Hara said deliberately, ‘If you think that South American Air is going to give you a feeder contract, you’re crazy. You’ll get paid for taking their passengers and you’ll get their thanks – for what they’re worth – and they’ll kiss you off fast.’
Filson pointed a pen at O’Hara. ‘You’re paid to jockey a plane – leave the heavy thinking to me.’
O’Hara gave up. ‘What happened to the 727?’
‘Something wrong with the fuel feed – they’re looking at it now.’ Filson picked up a sheaf of papers. ‘There’s a crate of machinery to go for servicing. Here’s the manifest.’
‘Christ!’ said O’Hara. ‘This is an unscheduled flight. Do you have to do this?’
‘Unscheduled or not, you’re going with a full load. Damned if I send a half empty plane when I can send a full one.’
O’Hara was mournful. ‘It’s just that I thought I’d have an easy trip for a change. You know you always overload and it’s a hell of a job going through the passes. The old bitch wallows like a hippo.’
‘You’re going at the best time,’ said Filson. ‘It’ll be worse later in the day when the sun has warmed things up. Now get the hell out of here and stop bothering me.’
O’Hara left the office. The main hall was emptying, a stream of disgruntled Samair passengers leaving for the antiquated airport bus. A few people still stood about – those would be the passengers for Santillana. O’Hara ignored them; passengers or freight, it was all one to him. He took them over the Andes and dumped them on the other side and there was no point in getting involved with them. A bus driver doesn’t mix with his passengers, he thought; and that’s all I am – a bloody vertical bus driver.
He glanced at the manifest. Filson had done it again – there were two crates and he was aghast at their weight. One of these days, he thought savagely, I’ll get an I.A.T.A. inspector up here at the right time and Filson will go for a loop. He crushed the manifest in his fist and went to inspect the Dakota.
Grivas was by the plane, lounging gracefully against the undercarriage. He straightened when he saw O’Hara and flicked his cigarette across the tarmac but did not step forward to meet him. O’Hara crossed over and said, ‘Is the cargo aboard?’
Grivas smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you check it? Is it secure?’
‘Of course, Señor O’Hara. I saw to it myself.’
O’Hara grunted. He did not like Grivas, neither as a man nor as a pilot. He distrusted his smoothness, the slick patina of pseudo good breeding that covered him like a sheen from his patent leather hair and trim toothbrush moustache to his highly polished shoes. Grivas was a slim wiry man, not very tall, who always wore a smile. O’Hara distrusted the smile most of all.
‘What’s the weather?’ he asked.
Grivas looked at the sky. ‘It seems all right.’
O’Hara let acid creep into his voice. ‘A met. report would be a good thing, don’t you think?’
Grivas grinned. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said.
O’Hara watched him go, then turned to the Dakota and walked round to the cargo doors. The Dakota had been one of the most successful planes ever designed, the work-horse of the Allied forces during the war. Over ten thousand of them had fought a good war, flying countless millions of ton-miles of precious freight about the world. It was a good plane in its time, but that was long ago.
This Dakota was twenty-five years old, battered by too many air hours with too little servicing. O’Hara knew the exact amount of play in the rudder cables; he knew how to nurse the worn-out engines so as to get the best out of them – and a poor best it was; he knew the delicate technique of landing so as not to put too much strain on the weakened undercarriage. And he knew that one day the whole sorry fabric would play a murderous trick on him high over the white spears of the Andes.
He climbed into the plane and looked about the cavernous interior. There were ten seats up front, not the luxurious reclining couches of Samair but uncomfortable hard leather chairs each fitted with the safety-belt that even Filson could not skip, although he had grumbled at the added cost. The rest of the fuselage was devoted to cargo space and was at present occupied by two large crates.
O’Hara went round them testing the anchoring straps with his hand. He had a horror that one day the cargo would slide forward if he made a bad landing or hit very bad turbulence. That would be the end of any passengers who had the ill-luck to be flying Andes Airlift. He cursed as he found a loose strap. Grivas and his slipshod ways would be the end of him one day.
Having seen the cargo was secured he went forward into the cockpit and did a routine check of the instruments. A mechanic was working on the port engine so O’Hara leaned out of the side window and asked in Spanish if it was all right. The mechanic spat, then drew his finger across his throat and made a bloodcurdling sound. ‘De un momento a otro.’
He finished the instrument check and went into the hangar to find Fernandez, the chief mechanic, who usually had a bottle or two stored away, strictly against Filson’s orders. O’Hara liked Fernandez and he knew that Fernandez liked him; they got on well together and O’Hara made a point of keeping it that way – to be at loggerheads with the chief mechanic would be a passport to eternity in this job.
He chatted for a while with Fernandez, then filled his flask and took a hasty gulp from the bottle before he passed it back. Dawn was breaking as he strode back to the Dakota, and Grivas was in the cockpit fussing with the disposal of his briefcase. It’s a funny thing, thought O’Hara, that the briefcase is just as much a part of an airline pilot as it is of any city gent. His own was under his seat; all it contained was a packet of sandwiches which he had picked up at an all-night café.
‘Got the met. report?’ he asked Grivas.
Grivas passed over the sheet of paper and O’Hara said, ‘You can taxi her down to the apron.’
He studied the report. It wasn’t too bad – it wasn’t bad at all. No storms, no anomalies, no trouble – just good weather over the mountains. But O’Hara had known the meteorologists to be wrong before and there was no release of the tension within him. It was that tension, never relaxed in the air, that had kept him alive when a lot of better men had died.
As the Dakota came to a halt on the apron outside the main building, he saw Filson leading the small group of passengers. ‘See they have their seat-belts properly fastened,’ he said to Grivas.
‘I’m not a hostess,’ said Grivas sulkily.
‘When you’re sitting on this side of the cockpit you can give orders,’ said O’Hara coldly. ‘Right now you take them. And I’d like you to do a better job of securing the passengers than you did of the cargo.’
The smile left Grivas’s face, but he turned and went into the main cabin. Presently Filson came forward and thrust a form at O’Hara. ‘Sign this.’
It was the I.A.T.A. certificate of weights and fuel. O’Hara saw that Filson had cheated on the weights as usual, but made no comment and scribbled his signature. Filson said, ‘As soon as you land give me a ring. There might be return cargo.’
O’Hara nodded and Filson withdrew. There was the double slam as the door closed and O’Hara said, ‘Take her to the end of the strip.’ He switched on the radio, warming it up.
Grivas was still sulky and would not talk. He made no answer as he revved the engines and the Dakota waddled away from the main building into the darkness, ungainly and heavy on the ground. At the end of the runway O’Hara thought for a moment. Filson had not given him a flight number. To hell with it, he thought; control ought to know what’s going on. He clicked on the microphone and said, ‘A.A. special flight, destination Santillana – A.A. to San Croce control – ready to take off.’
A voice crackled tinnily in his ear. ‘San Croce control to Andes Airlift special. Permission given – time 2.33 G.M.T.’
‘Roger and out.’ He put his hand to the throttles and waggled the stick. There was a stickiness about it. Without looking at Grivas he said, ‘Take your hands off the controls.’ Then he pushed on the throttle levers and the engines roared. Four minutes later the Dakota was airborne after an excessively long run.
He stayed at the controls for an hour, personally supervising the long climb to the roof of the world. He liked to find out if the old bitch was going to spring a new surprise. Cautiously he carried out gentle, almost imperceptible evolutions, his senses attuned to the feel of the plane. Occasionally he glanced at Grivas who was sitting frozen-faced in the other seat, staring blankly through the windscreen.
At last he was satisfied and engaged the automatic pilot but spent another quarter-hour keeping a wary eye on it. It had behaved badly on the last flight but Fernandez had assured him that it was now all right. He trusted Fernandez, but not that much – it was always better to do the final check personally.
Then he relaxed and looked ahead. It was much lighter in the high air and, although the dawn was behind, the sky ahead was curiously light. O’Hara knew why; it was the snow blink as the first light of the sun caught the high white peaks of the Andes. The mountains themselves were as yet invisible, lost in the early haze rising from the jungle below.
He began to think about his passengers and he wondered if they knew what they had got themselves into. This was no pressurized jet aircraft and they were going to fly pretty high – it would be cold and the air would be thin and he hoped none of the passengers had heart trouble. Presumably Filson had warned them, although he wouldn’t put it past that bastard to keep his mouth shut. He was even too stingy to provide decent oxygen masks – there were only mouth tubes in the oxygen bottles to port and starboard.
He scratched his cheek thoughtfully. These weren’t the ordinary passengers he was used to carrying – the American mining engineers flying to San Croce and the poorer type of local businessman proud to be flying even by Andes Airlift. These were the Samair type of passengers – wealthy and not over fond of hardship. They were in a hurry, too, or they would have had more sense than to fly Andes Airlift. Perhaps he had better break his rule and go back to talk to them. When they found they weren’t going to fly over the Andes but through them they might get scared. It would be better to warn them first.
He pushed his uniform cap to the back of his head and said, ‘Take over, Grivas. I’m going to talk to the passengers.’
Grivas lifted his eyebrows – so surprised that he forgot to be sulky. He shrugged. ‘Why? What is so important about the passengers? Is this Samair?’ He laughed noiselessly. ‘But, yes, of course – you have seen the girl; you want to see her again, eh?’
‘What girl?’
‘Just a girl, a woman; very beautiful. I think I will get to know her and take her out when we arrive in – er – Santillana,’ said Grivas thoughtfully. He looked at O’Hara out of the corner of his eye.
O’Hara grunted and took the passenger manifest from his breast pocket. As he suspected, the majority were American. He went through the list rapidly. Mr and Mrs Coughlin of Challis, Idaho – tourists; Dr James Armstrong, London, England – no profession stated; Raymond Forester of New York – businessman; Señor and Señorita Montes – Argentinian and no profession stated; Miss Jennifer Ponsky of South Bridge, Connecticut – tourist; Dr Willis of California; Miguel Rohde – no stated nationality, profession – importer; Joseph Peabody of Chicago, Illinois – businessman.
He flicked his finger on the manifest and grinned at Grivas. ‘Jennifer’s a nice name – but Ponsky? I can’t see you going around with anyone called Ponsky.’
Grivas looked startled, then laughed convulsively. ‘Ah, my friend, you can have the fair Ponsky – I’ll stick to my girl.’
O’Hara looked at the list again. ‘Then it must be Señorita Montes – unless it’s Mrs Coughlin.’
Grivas chuckled, his good spirits recovered. ‘You find out for yourself.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said O’Hara. ‘Take over.’
He went back into the main cabin and was confronted by ten uplifted heads. He smiled genially, modelling himself on the Samair pilots to whom public relations was as important as flying ability. Lifting his voice above the roar of the engines, he said, ‘I suppose I ought to tell you that we’ll be reaching the mountains in about an hour. It will get cold, so I suggest you wear your overcoats. Mr Filson will have told you that this aircraft isn’t pressurized, but we don’t fly at any great height for more than an hour, so you’ll be quite all right.’
A burly man with a whisky complexion interjected, ‘No one told me that.’
O’Hara cursed Filson under his breath and broadened his smile. ‘Well, not to worry, Mr – er …’
‘Peabody – Joe Peabody.’
‘Mr Peabody. It will be quite all right. There is an oxygen mouthpiece next to every seat which I advise you to use if you feel breathing difficult. Now, it gets a bit wearying shouting like this above the engine noise, so I’ll come round and talk to you individually.’ He smiled at Peabody, who glowered back at him.
He bent to the first pair of seats on the port side. ‘Could I have your names, please?’
The first man said, ‘I’m Forester.’ The other contributed, ‘Willis.’
‘Glad to have you aboard, Dr Willis, Mr Forester.’
Forester said, ‘I didn’t bargain for this, you know. I didn’t think kites like this were still flying.’
O’Hara smiled deprecatingly. ‘Well, this is an emergency flight and it was laid on in the devil of a hurry. I’m sure it was an oversight that Mr Filson forgot to tell you that this isn’t a pressurized plane.’ Privately he was not sure of anything of the kind.
Willis said with a smile. ‘I came here to study high altitude conditions. I’m certainly starting with a bang. How high do we fly, Captain?’
‘Not more than seventeen thousand feet,’ said O’Hara. ‘We fly through the passes – we don’t go over the top. You’ll find the oxygen mouthpieces easy to use – all you do is suck.’ He smiled and turned away and found himself held. Peabody was clutching his sleeve, leaning forward over the seat behind. ‘Hey, Skipper …’
‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Mr Peabody,’ said O’Hara, and held Peabody with his eye. Peabody blinked rapidly, released his grip and subsided into his seat, and O’Hara turned to starboard.
The man was elderly, with an aquiline nose and a short grey beard. With him was a young girl of startling beauty, judging by what O’Hara could see of her face, which was not much because she was huddled deep into a fur coat. He said, ‘Señor Montes?’
The man inclined his head. ‘Don’t worry, Captain, we know what to expect.’ He waved a gloved hand. ‘You see we are well prepared. I know the Andes, señor, and I know these aircraft. I know the Andes well; I have been over them on foot and by mule – in my youth I climbed some of the high peaks – didn’t I, Benedetta?’
‘Si, tío,’ she said in a colourless voice. ‘But that was long ago. I don’t know if your heart …’
He patted her on the leg. ‘I will be all right if I relax; is that not so, Captain?’
‘Do you understand the use of this oxygen tube?’ asked O’Hara.
Montes nodded confidently, and O’Hara said, ‘Your uncle will be quite all right, Señorita Montes.’ He waited for her to reply but she made no answer, so he passed on to the seats behind.
These couldn’t be the Coughlins; they were too ill-assorted a pair to be American tourists, although the woman was undoubtedly American. O’Hara said inquiringly, ‘Miss Ponsky?’
She lifted a sharp nose and said, ‘I declare this is all wrong, Captain. You must turn back at once.’
The fixed smile on O’Hara’s face nearly slipped. ‘I fly this route regularly, Miss Ponsky,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to fear.’
But there was naked fear on her face – air fear. Sealed in the air-conditioned quietness of a modern jet-liner she could subdue it, but the primitiveness of the Dakota brought it to the surface. There was no clever decor to deceive her into thinking that she was in a drawing-room, just the stark functionalism of unpainted aluminium, battered and scratched, and with the plumbing showing like a dissected body.
O’Hara said quietly, ‘What is your profession, Miss Ponsky?’
‘I’m a school teacher back in South Bridge,’ she said. ‘I’ve been teaching there for thirty years.’
He judged she was naturally garrulous and perhaps this could be a way of conquering her fear. He glanced at the man, who said, ‘Miguel Rohde.’
He was a racial anomaly – a Spanish-German name and Spanish-German features – straw-coloured hair and beady black eyes. There had been German immigration into South America for many years and this was one of the results.
O’Hara said, ‘Do you know the Andes, Señor Rohde?’
‘Very well,’ he replied in a grating voice. He nodded ahead. ‘I lived up there for many years – now I am going back.’
O’Hara switched back to Miss Ponsky. ‘Do you teach geography, Miss Ponsky?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, I do. That’s one of the reasons I came to South America on my vacation. It makes such a difference if you can describe things first-hand.’
‘Then here you have a marvellous opportunity,’ said O’Hara with enthusiasm. ‘You’ll see the Andes as you never would if you’d flown Samair. And I’m sure that Señor Rohde will point out the interesting sights.’
Rohde nodded understandingly. ‘Si, very interesting; I know it well, the mountain country.’
O’Hara smiled reassuringly at Miss Ponsky, who offered him a glimmering, tremulous smile in return. He caught a twinkle in Rohde’s black eyes as he turned to the port side again.
The man sitting next to Peabody was undoubtedly British, so O’Hara said, ‘Glad to have you with us, Dr Armstrong – Mr Peabody.’
Armstrong said, ‘Nice to hear an English accent, Captain, after all this Spa – ’
Peabody broke in. ‘I’m damned if I’m glad to be here, Skipper. What in hell kind of an airline is this, for god-sake?’
‘One run by an American, Mr Peabody,’ said O’Hara calmly. ‘As you were saying, Dr Armstrong?’
‘Never expected to see an English captain out here,’ said Armstrong.
‘Well, I’m Irish, and we tend to get about,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’d put on some warm clothing if I were you. You, too, Mr Peabody.’
Peabody laughed and suddenly burst into song. ‘“I’ve got my love to keep me warm”.’ He produced a hip flask and waved it. ‘This is as good as any top-coat.’
For a moment O’Hara saw himself in Peabody and was shocked and afraid. ‘As you wish,’ he said bleakly, and passed on to the last pair of seats opposite the luggage racks.
The Coughlins were an elderly couple, very Darby and Joanish. He must have been pushing seventy and she was not far behind, but there was a suggestion of youth about their eyes, good-humoured and with a zest for life. O’Hara said, ‘Are you all right, Mrs Coughlin?’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Aren’t we, Harry?’
‘Sure,’ said Coughlin, and looked up at O’Hara. ‘Will we be flying through the Puerto de las Aguilas?’
‘That’s right,’ said O’Hara. ‘Do you know these parts?’
Coughlin laughed. ‘Last time I was round here was in 1912. I’ve just come down to show my wife where I spent my misspent youth.’ He turned to her. ‘That means Eagle Pass, you know; it took me two weeks to get across back in 1910, and here we are doing it in an hour or two. Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘It sure is,’ Mrs Coughlin replied comfortably.
There was nothing wrong with the Coughlins, decided O’Hara, so after a few more words he went back to the cockpit. Grivas still had the plane on automatic pilot and was sitting relaxed, gazing forward at the mountains. O’Hara sat down and looked intently at the oncoming mountain wall. He checked the course and said, ‘Keep taking a bearing on Chimitaxl and let me know when it’s two hundred and ten degrees true bearing. You know the drill.’
He stared down at the ground looking for landmarks and nodded with satisfaction as he saw the sinuous, twisting course of the Rio Sangre and the railway bridge that crossed it. Flying this route by day and for so long he knew the ground by heart and knew immediately whether he was on time. He judged that the north-west wind predicted by the meteorologists was a little stronger than they had prophesied and altered course accordingly, then he jacked in the auto pilot again and relaxed. All would be quiet until Grivas came up with the required bearing on Chimitaxl. He sat in repose and watched the ground slide away behind – the dun and olive foothills, craggy bare rock, and then the shining snow-covered peaks. Presently he munched on the sandwiches he took from his briefcase. He thought of washing them down with a drink from his flask but then he thought of Peabody’s whisky-sodden face. Something inside him seemed to burst and he found that he didn’t need a drink after all.
Grivas suddenly put down the bearing compass. ‘Thirty seconds,’ he said.
O’Hara looked at the wilderness of high peaks before him, a familiar wilderness. Some of these mountains were his friends, like Chimitaxl; they pointed out his route. Others were his deadly enemies – devils and demons lurked among them compounded of down draughts, driving snow and mists. But he was not afraid because it was all familiar and he knew and understood the dangers and how to escape them.
Grivas said, ‘Now,’ and O’Hara swung the control column gently, experience telling him the correct turn. His feet automatically moved in conjunction with his hands and the Dakota swept to port in a wide, easy curve, heading for a gap in the towering wall ahead.
Grivas said softly, ‘Señor O’Hara.’
‘Don’t bother me now.’
‘But I must,’ said Grivas, and there was a tiny metallic click.
O’Hara glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and stiffened as he saw that Grivas was pointing a gun at him – a compact automatic pistol.
He jerked his head, his eyes widening in disbelief. ‘Have you gone crazy?’
Grivas’s smiled widened. ‘Does it matter?’ he said indifferently. ‘We do not go through the Puerto de las Aguilas this trip, Señor O’Hara, that is all that matters.’ His voice hardened. ‘Now steer course one-eight-four on a true bearing.’
O’Hara took a deep breath and held his course. ‘You must have gone out of your mind,’ he said. ‘Put down that gun, Grivas, and maybe we’ll forget this. I suppose I have been bearing down on you a bit too much, but that’s no reason to pull a gun. Put it away and we’ll straighten things out when we get to Santillana.’
Grivas’s teeth flashed. ‘You’re a stupid man, O’Hara; do you think I do this for personal reasons? But since you mention it, you said not long ago that sitting in the captain’s seat gave you authority.’ He lifted the gun slightly. ‘You were wrong – this gives authority; all the authority there is. Now change course or I’ll blow your head off. I can fly this aircraft too, remember.’
‘They’d hear you inside,’ said O’Hara.
‘I’ve locked the door, and what could they do? They wouldn’t take the controls from the only pilot. But that would be of no consequence to you, O’Hara – you’d be dead.’
O’Hara saw his finger tighten on the trigger and bit his lip before swinging the control column. The Dakota turned to fly south, parallel to the main backbone of the Andes. Grivas was right, damn him; there was no point in getting himself killed. But what the hell was he up to?
He settled on the bearing given by Grivas and reached forward to the auto pilot control. Grivas jerked the gun. ‘No, Señor O’Hara; you fly this aircraft – it will give you something to do.’
O’Hara drew back his hand slowly and grasped the wheel. He looked out to starboard past Grivas at the high peaks drifting by. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked grimly.
‘That is of no consequence,’ said Grivas. ‘But it is not very far. We land at an airstrip in five minutes.’
O’Hara thought about that. There was no airstrip that he knew of on this course. There were no airstrips at all this high in the mountains except for the military strips, and those were on the Pacific side of the Andes chain. He would have to wait and see.
His eyes flickered to the microphone set on its hook close to his left hand. He looked at Grivas and saw he was not wearing his earphones. If the microphone was switched on then any loud conversation would go on the air and Grivas would be unaware of it. It was definitely worth trying.
He said to Grivas, ‘There are no airstrips on this course.’ His left hand strayed from the wheel.
‘You don’t know everything, O’Hara.’
His fingers touched the microphone and he leaned over to obstruct Grivas’s vision as much as possible, pretending to study the instruments. His fingers found the switch and he snapped it over and then he leaned back and relaxed. In a loud voice he said, ‘You’ll never get away with this, Grivas; you can’t steal a whole aeroplane so easily. When this Dakota is overdue at Santillana they’ll lay on a search – you know that as well as I do.’
Grivas laughed. ‘Oh, you’re clever, O’Hara – but I was cleverer. The radio is not working, you know. I took out the tubes when you were talking to the passengers.’
O’Hara felt a sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach. He looked at the jumble of peaks ahead and felt frightened. This was country he did not know and there would be dangers he could not recognize. He felt frightened for himself and for his passengers.
III
It was cold in the passenger cabin, and the air was thin. Señor Montes had blue lips and his face had turned grey. He sucked on the oxygen tube and his niece fumbled in her bag and produced a small bottle of pills. He smiled painfully and put a pill in his mouth, letting it dissolve on his tongue. Slowly some colour came back into his face; not a lot, but he looked better than he had before taking the pill.
In the seat behind, Miss Ponsky’s teeth were chattering, not with cold but with conversation. Already Miguel Rohde had learned much of her life history, in which he had not the slightest interest although he did not show it. He let her talk, prompting her occasionally, and all the time he regarded the back of Montes’s head with lively black eyes. At a question from Miss Ponsky he looked out of the window and suddenly frowned.
The Coughlins were also looking out of the window. Mr Coughlin said, ‘I’d have sworn we were going to head that way – through that pass. But we suddenly changed course south.’
‘It all looks the same to me,’ said Mrs Coughlin. ‘Just a lot of mountains and snow.’
Coughlin said, ‘From what I remember, El Puerto de las Aguilas is back there.’
‘Oh, Harry, I’m sure you don’t really remember. It’s nearly fifty years since you were here – and you never saw it from an airplane.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, unconvinced. ‘But it sure is funny.’
‘Now, Harry, the pilot knows what he’s doing. He looked a nice efficient young man to me.’
Coughlin continued to look from the window. He said nothing more.
James Armstrong of London, England, was becoming very bored with Joe Peabody of Chicago, Illinois. The man was a positive menace. Already he had sunk half the contents of his flask, which seemed an extraordinarily large one, and he was getting combatively drunk. ‘Whadya think of the nerve of that goddam fly-boy, chokin’ me off like that?’ he demanded. ‘Actin’ high an’ mighty jus’ like the goddam limey he is.’
Armstrong smiled gently. ‘I’m a – er – goddam limey too, you know,’ he pointed out.
‘Well, jeez, presen’ comp’ny excepted,’ said Peabody. ‘That’s always the rule, ain’t it? I ain’t got anything against you limeys really, excep’ you keep draggin’ us into your wars.’
‘I take it you read the Chicago Tribune,’ said Armstrong solemnly.
Forester and Willis did not talk much – they had nothing in common. Willis had produced a large book as soon as they exhausted their small talk and to Forester it looked heavy in all senses of the word, being mainly mathematical.
Forester had nothing to do. In front of him was an aluminium bulkhead on which an axe and a first-aid box were mounted. There was no profit in looking at that and consequently his eyes frequently strayed across the aisle to Señor Montes. His lips tightened as he noted the bad colour of Montes’s face and he looked at the first-aid box reflectively.
IV
‘There it is,’ said Grivas. ‘You land there.’
O’Hara straightened up and looked over the nose of the Dakota. Dead ahead amid a jumble of rocks and snow was a short airstrip, a mere track cut on a ledge of a mountain. He had time for the merest glimpse before it was gone behind them.
Grivas waved the gun. ‘Circle it,’ he said.
O’Hara eased the plane into an orbit round the strip and looked down at it. There were buildings down there, rough cabins in a scattered group, and there was a road leading down the mountain, twisting and turning like a snake. Someone had thoughtfully cleared the airstrip of snow, but there was no sign of life.
He judged his distance from the ground and glanced at the altimeter. ‘You’re crazy, Grivas,’ he said. ‘We can’t land on that strip.’
‘You can, O’Hara,’ said Grivas.
‘I’m damned if I’m going to. This plane’s overloaded and that strip’s at an altitude of seventeen thousand feet. It would need to be three times as long for this crate to land safely. The air’s too thin to hold us up at a slow landing speed – we’ll hit the ground at a hell of a lick and we won’t be able to pull up. We’ll shoot off the other end of the strip and crash on the side of the mountain.’
‘You can do it.’
‘To hell with you,’ said O’Hara.
Grivas lifted his gun. ‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But I’ll have to kill you first.’
O’Hara looked at the black hole staring at him like an evil eye. He could see the rifling inside the muzzle and it looked as big as a howitzer. In spite of the cold, he was sweating and could feel rivulets of perspiration running down his back. He turned away from Grivas and studied the strip again. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked.
‘You would not know if I told you,’ said Grivas. ‘You would not understand – you are English.’
O’Hara sighed. It was going to be very dicey; he might be able to get the Dakota down in approximately one piece, but Grivas wouldn’t have a chance – he’d pile it up for sure. He said, ‘All right – warn the passengers; get them to the rear of the cabin.’
‘Never mind the passengers,’ said Grivas flatly. ‘You do not think that I am going to leave this cockpit?’
O’Hara said, ‘All right, you’re calling the shots, but I warn you – don’t touch the controls by as much as a finger. You’re not a pilot’s backside – and you know it. There can be only one man flying a plane.’
‘Get on with it,’ said Grivas shortly.
‘I’ll take my own time,’ said O’Hara. ‘I want a good look before I do a damn thing.’
He orbited the airstrip four more times, watching it as it spun crazily beneath the Dakota. The passengers should know there was something wrong by this time, he thought. No ordinary airliner stood on its wingtip and twitched about like this. Maybe they’d get alarmed and someone would try to do something about it – that might give him a chance to get at Grivas. But what the passengers could do was problematical.
The strip was all too short; it was also very narrow and made for a much smaller aircraft. He would have to land on the extreme edge, his wingtip brushing a rock wall. Then there was the question of wind direction. He looked down at the cabins, hoping to detect a wisp of smoke from the chimneys, but there was nothing.
‘I’m going to go in closer – over the strip,’ he said. ‘But I’m not landing this time.’
He pulled out of orbit and circled widely to come in for a landing approach. He lined up the nose of the Dakota on the strip like a gunsight and the plane came in, fast and level. To starboard there was a blur of rock and snow and O’Hara held his breath. If the wingtip touched the rock wall that would be the end. Ahead, the strip wound underneath, as though it was being swallowed by the Dakota. There was nothing as the strip ended – just a deep valley and the blue sky. He hauled on the stick and the plane shot skyward.
The passengers will know damn well there’s something wrong now, he thought. To Grivas he said, ‘We’re not going to get this aircraft down in one piece.’
‘Just get me down safely,’ said Grivas. ‘I’m the only one who matters.’
O’Hara grinned tightly. ‘You don’t matter a damn to me.’
‘Then think of your own neck,’ said Grivas. ‘That will take care of mine, too.’
But O’Hara was thinking of ten lives in the passenger cabin. He circled widely again to make another approach and debated with himself the best way of doing this. He could come in with the undercarriage up or down. A belly-landing would be rough at that speed, but the plane would slow down faster because of the increased friction. The question was: could he hold her straight? On the other hand if he came in with the undercarriage down he would lose airspeed before he hit the deck – that was an advantage too.
He smiled grimly and decided to do both. For the first time he blessed Filson and his lousy aeroplanes. He knew to a hair how much stress the undercarriage would take; hitherto his problem had been that of putting the Dakota down gently. This time he would come in with undercarriage down, losing speed, and slam her down hard – hard enough to break off the weakened struts like matchsticks. That would give him his belly-landing, too.
He sighted the nose of the Dakota on the strip again. ‘Well, here goes nothing,’ he said. ‘Flaps down; undercarriage down.’
As the plane lost airspeed the controls felt mushy under his hands. He set his teeth and concentrated as never before.
V
As the plane tipped wing down and started to orbit the airstrip Armstrong was thrown violently against Peabody. Peabody was in the act of taking another mouthful of whisky and the neck of the flask suddenly jammed against his teeth. He spluttered and yelled incoherently and thrust hard against Armstrong.
Rohde was thrown out of his seat and found himself sitting in the aisle, together with Coughlin and Montes. He struggled to his feet, shaking his head violently, then he bent to help Montes, speaking quick Spanish. Mrs Coughlin helped her husband back to his seat.
Willis had been making a note in the margin of his book and the point of his pencil snapped as Forester lurched against him. Forester made no attempt to regain his position but looked incredulously out of the window, ignoring Willis’s feeble protests at being squashed. Forester was a big man.
The whole cabin was a babel of sound in English and Spanish, dominated by the sharp and scratchy voice of Miss Ponsky as she querulously complained. ‘I knew it,’ she screamed. ‘I knew it was all wrong.’ She began to laugh hysterically and Rohde turned from Montes and slapped her with a heavy hand. She looked at him in surprise and suddenly burst into tears.
Peabody shouted, ‘What in goddam hell is that limey doing now?’ He stared out of the window at the airstrip. ‘The bastard’s going to land.’
Rohde spoke rapidly to Montes, who seemed so shaken he was apathetic. There was a quick exchange in Spanish between Rohde and the girl, and he pointed to the door leading to the cockpit. She nodded violently and he stood up.
Mrs Coughlin was leaning forward in her seat, comforting Miss Ponsky. ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ she kept saying. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen.’
The aircraft straightened as O’Hara came in for his first approach run. Rohde leaned over Armstrong and looked through the window, but turned as Miss Ponsky screamed in fright, looking at the blur of rock streaming past the starboard window and seeing the wingtip brushing it so closely. Then Rohde lost his balance again as O’Hara pulled the Dakota into a climb.
It was Forester who made the first constructive move. He was nearest the door leading to the cockpit and he grabbed the door handle, turned and pushed. Nothing happened. He put his shoulder to the door but was thrown away as the plane turned rapidly. O’Hara was going into his final landing approach.
Forester grabbed the axe from its clips on the bulkhead and raised it to strike, but his arm was caught by Rohde. ‘This is quicker,’ said Rohde, and lifted a heavy pistol in his other hand. He stepped in front of Forester and fired three quick shots at the lock of the door.
VI
O’Hara heard the shots a fraction of a second before the Dakota touched down. He not only heard them but saw the altimeter and the turn-and-climb indicator shiver into fragments as the bullets smashed into the instrument panel. But he had not time to see what was happening behind him because just then the heavily overloaded Dakota settled soggily at the extreme end of the strip, moving at high speed.
There was a sickening crunch and the whole air frame shuddered as the undercarriage collapsed and the plane sank on to its belly and slid with a tearing, rending sound towards the far end of the strip. O’Hara fought frantically with the controls as they kicked against his hands and feet and tried to keep the aircraft sliding in a straight line.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Grivas turn to the door, his pistol raised. O’Hara took a chance, lifted one hand from the stick and struck out blindly at Grivas. He just had time for one blow and luckily it connected somewhere; he felt the edge of his hand strike home and then he was too busy to see if he had incapacitated Grivas.
The Dakota was still moving too fast. Already it was more than halfway down the strip and O’Hara could see the emptiness ahead where the strip stopped at the lip of the valley. In desperation he swung the rudder hard over and the Dakota swerved with a loud grating sound.
He braced himself for the crash.
The starboard wingtip hit the rock wall and the Dakota spun sharply to the right. O’Hara kept the rudder forced right over and saw the rock wall coming right at him. The nose of the plane hit rock and crumpled and the safety glass in the windscreens shivered into opacity. Then something hit him on the head and he lost consciousness.
VII
He came round because someone was slapping his face. His head rocked from side to side and he wanted them to stop because it was so good to be asleep. The slapping went on and on and he moaned and tried to tell them to stop. But the slapping did not stop so he opened his eyes.
It was Forester who was administering the punishment, and, as O’Hara opened his eyes, he turned to Rohde who was standing behind him and said, ‘Keep your gun on him.’
Rohde smiled. His gun was in his hand but hanging slackly and pointing to the floor. He made no attempt to bring it up. Forester said, ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’
O’Hara painfully lifted his arm to his head. He had a bump on his skull the size of an egg. He said weakly, ‘Where’s Grivas?’
‘Who is Grivas?’
‘My co-pilot.’
‘He’s here – he’s in a bad way.’
‘I hope the bastard dies,’ said O’Hara bitterly. ‘He pulled a gun on me.’
‘You were at the controls,’ said Forester, giving him a hard look. ‘You put this plane down here – and I want to know why.’
‘It was Grivas – he forced me to do it.’
‘The señor capitan is right,’ said Rohde. ‘This man Grivas was going to shoot me and the señor capitan hit him.’ He bowed stiffly. ‘Muchas gracias.’
Forester swung round and looked at Rohde, then beyond him to Grivas. ‘Is he conscious?’
O’Hara looked across the cockpit. The side of the fuselage was caved in and a blunt spike of rock had hit Grivas in the chest, smashing his rib cage. It looked as though he wasn’t going to make it, after all. But he was conscious, all right; his eyes were open and he looked at them with hatred.
O’Hara could hear a woman screaming endlessly in the passenger cabin and someone else was moaning monotonously. ‘For Christ’s sake, what’s happened back there?’
No one answered because Grivas began to speak. He mumbled in a low whisper and blood frothed round his mouth. ‘They’ll get you,’ he said. ‘They’ll be here any minute now.’ His lips parted in a ghastly smile. ‘I’ll be all right; they’ll take me to hospital. But you – you’ll …’ He broke off in a fit of coughing and then continued: ‘… they’ll kill the lot of you.’ He lifted up his arm, the fingers curling into a fist. ‘Vivaca …’
The arm dropped flaccidly and the look of hate in his eyes deepened into surprise – surprise that he was dead.
Rohde grabbed him by the wrist and held it for a moment. ‘He’s gone,’ he said.
‘He was a lunatic,’ said O’Hara. ‘Stark, staring mad.’
The woman was still screaming and Forester said, ‘For God’s sake, let’s get everybody out of here.’
Just then the Dakota lurched sickeningly and the whole cockpit rose in the air. There was a ripping sound as the spike of rock that had killed Grivas tore at the aluminium sheathing of the fuselage. O’Hara had a sudden and horrible intuition of what was happening. ‘Nobody move,’ he shouted. ‘Everyone keep still.’
He turned to Forester. ‘Bash in those windows.’
Forester looked in surprise at the axe he was still holding as though he had forgotten it, then he raised it and struck at the opaque windscreen. The plastic filling in the glass sandwich could not withstand his assault and he made a hole big enough for a man to climb through.
O’Hara said, ‘I’ll go through – I think I know what I’ll find. Don’t either of you go back there – not yet. And call through and tell anyone who can move to come up front.’
He squeezed through the narrow gap and was astonished to find that the nose of the Dakota was missing. He twisted and crawled out on to the top of the fuselage and looked aft. The tail and one wing were hanging in space over the valley where the runway ended. The whole aircraft was delicately balanced and even as he looked the tail tipped a little and there was a ripping sound from the cockpit.
He twisted on to his stomach and wriggled so that he could look into the cockpit, his head upside-down. ‘We’re in a jam,’ he said to Forester. ‘We’re hanging over a two-hundred-foot drop, and the only thing that’s keeping the whole bloody aeroplane from tipping over is that bit of rock there.’ He indicated the rock projection driven into the side of the cockpit.
He said, ‘If anyone goes back there the extra weight might send us over because we’re balanced just like a seesaw.’
Forester turned his head and bawled, ‘Anyone who can move, come up here.’
There was a movement and Willis staggered through the door, his head bloody. Forester shouted, ‘Anyone else?’
Señorita Montes called urgently, ‘Please help my uncle – oh, please.’
Rohde drew Willis out of the way and stepped through the door. Forester said sharply, ‘Don’t go in too far.’
Rohde did not even look at him, but bent to pick up Montes who was lying by the door. He half carried, half dragged him into the cockpit and Señorita Montes followed.
Forester looked up at O’Hara. ‘It’s getting crowded in here; I think we’d better start getting people outside.’
‘We’ll get them on top first,’ said O’Hara. ‘The more weight we have at this end, the better. Let the girl come first.’
She shook her head. ‘My uncle first.’
‘For God’s sake, he’s unconscious,’ said Forester. ‘You go out – I’ll look after him.’
She shook her head stubbornly and O’Hara broke in impatiently, ‘All right, Willis, come on up here; let’s not waste time.’ His head ached and he was panting in the thin air; he was not inclined to waste time over silly girls.
He helped Willis through the smashed windscreen and saw him settle on top of the fuselage. When he looked into the cockpit again it was evident that the girl had changed her mind. Rohde was talking quietly but emphatically to her and she crossed over and O’Hara helped her out.
Armstrong came next, having made his own way to the cockpit. He said, ‘It’s a bloody shambles back there. I think the old man in the back seat is dead and his wife is pretty badly hurt. I don’t think it’s safe to move her.’
‘What about Peabody?’
‘The luggage was thrown forward on to both of us. He’s half buried under it. I tried to get him free but I couldn’t.’
O’Hara passed this on to Forester. Rohde was kneeling by Montes, trying to bring him round. Forester hesitated, then said, ‘Now we’ve got some weight at this end it might be safe for me to go back.’
O’Hara said, ‘Tread lightly.’
Forester gave a mirthless grin and went back through the door. He looked at Miss Ponsky. She was sitting rigid, her arms clutched tightly about her, her eyes staring unblinkingly at nothing. He ignored her and began to heave suitcases from the top of Peabody, being careful to stow them in the front seats. Peabody stirred and Forester shook him into consciousness, and as soon as he seemed to be able to understand, said, ‘Go into the cockpit – the cockpit, you understand,’
Peabody nodded blearily and Forester stepped a little farther aft. ‘Christ Almighty!’ he whispered, shocked at what he saw.
Coughlin was a bloody pulp. The cargo had shifted in the smash and had come forward, crushing the two back seats. Mrs Coughlin was still alive but both her legs had been cut off just below the knee. It was only because she had been leaning forward to comfort Miss Ponsky that she hadn’t been killed like her husband.
Forester felt something touch his back and turned. It was Peabody moving aft. ‘I said the cockpit, you damned fool,’ shouted Forester.
‘I wanna get outa here,’ mumbled Peabody. ‘I wanna get out. The door’s back there.’
Forester wasted no time in argument. Abruptly he jabbed at Peabody’s stomach and then brought his clenched fists down at the nape of his neck as he bent over gasping, knocking him cold. He dragged him forward to the door and said to Rohde, ‘Take care of this fool. If he causes trouble, knock him on the head.’
He went back and took Miss Ponsky by the arm. ‘Come,’ he said gently.
She rose and followed him like a somnambulist and he led her right into the cockpit and delivered her to O’Hara. Montes was now conscious and would be ready to move soon.
As soon as O’Hara reappeared Forester said, ‘I don’t think the old lady back there will make it.’
‘Get her out,’ said O’Hara tightly. ‘For God’s sake, get her out.’
So Forester went back. He didn’t know whether Mrs Coughlin was alive or dead; her body was still warm, however, so he picked her up in his arms. Blood was still spurting from her shattered shins, and when he stepped into the cockpit Rohde drew in his breath with a hiss. ‘On the seat,’ he said. ‘She needs tourniquets now – immediately.’
He took off his jacket and then his shirt and began to rip the shirt into strips, saying to Forester curtly, ‘Get the old man out.’
Forester and O’Hara helped Montes through the windscreen and then Forester turned and regarded Rohde, noting the goose-pimples on his back. ‘Clothing,’ he said to O’Hara. ‘We’ll need warm clothing. It’ll be bad up here by nightfall.’
‘Hell!’ said O’Hara. ‘That’s adding to the risk. I don’t – ’
‘He is right,’ said Rohde without turning his head. ‘If we do not have clothing we will all be dead by morning.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara. ‘Are you willing to take the risk?’
‘I’ll chance it,’ said Forester.
‘I’ll get these people on the ground first,’ said O’Hara. ‘But while you’re at it get the maps. There are some air charts of the area in the pocket next to my seat.’
Rohde grunted. ‘I’ll get those.’
O’Hara got the people from the top of the fuselage to the ground and Forester began to bring suitcases into the cockpit. Unceremoniously he heaved Peabody through the windscreen and equally carelessly O’Hara dropped him to the ground, where he lay sprawling. Then Rohde handed through the unconscious Mrs Coughlin and O’Hara was surprised at her lightness. Rohde climbed out and, taking her in his arms, jumped to the ground, cushioning the shock for her.
Forester began to hand out suitcases and O’Hara tossed them indiscriminately. Some burst open, but most survived the fall intact.
The Dakota lurched.
‘Forester,’ yelled O’Hara. ‘Come out.’
‘There’s still some more.’
‘Get out, you idiot,’ O’Hara bawled. ‘She’s going.’
He grabbed Forester’s arms and hauled him out bodily and let him go thumping to the ground. Then he jumped himself and, as he did so, the nose rose straight into the air and the plane slid over the edge of the cliff with a grinding noise and in a cloud of dust. It crashed down two hundred feet and there was a long dying rumble and then silence.
O’Hara looked at the silent people about him, then turned his eyes to the harsh and savage mountains which surrounded them. He shivered with cold as he felt the keen wind which blew from the snowfields, and then shivered for a different reason as he locked eyes with Forester. They both knew that the odds against survival were heavy and that it was probable that the escape from the Dakota was merely the prelude to a more protracted death.
VIII
‘Now, let’s hear all this from the beginning,’ said Forester.
They had moved into the nearest of the cabins. It proved bare but weatherproof, and there was a fireplace in which Armstrong had made a fire, using wood which Willis had brought from another cabin. Montes was lying in a corner being looked after by his niece, and Peabody was nursing a hangover and looking daggers at Forester.
Miss Ponsky had recovered remarkably from the rigidity of fright. When she had been dropped to the ground she had collapsed, digging her fingers into the frozen gravel in an ecstasy of relief. O’Hara judged she would never have the guts to enter an aeroplane ever again in her life. But now she was showing remarkable aptitude for sick nursing, helping Rohde to care for Mrs Coughlin.
Now there was a character, thought O’Hara; Rohde was a man of unsuspected depths. Although he was not a medical man, he had a good working knowledge of practical medicine which was now invaluable. O’Hara had immediately turned to Willis for help with Mrs Coughlin, but Willis had said, ‘Sorry, I’m a physicist – not a physician.’
‘Dr Armstrong?’ O’Hara had appealed.
Regretfully Armstrong had also shaken his head. ‘I’m a historian.’
So Rohde had taken over – the non-doctor with the medical background – and the man with the gun.
O’Hara turned his attention to Forester. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘This is the way it was,’
He told everything that had happened, right back from the take-off in San Croce, dredging from his memory everything Grivas had said. ‘I think he went off his head,’ he concluded.
Forester frowned. ‘No, it was planned,’ he contradicted. ‘And lunacy isn’t planned. Grivas knew this airstrip and he knew the course to take. You say he was at San Croce airfield when the Samair plane was grounded?’
‘That’s right – I thought it was a bit odd at the time. I mean, it was out of character for Grivas to be haunting the field in the middle of the night – he wasn’t that keen on his job.’
‘It sounds as though he knew the Samair Boeing was going to have engine trouble,’ commented Willis.
Forester looked up quickly and Willis said, ‘It’s the only logical answer – he didn’t just steal a plane, he stole the contents; and the contents of the plane were people from the Boeing. O’Hara says those big crates contain ordinary mining machinery and I doubt if Grivas would want that.’
‘That implies sabotage of the Boeing,’ said Forester. ‘If Grivas was expecting the Boeing to land at San Croce, it also implies a sizeable organization behind him.’
‘We know that already,’ said O’Hara. ‘Grivas was expecting a reception committee here. He said, “They’ll be here any minute.” But where are they?’
‘And who are they?’ asked Forester.
O’Hara thought of something else Grivas had said: ‘… they’ll kill the lot of you.’ He kept quiet about that and asked instead, ‘Remember the last thing he said – “Vivaca”? It doesn’t make sense to me. It sounds vaguely Spanish, but it’s no word I know.’
‘My Spanish is good,’ said Forester deliberately. ‘There’s no such word.’ He slapped the side of his leg irritably. ‘I’d give a lot to know what’s been going on and who’s responsible for all this.’
A weak voice came from across the room. ‘I fear, gentlemen, that in a way I am responsible.’
Everyone in the room, with the exception of Mrs Coughlin, turned to look at Señor Montes.
TWO (#ulink_a1cb00d5-2973-57fe-bda0-0597529dc098)
Montes looked ill. He was worse than he had been in the air. His chest heaved violently as he sucked in the thin air and he had a ghastly pallor. As he opened his mouth to speak again the girl said, ‘Hush, tio, be quiet. I will tell them,’
She turned and looked across the cabin at O’Hara and Forester. ‘My uncle’s name is not Montes,’ she said levelly. ‘It is Aguillar.’ She said it as though it was an explanation, entire and complete in itself.
There was a moment of blank silence, then O’Hara snapped his fingers and said softly, ‘By God, the old eagle himself.’ He stared at the sick man.
‘Yes, Señor O’Hara,’ whispered Aguillar. ‘But a crippled eagle, I am afraid.’
‘Say, what the hell is this?’ grumbled Peabody. ‘What’s so special about him?’
Willis gave Peabody a look of dislike and got to his feet. ‘I wouldn’t have put it that way myself,’ he said. ‘But I could bear to know more.’
O’Hara said, ‘Señor Aguillar was possibly the best president this country ever had until the army took over five years ago. He got out of the country just one jump ahead of a firing squad.’
‘General Lopez always was a hasty man,’ agreed Aguillar with a weak smile.
‘You mean the government arranged all this – this jam we’re in now – just to get you?’ Willis’s voice was shrill with incredulity.
Aguillar shook his head and started to speak, but the girl said, ‘No, you must be quiet.’ She looked at O’Hara appealingly. ‘Do not question him now, señor. Can’t you see he is ill?’
‘Can you speak for your uncle?’ asked Forester gently.
She looked at the old man and he nodded. ‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked.
‘What is your uncle doing back in Cordillera?’
‘We have come to bring back good government to our country,’ she said. ‘We have come to throw out Lopez.’
O’Hara gave a short laugh. ‘To throw out Lopez,’ he said flatly. ‘Just like that. An old man and a girl are going to throw out a man with an army at his back.’ He shook his head disbelievingly.
The girl flared up. ‘What do you know about it; you are a foreigner – you know nothing. Lopez is finished – everyone in Cordillera knows it, even Lopez himself. He has been too greedy, too corrupt, and the country is sick of him.’
Forester rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘She could be right,’ he said. ‘It would take just a puff of wind to blow Lopez over right now. He’s run this country right into the ground in the last five years – just about milked it dry and salted enough money away in Swiss banks to last a couple of lifetimes. I don’t think he’d risk losing out now if it came to a showdown – if someone pushed hard enough he’d fold up and get out. I think he’d take wealth and comfort instead of power and the chance of being shot by some gun-happy student with a grievance.’
‘Lopez has bankrupted Cordillera,’ the girl said. She held up her head proudly. ‘But when my uncle appears in Santillana the people will rise, and that will be the end of Lopez.’
‘It could work,’ agreed Forester. ‘Your uncle was well liked. I suppose you’ve prepared the ground in advance.’
She nodded. ‘The Democratic Committee of Action has made all the arrangements. All that remains is for my uncle to appear in Santillana.’
‘He may not get there,’ said O’Hara. ‘Someone is trying to stop him, and if it isn’t Lopez, then who the hell is it?’
‘The comunistas,’ the girl spat out with loathing in her voice. ‘They cannot afford to let my uncle get into power again. They want Cordillera for their own.’
Forester said, ‘It figures. Lopez is a dead duck, come what may; so it’s Aguillar versus the communists with Cordillera as the stake.’
‘They are not quite ready,’ the girl said. ‘They do not have enough support among the people. During the last two years they have been infiltrating the government very cleverly and if they had their way the people would wake up one morning to find Lopez gone, leaving a communist government to take his place.’
‘Swapping one dictatorship for another,’ said Forester. ‘Very clever.’
‘But they are not yet ready to get rid of Lopez,’ she said. ‘My uncle would spoil their plans – he would get rid of Lopez and the government, too. He would hold elections for the first time in nine years. So the communists are trying to stop him.’
‘And you think Grivas was a communist?’ queried O’Hara.
Forester snapped his fingers. ‘Of course he was. That explains his last words. He was a communist, all right – Latin-American blend; when he said “vivaca” he was trying to say “Viva Castro”.’ His voice hardened. ‘And we can expect his buddies along any minute.’
‘We must leave here quickly,’ said the girl. ‘They must not find my uncle.’
O’Hara suddenly swung round and regarded Rohde, who had remained conspicuously silent. He said, ‘What do you import, Señor Rohde?’
‘It is all right, Señor O’Hara,’ said Aguillar weakly. ‘Miguel is my secretary.’
Forester looked at Rohde. ‘More like your bodyguard.’
Aguillar flapped his hand limply as though the distinction was of no consequence, and Forester said, ‘What put you on to him, O’Hara?’
‘I don’t like men who carry guns,’ said O’Hara shortly. ‘Especially men who could be communist.’ He looked around the cabin. ‘All right, are there any more jokers in the pack? What about you, Forester? You seem to know a hell of a lot about local politics for an American businessman.’
‘Don’t be a damn fool,’ said Forester. ‘If I didn’t take an interest in local politics my corporation would fire me. Having the right kind of government is important to us, and we sure as hell don’t want a commie set-up in Cordillera.’
He took out his wallet and extracted a business card which he handed to O’Hara. It informed him that Raymond Forester was the South American sales manager for the Fairfield Machine Tool Corporation.
O’Hara gave it back to him. ‘Was Grivas the only communist aboard?’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m getting at. When we were coming in to land, did any of the passengers take any special precautions for their safety?’
Forester thought about it, then shook his head. ‘Everyone seemed to be taken by surprise – I don’t think any of us knew just what was happening.’ He looked at O’Hara with respect. ‘In the circumstances that was a good question to ask.’
‘Well, I’m not a communist,’ said Miss Ponsky sharply. ‘The very idea!’
O’Hara smiled. ‘My apologies, Miss Ponsky,’ he said politely.
Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin; now he stood up. ‘This lady is dying,’ he said. ‘She has lost much blood and she is in shock. And she has the soroche – the mountain-sickness. If she does not get oxygen she will surely die.’ His black eyes switched to Aguillar, who seemed to have fallen asleep. ‘The Señor also must have oxygen – he’s in grave danger.’ He looked at them. ‘We must go down the mountain. To stay at this height is very dangerous.’
O’Hara was conscious of a vicious headache and the fact that his heart was thumping rapidly. He had been long enough in the country to have heard of soroche and its effects. The lower air pressure on the mountain heights meant less oxygen, the respiratory rate went up and so did the heart-beat rate, pumping the blood faster. It killed a weak constitution.
He said slowly, ‘There were oxygen cylinders in the plane – maybe they’re not busted.’
‘Good,’ said Rohde. ‘We will look, you and I. It would be better not to move this lady if possible. But if we do not find the oxygen, then we must go down the mountain.’
Forester said, ‘We must keep a fire going – the rest of us will look for wood.’ He paused. ‘Bring some petrol from the plane – we may need it.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara.
‘Come on,’ said Forester to Peabody. ‘Let’s move.’
Peabody lay where he was, gasping. ‘I’m beat,’ he said. ‘And my head’s killing me.’
‘It’s just a hangover,’ said Forester callously. ‘Get on your feet, man.’
Rohde put his hand on Forester’s arm. ‘Soroche,’ he said warningly. ‘He will not be able to do much. Come, señor.’
O’Hara followed Rohde from the cabin and shivered in the biting air. He looked around. The airstrip was built on the only piece of level ground in the vicinity; all else was steeply shelving mountainside, and all around were the pinnacles of the high Andes, clear-cut in the cold and crystal air. They soared skyward, blindingly white against the blue where the snows lay on their flanks, and where the slope was too steep for the snow to stay was the dark grey of the rock.
It was cold, desolate and utterly lifeless. There was no restful green of vegetation, or the flick of a bird’s wing – just black, white and the blue of the sky, a hard, dark metallic blue as alien as the landscape.
O’Hara pulled his jacket closer about him and looked at the other huts. ‘What is this place?’
‘It is a mine,’ said Rohde. ‘Copper and zinc – the tunnels are over there.’ He pointed to a cliff face at the end of the airstrip and O’Hara saw the dark mouths of several tunnels driven into the cliff face. Rohde shook his head. ‘But it is too high to work – they should never have tried. No man can work well at this height; not even our mountain indios.’
‘You know this place then?’
‘I know these mountains well,’ said Rohde. ‘I was born not far from here.’
They trudged along the airstrip and before they had gone a hundred yards O’Hara felt exhausted. His head ached and he felt nauseated. He sucked the thin air into his lungs and his chest heaved.
Rohde stopped and said, ‘You must not force your breathing.’
‘What else can I do?’ said O’Hara, panting. ‘I’ve got to get enough air.’
‘Breathe naturally, without effort,’ said Rohde. ‘You will get enough air. But if you force your breathing you will wash all the carbon dioxide from your lungs, and that will upset the acid base of your blood and you will get muscle cramps. And that is very bad.’
O’Hara moderated his breathing and said, ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’
‘I studied medicine once,’ said Rohde briefly.
They reached the far end of the strip and looked over the edge of the cliff. The Dakota was pretty well smashed up; the port wing had broken off, as had the entire tail section. Rohde studied the terrain. ‘We need not climb down the cliff; it will be easier to go round.’
It took them a long time to get to the plane and when they got there they found only one oxygen cylinder intact. It was difficult to get it free and out of the aircraft, but they managed it after chopping away a part of the fuselage with the axe that O’Hara found on the floor of the cockpit.
The gauge showed that the cylinder was only a third full and O’Hara cursed Filson and his cheese-paring, but Rohde seemed satisfied. ‘It will be enough,’ he said. ‘We can stay in the hut tonight.’
‘What happens if these communists turn up?’ asked O’Hara.
Rohde seemed unperturbed. ‘Then we will defend ourselves,’ he said equably. ‘One thing at a time, Señor O’Hara.’
‘Grivas seemed to think they were already here,’ said O’Hara. ‘I wonder what held them up?’
Rohde shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’
They could not manhandle the oxygen cylinder back to the huts without help, so Rohde went back, taking with him some mouthpieces and a bottle of petrol tapped from a wing tank. O’Hara searched the fuselage, looking for anything that might be of value, particularly food. That, he thought, might turn out to be a major problem. All he found was half a slab of milk chocolate in Grivas’s seat pocket.
Rohde came back with Forester, Willis and Armstrong and they took it in turns carrying the oxygen cylinder, two by two. It was very hard work and they could only manage to move it twenty yards at a time. O’Hara estimated that back in San Croce he could have picked it up and carried it a mile, but the altitude seemed to have sucked all the strength from their muscles and they could work only a few minutes at a time before they collapsed in exhaustion.
When they got it to the hut they found that Miss Ponsky was feeding the fire with wood from a door of one of the other huts that Willis and Armstrong had torn down and smashed up laboriously with rocks. Willis was particularly glad to see the axe. ‘It’ll be easier now,’ he said.
Rohde administered oxygen to Mrs Coughlin and Aguillar. She remained unconscious, but it made a startling difference to the old man. As the colour came back to his cheeks his niece smiled for the first time since the crash.
O’Hara sat before the fire, feeling the warmth soak into him, and produced his air charts. He spread the relevant chart on the floor and pin-pointed a position with a pencilled cross. ‘That’s where we were when we changed course,’ he said. ‘We flew on a true course of one-eighty-four for a shade over five minutes.’ He drew a line on the chart. ‘We were flying at a little over two hundred knots – say, two hundred and forty miles an hour. That’s about twenty miles – so that puts us about – here.’ He made another cross.
Forester looked over his shoulder. ‘The airstrip isn’t marked on the map,’ he said.
‘Rohde said it was abandoned,’ said O’Hara.
Rohde came over and looked at the map and nodded. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘That is where we are. The road down the mountain leads to the refinery. That also is abandoned, but I think some indios live there still.’
‘How far is that?’ asked Forester.
‘About forty kilometres,’ said Rohde.
‘Twenty-five miles,’ translated Forester. ‘That’s a hell of a long way in these conditions.’
‘It will not be very bad,’ said Rohde. He put his finger on the map. ‘When we get to this valley where the river runs we will be nearly five thousand feet lower and we will breathe more easily. That is about sixteen kilometres by the road.’
‘We’ll start early tomorrow,’ said O’Hara.
Rohde agreed. ‘If we had no oxygen I would have said go now. But it would be better to stay in the shelter of this hut tonight.’
‘What about Mrs Coughlin?’ said O’Hara quietly. ‘Can we move her?’
‘We will have to move her,’ said Rohde positively. ‘She cannot live at this altitude.’
‘We’ll rig together some kind of stretcher,’ said Forester. ‘We can make a sling out of clothing and poles – or maybe use a door.’
O’Hara looked across to where Mrs Coughlin was breathing stertorously, closely watched by Miss Ponsky. His voice was harsh. ‘I’d rather that bastard Grivas was still alive if that would give her back her legs,’ he said.
II
Mrs Coughlin died during the night without regaining consciousness. They found her in the morning cold and stiff. Miss Ponsky was in tears. ‘I should have stayed awake,’ she sniffled. ‘I couldn’t sleep most of the night, and then I had to drop off.’
Rohde shook his head gravely. ‘She would have died,’ he said. ‘We could not do anything for her – none of us.’
Forester, O’Hara and Peabody scratched out a shallow grave. Peabody seemed better and O’Hara thought that maybe Forester had been right when he said that Peabody was only suffering from a hangover. However, he had to be prodded into helping to dig the grave.
It seemed that everyone had had a bad night, no one sleeping very well. Rohde said that it was another symptom of soroche and the sooner they got to a lower altitude the better. O’Hara still had a splitting headache and heartily concurred.
The oxygen cylinder was empty.
O’Hara tapped the gauge with his finger but the needle stubbornly remained at zero. He opened the cock and bent his head to listen but there was no sound from the valve. He had heard the gentle hiss of oxygen several times during the night and had assumed that Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin or Aguillar.
He beckoned to Rohde. ‘Did you use all the oxygen last night?’
Rohde looked incredulously at the gauge. ‘I was saving some for today,’ he said. ‘Señor Aguillar needs it.’
O’Hara bit his lip and looked across to where Peabody sat. ‘I thought he looked pretty chipper this morning.’
Rohde growled something under his breath and took a step forward, but O’Hara caught his arm. ‘It can’t be proved,’ he said. ‘I could be wrong. And anyway, we don’t want any rows right here. Let’s get down this mountain.’ He kicked the cylinder and it clanged emptily. ‘At least we won’t have to carry this.’
He remembered the chocolate and brought it out. There were eight small squares to be divided between ten of them, so he, Rohde and Forester did without and Aguillar had two pieces. O’Hara thought that he must have had three because the girl did not appear to eat her ration.
Armstrong and Willis appeared to work well as a team. Using the axe, they had ripped some timber from one of the huts and made a rough stretcher by pushing lengths of wood through the sleeves of two overcoats. That was for Aguillar, who could not walk.
They put on all the clothes they could and left the rest in suitcases. Forester gave O’Hara a bulky overcoat. ‘Don’t mess it about if you can help it,’ he said. ‘That’s vicuna – it cost a lot of dough.’ He grinned. ‘The boss’s wife asked me to get it this trip; it’s the old man’s birthday soon.’
Peabody grumbled when he had to leave his luggage and grumbled more when O’Hara assigned him to a stretcher-carrying stint. O’Hara resisted taking a poke at him; for one thing he did not want open trouble, and for another he did not know whether he had the strength to do any damage. At the moment it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.
So they left the huts and went down the road, turning their backs on the high peaks. The road was merely a rough track cut out of the mountainside. It wound down in a series of hairpin bends and Willis pointed out where blasting had been done on the corners. It was just wide enough to take a single vehicle but, from time to time, they came across a wide part where two trucks could pass.
O’Hara asked Rohde, ‘Did they intend to truck all the ore from the mine?’
‘They would have built a telfer,’ said Rohde. ‘An endless rope with buckets. But they were still proving the mine. Petrol engines do not work well up here – they need superchargers.’ He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground.
In a patch of snow was the track of a tyre.
‘Someone’s been up here lately,’ observed O’Hara. ‘Supercharged or not. But I knew that.’
‘How?’ Rohde demanded.
‘The airstrip had been cleared of snow.’
Rohde patted his breast and moved away without saying anything. O’Hara remembered the pistol and wondered what would happen if they came up against opposition.
Although the path was downhill and the going comparatively good, it was only possible to carry the stretcher a hundred yards at a time. Forester organized relays, and as one set of carriers collapsed exhaustedly another took over. Aguillar was in a comatose condition and the girl walked next to the stretcher, anxiously watching him. After a mile they stopped for a rest and O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘I’ve got a flask of spirits. ‘I’ve been saving it for when things really get tough. Do you think it would help the old man?’
‘Let me have it,’ said Rohde.
O’Hara took the flask from his hip and gave it to Rohde, who took off the cap and sniffed the contents. ‘Aguardiente,’ he said. ‘Not the best drink but it will do.’ He looked at O’Hara curiously. ‘Do you drink this?’
‘I’m a poor man,’ said O’Hara defensively.
Rohde smiled. ‘When I was a student I also was poor. I also drank aguardiente. But I do not recommend too much,’ He looked across at Aguillar. ‘I think we save this for later.’ He recapped the flask and handed it back to O’Hara. As O’Hara was replacing it in his pocket he saw Peabody staring at him. He smiled back pleasantly.
After a rest of half an hour they started off again. O’Hara, in the lead, looked back and thought they looked like a bunch of war refugees. Willis and Armstrong were stumbling along with the stretcher, the girl keeping pace alongside; Miss Ponsky was sticking close to Rohde, chatting as though on a Sunday afternoon walk, despite her shortness of breath, and Forester was in the rear with Peabody shambling beside him.
After the third stop O’Hara found that things were going better. His step felt lighter and his breathing eased, although the headache stayed with him. The stretcher-bearers found that they could carry for longer periods, and Aguillar had come round and was taking notice.
O’Hara mentioned this to Rohde, who pointed at the steep slopes about them. ‘We are losing a lot of height,’ he said. ‘It will get better now.’
After the fourth halt O’Hara and Forester were carrying the stretcher. Aguillar apologized in a weak voice for the inconvenience he was causing, but O’Hara forbore to answer – he needed all his breath for the job. Things weren’t that much better.
Forester suddenly stopped and O’Hara thankfully laid down the stretcher. His legs felt rubbery and the breath rasped in his throat. He grinned at Forester, who was beating his hands against his chest. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘It should be warmer down in the valley.’
Forester blew on his fingers. ‘I hope so.’ He looked up at O’Hara. ‘You’re a pretty good pilot,’ he said. ‘I’ve done some flying in my time, but I don’t think I could do what you did yesterday.’
‘You might if you had a pistol at your head,’ said O’Hara with a grimace. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t leave it to Grivas – he’d have killed the lot of us, starting with me first.’
He looked past Forester and saw Rohde coming back up the road at a stumbling run, his gun in his hand. ‘Something’s happening.’
He went forward to meet Rohde, who gasped, his chest heaving. ‘There are huts here – I had forgotten them.’
O’Hara looked at the gun. ‘Do you need that?’
Rohde gave a stark smile. ‘It is possible, señor.’ He waved casually down the road with the pistol. ‘I think we should be careful. I think we should look first before doing anything. You, me, and Señor Forester.’
‘I think so too,’ said Forester. ‘Grivas said his pals would be around and this seems a likely place to meet them.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara, and looked about. There was no cover on the road but there was a jumble of rocks a little way back. ‘I think everyone else had better stick behind that lot,’ he said. ‘If anything does break, there’s no point in being caught in the open.’
They went back to shelter behind the rocks and O’Hara told everyone what was happening. He ended by saying, ‘If there’s shooting you don’t do a damned thing – you freeze and stay put. Now I know we’re not an army but we’re likely to come under fire all the same – so I’m naming Doctor Willis as second-in-command. If anything happens to us you take your orders from him.’ Willis nodded.
Aguillar’s niece was talking to Rohde, and as O’Hara went to join Forester she touched him on the arm. ‘Señor.’
He looked down at her. ‘Yes, señorita.’
‘Please be careful, you and Señor Forester. I would not want anything to happen to you because of us.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ said O’Hara. ‘Tell me, is your name the same as your uncle’s?’
‘I am Benedetta Aguillar,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I’m Tim O’Hara. I’ll be careful.’
He joined the other two and they walked down the road to the bend. Rohde said, ‘These huts were where the miners lived. This is just about as high as a man can live permanently – a man who is acclimatized such as our mountain indios. I think we should leave the road here and approach from the side. If Grivas did have friends, here is where we will find them.’
They took to the mountainside and came upon the camp from the top. A level place had been roughly bulldozed out of the side of the mountain and there were about a dozen timber-built huts, very much like the huts by the airstrip.
‘This is no good,’ said Forester. ‘We’ll have to go over this miniature cliff before we can get at them.’
‘There’s no smoke,’ O’Hara pointed out.
‘Maybe that means something – maybe it doesn’t,’ said Forester. ‘I think that Rohde and I will go round and come up from the bottom. If anything happens, maybe you can cause a diversion from up here.’
‘What do I do?’ asked O’Hara. ‘Throw stones?’
Forester shook with silent laughter. He pointed down the slope to beyond the camp. ‘We’ll come out about there. You can see us from here but we’ll be out of sight of anyone in the camp. If all’s clear you can give us the signal to come up.’ He looked at Rohde, who nodded.
Forester and Rohde left quietly and O’Hara lay on his belly, looking down at the camp. He did not think there was anyone there. It was less than five miles up to the airstrip by the road and there was nothing to stop anybody going up there. If Grivas’s confederates were anywhere, it was not likely that they would be at this camp – but it was as well to make sure. He scanned the huts but saw no sign of movement.
Presently he saw Forester wave from the side of the rock he had indicated and he waved back. Rohde went up first, in a wide arc to come upon the camp at an angle. Then Forester moved forward in the peculiar scuttling, zigzagging run of the experienced soldier who expects to be shot at. O’Hara wondered about Forester; the man had said he could fly an aeroplane and now he was behaving like a trained infantryman. He had an eye for ground, too, and was obviously accustomed to command.
Forester disappeared behind one of the huts and then Rohde came into sight at the far end of the camp, moving warily with his gun in his hand. He too disappeared, and O’Hara felt tension. He waited for what seemed a very long time, then Forester walked out from behind the nearest hut, moving quite unconcernedly. ‘You can come down,’ he called. ‘There’s no one here.’
O’Hara let out his breath with a rush and stood up. ‘I’ll go back and get the rest of the people down here,’ he shouted, and Forester waved in assent.
O’Hara went back up the road, collected the party and took them down to the camp. Forester and Rohde were waiting in the main ‘street’ and Forester called out, ‘We’ve struck it lucky; there’s a lot of food here.’
Suddenly O’Hara realized that he hadn’t eaten for a day and a half. He did not feel particularly hungry, but he knew that if he did not eat he could not last out much longer – and neither could any of the others. To have food would make a lot of difference on the next leg of the journey.
Forester said, ‘Most of the huts are empty, but three of them are fitted out as living quarters complete with kerosene heaters.’
O’Hara looked down at the ground which was crisscrossed with tyre tracks. ‘There’s something funny going on,’ he said. ‘Rohde told me that the mine has been abandoned for a long time, yet there’s all these signs of life and no one around. What the hell’s going on?’
Forester shrugged. ‘Maybe the commie organization is slipping,’ he said. ‘The Latins have never been noted for good planning. Maybe someone’s put a spoke in their wheel.’
‘Maybe,’ said O’Hara. ‘We might as well take advantage of it. What do you think we should do now – how long should we stay here?’
Forester looked at the group entering one of the huts, then up at the sky. ‘We’re pretty beat,’ he said. ‘Maybe we ought to stay here until tomorrow. It’ll take us a while to get fed and it’ll be late before we can move out. We ought to stay here tonight and keep warm.’
‘We’ll consult Rohde,’ said O’Hara. ‘He’s the expert on mountains and altitude.’
The huts were well fitted. There were paraffin stoves, bunks, plenty of blankets and a large assortment of canned foods. On the table in one of the huts there were the remnants of a meal, the plates dirty and unwashed and frozen dregs of coffee in the bottom of tin mugs. O’Hara felt the thickness of the ice and it cracked beneath the pressure of his finger.
‘They haven’t been gone long,’ he said. ‘If the hut was unheated this stuff would have frozen to the bottom.’ He passed the mug to Rohde. ‘What do you think?’
Rohde looked at the ice closely. ‘If they turned off the heaters when they left, the hut would stay warm for a while,’ he said. He tested the ice and thought deeply. ‘I would say two days,’ he said finally.
‘Say yesterday morning,’ suggested O’Hara. ‘That would be about the time we took off from San Croce.’
Forester groaned in exasperation. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why did they go to all this trouble, make all these preparations, and then clear out? One thing’s sure: Grivas expected a reception committee – and where the hell is it?’
O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘We are thinking of staying here tonight. What do you think?’
‘It is better here than at the mine,’ said Rohde. ‘We have lost a lot of height. I would say that we are at an altitude of about four thousand metres here – or maybe a little more. That will not harm us for one night; it will be better to stay here in shelter than to stay in the open tonight, even if it is lower down the mountain.’ He contracted his brows. ‘But I suggest we keep a watch.’
Forester nodded. ‘We’ll take it in turns.’
Miss Ponsky and Benedetta were busy on the pressure stoves making hot soup. Armstrong had already got the heater going and Willis was sorting out cans of food. He called O’Hara over. ‘I thought we’d better take something with us when we leave,’ he said. ‘It might come in useful.’
‘A good idea,’ said O’Hara.
Willis grinned. ‘That’s all very well, but I can’t read Spanish. I have to go by the pictures on the labels. Someone had better check on these when I’ve got them sorted out.’
Forester and Rohde went on down the road to pick a good spot for a sentry, and when Forester came back he said, ‘Rohde’s taking the first watch. We’ve got a good place where we can see bits of road a good two miles away. And if they come up at night they’re sure to have their lights on.’
He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got six able-bodied men, so if we leave here early tomorrow, that means two-hour watches. That’s not too bad – it gives us all enough sleep.’
After they had eaten Benedetta took some food down to Rohde and O’Hara found himself next to Armstrong. ‘You said you were a historian. I suppose you’re over here to check up on the Incas,’ he said.
‘Oh, no,’ said Armstrong. ‘They’re not my line of country at all. My line is medieval history.’
‘Oh,’ said O’Hara blankly.
‘I don’t know anything about the Incas and I don’t particularly want to,’ said Armstrong frankly. He smiled gently. ‘For the past ten years I’ve never had a real holiday. I’d go on holiday like a normal man – perhaps to France or Italy – and then I’d see something interesting. I’d do a bit of investigating – and before I’d know it I’d be hard at work.’
He produced a pipe and peered dubiously into his tobacco pouch. ‘This year I decided to come to South America for a holiday. All there is here is pre-European and modern history – no medieval history at all. Clever of me, wasn’t it?’
O’Hara smiled, suspecting that Armstrong was indulging in a bit of gentle leg-pulling. ‘And what’s your line, Doctor Willis?’ he asked.
‘I’m a physicist,’ said Willis. ‘I’m interested in cosmic rays at high altitudes. I’m not getting very far with it, though.’
They were certainly a mixed lot, thought O’Hara, looking across at Miss Ponsky as she talked animatedly to Aguillar. Now there was a sight – a New England spinster schoolmarm lecturing a statesman. She would certainly have plenty to tell her pupils when she arrived back at the little schoolhouse.
‘What was this place, anyway?’ asked Willis.
‘Living quarters for the mine up on top,’ said O’Hara. ‘That’s what Rohde tells me.’
Willis nodded. ‘They had their workshops down here, too,’ he said. ‘All the machinery has gone, of course, but there are still a few bits and pieces left.’ He shivered. ‘I can’t say I’d like to work in a place like this.’
O’Hara looked about the hut. ‘Neither would I.’ He caught sight of an electric conduit tube running down a wall. ‘Where did their electricity supply come from, I wonder?’
‘They had their own plant; there’s the remains of it out back. The generator has gone – they must have salvaged it when the mine closed down. They scavenged most everything, I guess; there’s precious little left.’
Armstrong drew the last of the smoke from his failing pipe with a disconsolate gurgle. ‘Well, that’s the last of the tobacco until we get back to civilization,’ he said as he knocked out the dottle. ‘Tell me, Captain; what are you doing in this part of the world?’
‘Oh, I fly aeroplanes from anywhere to anywhere,’ said O’Hara. Not any more I don’t, he thought. As far as Filson was concerned, he was finished. Filson would never forgive a pilot who wrote off one of his aircraft, no matter what the reason. I’ve lost my job, he thought. It was a lousy job but it had kept him going, and now he’d lost it.
The girl came back and he crossed over to her. ‘Anything doing down the road?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Miguel says everything is quiet.’
‘He’s quite a character,’ said O’Hara. ‘He certainly knows a lot about these mountains – and he knows a bit about medicine too.’
‘He was born near here,’ Benedetta said. ‘And he was a medical student until – ’ She stopped.
‘Until what?’ prompted O’Hara.
‘Until the revolution.’ She looked at her hands. ‘All his family were killed – that is why he hates Lopez. That is why he works with my uncle – he knows that my uncle will ruin Lopez.’
‘I thought he had a chip on his shoulder,’ said O’Hara.
She sighed. ‘It is a great pity about Miguel; he was going to do so much. He was very interested in the soroche, you know; he intended to study it as soon as he had taken his degree. But when the revolution came he had to leave the country and he had no money so he could not continue his studies. He worked in the Argentine for a while, and then he met my uncle. He saved my uncle’s life.’
‘Oh?’ O’Hara raised his eyebrows.
‘In the beginning Lopez knew that he was not safe while my uncle was alive. He knew that my uncle would organize an opposition – underground, you know. So wherever my uncle went he was in danger from the murderers hired by Lopez – even in the Argentine. There were several attempts to kill him, and it was one of these times that Miguel saved his life.’
O’Hara said, ‘Your uncle must have felt like another Trotsky. Joe Stalin had him bumped off in Mexico.’
‘That is right,’ she said with a grimace of distaste. ‘But they were communists, both of them. Anyway, Miguel stayed with us after that. He said that all he wanted was food to eat and a bed to sleep in, and he would help my uncle come back to Cordillera. And here we are.’
Yes, thought O’Hara; marooned up a bloody mountain with God knows what waiting at the bottom.
Presently Armstrong went out to relieve Rohde. Miss Ponsky came across to talk to O’Hara. ‘I’m sorry I behaved so stupidly in the airplane,’ she said crossly. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
O’Hara thought there was no need to apologize for being half frightened to death; he had been bloody scared himself. But he couldn’t say that – he couldn’t even mention the word fear to her. That would be unforgivable; no one likes to be reminded of a lapse of that nature – not even a maiden lady getting on in years. He smiled and said diplomatically, ‘Not everyone would have come through an experience like that as well as you have, Miss Ponsky.’
She was mollified and he knew that she had been in fear of a rebuff. She was the kind of person who would bite on a sore tooth, not letting it alone. She smiled and said, ‘Well now, Captain O’Hara – what do you think of all this talk about communists?’
‘I think they’re capable of anything,’ said O’Hara grimly.
‘I’m going to put in a report to the State Department when I get back,’ she said. ‘You ought to hear what Señor Aguillar has been telling me about General Lopez. I think the State Department should help Señor Aguillar against General Lopez and the communists.’
‘I’m inclined to agree with you,’ said O’Hara. ‘But perhaps your State Department doesn’t believe in interfering in Cordilleran affairs.’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Miss Ponsky with acerbity. ‘We’re supposed to be fighting the communists, aren’t we? Besides, Señor Aguillar assures me that he’ll hold elections as soon as General Lopez is kicked out. He’s a real democrat just like you and me.’
O’Hara wondered what would happen if another South American state did go communist. Cuban agents were filtering all through Latin America like woodworms in a piece of furniture. He tried to think of the strategic importance of Cordillera – it was on the Pacific coast and it straddled the Andes, a gun pointing to the heart of the continent. He thought the Americans would be very upset if Cordillera went communist.
Rohde came back and talked for a few minutes with Aguillar, then he crossed to O’Hara and said in a low voice, ‘Señor Aguillar would like to speak to you.’ He gestured to Forester and the three of them went to where Aguillar was resting in a bunk.
He had brightened considerably and was looking quite spry. His eyes were lively and no longer filmed with weariness, and there was a strength and authority in his voice that O’Hara had not heard before. He realized that this was a strong man; maybe not too strong in the body because he was becoming old and his body was wearing out, but he had a strong mind. O’Hara suspected that if the old man had not had a strong will, the body would have crumpled under the strain it had undergone.
Aguillar said, ‘First I must thank you gentlemen for all you have done, and I am truly sorry that I have brought this calamity upon you.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It is the innocent bystander who always suffers in the clash of our Latin politics. I am sorry that this should have happened and that you should see my country in this sad light.’
‘What else could we do?’ asked Forester. ‘We’re all in the same boat.’
‘I’m glad you see it that way,’ said Aguillar. ‘Because of what may come next. What happens if we meet up with the communists who should be here and are not?’
‘Before we come to that there’s something I’d like to query,’ said O’Hara. Aguillar raised his eyebrows and motioned him to continue, so O’Hara said deliberately, ‘How do we know they are communists? Señorita Aguillar tells me that Lopez has tried to liquidate you several times. How do you know he hasn’t got wind of your return and is having another crack at you?’
Aguillar shook his head. ‘Lopez has – in your English idiom – shot his bolt. I know. Do not forget that I am a practical politician and give me credit for knowing my own work. Lopez forgot about me several years ago and is only interested in how he can safely relinquish the reins of power and retire. As for the communists – for years I have watched them work in my country, undermining the government and wooing the people. They have not got far with the people, or they would have disposed of Lopez by now. I am their only danger and I am sure that our situation is their work.’
Forester said casually, ‘Grivas was trying to make a clenched fist salute when he died.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara. ‘But why all this rigmarole of Grivas in the first place? Why not just put a time bomb in the Dakota – that would have done the job very easily.’
Aguillar smiled. ‘Señor O’Hara, in my life as a politician I have had four bombs thrown at me and every one was defective. Our politics out here are emotional and emotion does not make for careful workmanship, even of bombs. And I am sure that even communism cannot make any difference to the native characteristics of my people. They wanted to make very sure of me and so they chose the unfortunate Grivas as their instrument. Would you have called Grivas an emotional man?’
‘I should think he was,’ said O’Hara, thinking of Grivas’s exultation even in death. ‘And he was pretty slipshod too.’
Aguillar spread his hands, certain he had made his point. But he drove it home. ‘Grivas would be happy to be given such work; it would appeal to his sense of drama – and my people have a great sense of drama. As for being – er – slipshod, Grivas bungled the first part of the operation by stupidly killing himself, and the others have bungled the rest of it by not being here to meet us.’
O’Hara rubbed his chin. As Aguillar drew the picture it made a weird kind of sense.
Aguillar said, ‘Now, my friends, we come to the next point. Supposing, on the way down this mountain, we meet these men – these communists? What happens then?’ He regarded O’Hara and Forester with bright eyes. ‘It is not your fight – you are not Cordillerans – and I am interested to know what you would do. Would you give this dago politician into the hands of his enemies or …’
‘Would we fight?’ finished Forester.
‘It is my fight,’ said O’Hara bluntly. ‘I’m not a Cordilleran, but Grivas pulled a gun on me and made me crash my plane. I didn’t like that, and I didn’t like the sight of the Coughlins. Anyway, I don’t like the sight of communists, and I think that, all in all, this is my fight.’
‘I concur,’ said Forester.
Aguillar raised his hand. ‘But it is not as easy as that, is it? There are others to take into account. Would it be fair on Miss – er – Ponsky, for instance? Now what I propose is this. Miguel, my niece and I will withdraw into another cabin while you talk it over – and I will abide by your joint decision.’
Forester looked speculatively at Peabody, who was just leaving the hut. He glanced at O’Hara, then said, ‘I think we should leave the question of fighting until there’s something to fight. It’s possible that we might just walk out of here.’
Aguillar had seen Forester’s look at Peabody. He smiled sardonically. ‘I see that you are a politician yourself, Señor Forester.’ He made a gesture of resignation. ‘Very well, we will leave the problem for the moment – but I think we will have to return to it.’
‘It’s a pity we had to come down the mountain,’ said Forester. ‘There’s sure to be an air search, and it might have been better to stay by the Dakota.’
‘We could not have lived up there,’ said Rohde.
‘I know, but it’s a pity all the same.’
‘I don’t think it makes much difference,’ said O’Hara. ‘The wreck will be difficult to spot from the air – it’s right at the foot of a cliff.’ He hesitated. ‘And I don’t know about an air search – not yet, anyway.’
Forester jerked his head. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’
‘Andes Airlift isn’t noted for its efficiency and Filson, my boss, isn’t good at paperwork. This flight didn’t even have a number – I remember wondering about it just before we took off. It’s on the cards that San Croce control haven’t bothered to notify Santillana to expect us.’ As he saw Forester’s expression he added, The whole set-up is shoestring and sealing-wax – it’s only a small field.’
‘But surely your boss will get worried when he doesn’t hear from you?’
‘He’ll worry,’ agreed O’Hara. ‘He told me to phone him from Santillana – but he won’t worry too much at first. There have been times when I haven’t phoned through on his say-so and had a rocket for losing cargo. But I don’t think he’ll worry about losing the plane for a couple of days at least.’
Forester blew out his cheeks. ‘Wow – what a Rube Goldberg organization. Now I really feel lost.’
Rohde said, ‘We must depend on our own efforts. I think we can be sure of that.’
‘We flew off course too,’ said O’Hara. ‘They’ll start the search north of here – when they start.’
Rohde looked at Aguillar whose eyes were closed. ‘There is nothing we can do now,’ he said. ‘But we must sleep. It will be a hard day tomorrow.’
III
Again O’Hara did not sleep very well, but at least he was resting on a mattress instead of a hard floor, with a full belly. Peabody was on watch and O’Hara was due to relieve him at two o’clock; he was glad when the time came.
He donned his leather jacket and took the vicuna coat that Forester had given him. He suspected that he would be glad of it during the next two hours. Forester was awake and waved lazily as he went out, although he did not speak.
The night air was thin and cold and O’Hara shivered as he set off down the road. As Rohde had said, the conditions for survival were better here than up by the airstrip, but it was still pretty dicey. He was aware that his heart was thumping and that his respiration rate was up. It would be much better when they got down to the quebrada, as Rohde called the lateral valley to which they were heading.
He reached the corner where he had to leave the road and headed towards the looming outcrop of rock which Rohde had picked as a vantage point. Peabody should have been perched on top of the rock and should have heard him coming, but there was no sign of his presence.
O’Hara called softly, ‘Peabody!’
There was silence.
Cautiously he circled the outcrop to get it silhouetted against the night sky. There was a lump on top of the rock which he could not quite make out. He began to climb the rock and as he reached the top he heard a muffled snore. He shook Peabody and his foot clinked on a bottle – Peabody was drunk.
‘You bloody fool,’ he said and started to slap Peabody’s face, but without appreciable result. Peabody muttered in his drunken stupor but did not recover consciousness. ‘I ought to let you die of exposure,’ whispered O’Hara viciously, but he knew he could not do that. He also knew that he could not hope to carry Peabody back to the camp by himself. He would have to get help.
He stared down the mountainside but all was quiet, so he climbed down the rock and headed back up the road. Forester was still awake and looked up inquiringly as O’Hara entered the hut. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, suddenly alert.
‘Peabody’s passed out,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ll need help to bring him up.’
‘Damn this altitude,’ said Forester, putting on his shoes.
‘It wasn’t the altitude,’ O’Hara said coldly. ‘The bastard’s dead drunk.’
Forester muffled an imprecation. ‘Where did he get the stuff?’
‘I suppose he found it in one of the huts,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ve still got my flask – I was saving it for Aguillar.’
‘All right,’ said Forester. ‘Let’s lug the damn fool up here.’
It wasn’t an easy thing to do. Peabody was a big, flabby man and his body lolled uncooperatively, but they managed it at last and dumped him unceremoniously in a bunk. Forester gasped and said, ‘This idiot will be the death of us all if we don’t watch him.’ He paused. ‘I’ll come down with you – it might be better to have two pairs of eyes down there right now.’
They went back and climbed up on to the rock, lying side by side and scanning the dark mountainside. For fifteen minutes they were silent, but saw and heard nothing. ‘I think it’s okay,’ said Forester at last. He shifted his position to ease his bones. ‘What do you think of the old man?’
‘He seems all right to me,’ said O’Hara.
‘He’s a good joe – a good liberal politician. If he lasts long enough he might end up by being a good liberal statesman – but liberals don’t last long in this part of the world, and I think he’s a shade too soft.’ Forester chuckled. ‘Even when it’s a matter of life and death – his life and death, not to mention his niece’s – he still sticks to democratic procedure. He wants us to vote on whether we shall hand him over to the commies. Imagine that!’
‘I wouldn’t hand anyone over to the communists,’ said O’Hara. He glanced sideways at the dark bulk of Forester. ‘You said you could fly a plane – I suppose you do it as a matter of business; company plane and all that.’
‘Hell, no,’ said Forester. ‘My outfit’s not big enough or advanced enough for that. I was in the Air Force – I flew in Korea.’
‘So did I,’ said O’Hara. ‘I was in the R.A.F.’
‘Well, what do you know.’ Forester was delighted. ‘Where were you based?’
O’Hara told him and he said, ‘Then you were flying Sabres like I was. We went on joint operations – hell, we must have flown together.’
‘Probably.’
They lay in companionable silence for a while, then Forester said, ‘Did you knock down any of those Migs? I got four, then they pulled me out. I was mad about that – I wanted to be a war hero; an ace, you know.’
‘You’ve got to get five in the American Air Force, haven’t you?’
‘That’s right,’ said Forester. ‘Did you get any?’
‘A couple,’ said O’Hara. He had shot down eight Migs but it was a part of his life he preferred to forget, so he didn’t elaborate. Forester sensed his reserve and was quiet. After a few minutes he said, ‘I think I’ll go back and get some sleep – if I can. We’ll be on our way early.’
When he had gone O’Hara stared into the darkness and thought about Korea. That had been the turning point of his life: before Korea he had been on his way up; after Korea there was just the endless slide, down to Filson and now beyond. He wondered where he would end up.
Thinking of Korea brought back Margaret and the letter. He had read the letter while on ready call on a frozen airfield. The Americans had a name for that kind of letter – they called them ‘Dear Johns’. She was quite matter-of-fact about it and said that they were adult and must be sensible about this thing – all the usual rationalizations which covered plain infidelity. Looking back on it afterwards O’Hara could see a little humour in it – not much, but some. He was one of the inglorious ten per cent of any army fighting away from home, and he had lost his wife to a civilian. But it wasn’t funny at all reading that letter on the cold airfield in Korea.
Five minutes later there was a scramble and he was in the air and thirty minutes later he was fighting. He went into battle with cold ferocity and a total lack of judgment. In three minutes he shot down two Migs, surprising them by sheer recklessness. Then a Chinese pilot with a cooler mind shot him down and he spent the rest of the war in a prison cage.
He did not like to think of that period and what had happened to him. He had come out of it with honour, but the psychiatrists had a field day with him when he got back to England. They did what they could but they could not break down the shell he had built about himself – and neither, by that time, could he break out.
And so it went – invalided out of the Air Force with a pension which he promptly commuted; the good jobs – at first – and then the poorer jobs, until he got down to Filson. And always the drink – more and more booze which had less and less effect as he tried to fill and smother the aching emptiness inside him.
He moved restlessly on the rock and heard the bottle clink. He put out his hand, picked it up and held it to the sky. It was a quarter full. He smiled. He could not get drunk on that but it would be very welcome. Yet as the fiery fluid spread and warmed his gut he felt guilty.
IV
Peabody was blearily belligerent when he woke up and found O’Hara looking at him. At first he looked defensive, then his instinct for attack took over. ‘I’m not gonna take anything from you,’ he said shakily. ‘Not from any goddam limey.’
O’Hara just looked at him. He had no wish to tax Peabody with anything. Weren’t they members of the same club? he thought sardonically. Fellow drunks. Why, we even drink from the same bottle. He felt miserable.
Rohde took a step forward and Peabody screamed, ‘And I’m not gonna take anything from a dago either.’
‘Then perhaps you’ll take it from me,’ snapped Forester. He took one stride and slapped Peabody hard on the side of the face. Peabody sagged back on the bed and looked into Forester’s cold eyes with an expression of fear and bewilderment on his face. His hand came up to touch the red blotch on his cheek. He was just going to speak when Forester pushed a finger at him. ‘Shut up! One cheep out of you and I’ll mash you into a pulp. Now get your big fat butt off that bed and get to work – and if you step out of line again I swear to God I’ll kill you.’
The ferocity in Forester’s voice had a chilling effect on Peabody. All the belligerence drained out of him. ‘I didn’t mean to –’ he began.
‘Shut up!’ said Forester and turned his back on him. ‘Let’s get this show on the road,’ he announced generally.
They took food and a pressure stove and fuel, carrying it in awkwardly contrived packs cobbled from their overcoats. O’Hara did not think that Forester’s boss would thank him for the vicuna coat, already showing signs of hard use.
Aguillar said he could walk, provided he was not asked to go too fast, so Forester took the stretcher poles and lashed them together in what he called a travois. ‘The Plains Indians used this for transport,’ he said. ‘They got along without wheels – so can we.’ He grinned. ‘They pulled with horses and we have only manpower, but it’s downhill all the way.’
The travois held a lot, much more than a man could carry, and Forester and O’Hara took first turn at pulling the triangular contraption, the apex bumping and bouncing on the stony ground. The others fell into line behind them and once more they wound their way down the mountain.
O’Hara looked at his watch – it was six a.m. He began to calculate – they had not come very far the previous day, not more than four or five miles, but they had been rested, warmed and fed, and that was all to the good. He doubted if they could make more than ten miles a day, so that meant another two days to the refinery, but they had enough food for at least four days, so they would be all right even if Aguillar slowed them down. Things seemed immeasurably brighter.
The terrain around them began to change. There were tufts of grass scattered sparsely and an occasional wild flower, and as they went on these signs of life became more frequent. They were able to move faster, too, and O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘The low altitude seems to be doing us good.’
‘That – and acclimatization,’ said Rohde. He smiled grimly. ‘If it does not kill you, you can get used to it – eventually.’
They came to one of the inevitable curves in the road and Rohde stopped and pointed to a silvery thread. ‘That is the quebrada – where the river is. We cross the river and turn north. The refinery is about twenty-four kilometres from the bridge.’
‘What’s the height above sea-level?’ asked O’Hara. He was beginning to take a great interest in the air he breathed – more interest than he had ever taken in his life.
‘About three thousand five hundred metres,’ said Rohde.
Twelve thousand feet, O’Hara thought. That’s much better.
They made good time and decided they would be able to have their midday rest and some hot food on the other side of the bridge. ‘A little over five miles in half a day,’ said Forester, chewing on a piece of jerked beef. ‘That won’t be bad going. But I hope to God that Rohde is right when he says that the refinery is still inhabited.’
‘We will be all right,’ said Rohde. ‘There is a village ten miles the other side of the refinery. Some of us can go on and bring back help if necessary.’
They pushed on and found that suddenly they were in the valley. There was no more snow and the ground was rocky, with more clumps of tough grass. The road ceased to twist and they went past many small ponds. It was appreciably warmer too, and O’Hara found that he could stride out without losing his breath.
We’ve got it made, he thought exultantly.
Soon they heard the roar of the river which carried the meltwater from the snowfields behind them and suddenly they were all gay. Miss Ponsky chattered unceasingly, exclaiming once in her high-pitched voice as she saw a bird, the first living, moving thing they had seen in two days. O’Hara heard Aguillar’s deep chuckle and even Peabody cheered up, recovering from Forester’s tonguelashing.
O’Hara found himself next to Benedetta. She smiled at him and said, ‘Who has the pressure stove? We are going to need it soon.’
He pointed back to where Willis and Armstrong were pulling the travois. ‘I packed it in there,’ he said.
They were very near the river now and he estimated that the road would have one last turn before they came to the bridge. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what’s round the corner.’
They stepped out and round the curve and O’Hara suddenly stopped. There were men and vehicles on the other side of the swollen river and the bridge was down.
A faint babble of voices arose above the river’s roar as they were seen and some of the men on the other side started to run. O’Hara saw a man reach into the back of a truck and lift out a rifle and there was a popping noise as others opened up with pistols.
He lurched violently into Benedetta, sending her flying just as the rifle cracked, and she stumbled into cover, dropping some cans in the middle of the road. As O’Hara fell after her one of the cans suddenly leaped into the air as a bullet hit it, and leaked a tomato bloodiness.
THREE (#ulink_69a2cd69-6880-5a7b-9496-aa613b9a45b5)
O’Hara, Forester and Rohde looked down on the bridge from the cover of a group of large boulders near the edge of the river gorge. Below, the river rumbled, a green torrent of ice-water smoothly slipping past the walls it had cut over the aeons. The gorge was about fifty yards wide.
O’Hara was still shaking from the shock of being unexpectedly fired upon. He had thrown himself into the side of the road, winding himself by falling on to a can in the pocket of his overcoat. When he recovered his breath he had looked with stupefaction at the punctured can in the middle of the road, bleeding a red tomato and meat gravy. That could have been me, he thought – or Benedetta.
It was then that he started to shake.
They had crept back round the corner, keeping in cover, while rifle bullets flicked chips of granite from the road surface. Rohde was waiting for them, his gun drawn and his face anxious. He looked at Benedetta’s face and his lips drew back over his teeth in a snarl as he took a step forward.
‘Hold it,’ said Forester quietly from behind him. ‘Let’s not be too hasty.’ He put his hand on O’Hara’s arm. ‘What’s happening back there?’
O’Hara took a grip on himself. ‘I didn’t have time to see much. I think the bridge is down; there are some trucks on the other side and there seemed to be a hell of a lot of men.’
Forester scanned the ground with a practised eye. ‘There’s plenty of cover by the river – we should be able to get a good view from among those rocks without being spotted. Let’s go.’
So here they were, looking at the ant-like activity on the other side of the river. There seemed to be about twenty men; some were busy unloading thick planks from a truck, others were cutting rope into lengths. Three men had apparently been detailed off as sentries; they were standing with rifles in their hands, scanning the bank of the gorge. As they watched, one of the men must have thought he saw something move, because he raised his rifle and fired a shot.
Forester said, ‘Nervous, aren’t they? They’re firing at shadows.’
O’Hara studied the gorge. The river was deep and ran fast – it was obviously impossible to swim. One would be swept away helplessly in the grip of that rush of water and be frozen to death in ten minutes. Apart from that, there were the problems of climbing down the edge of the gorge to the water’s edge and getting up the other side, not to mention the likelihood of being shot.
He crossed the river off his mental list of possibilities and turned his attention to the bridge. It was a primitive suspension contraption with two rope catenaries strung from massive stone buttresses on each side of the gorge. From the catenaries other ropes, graded in length, supported the main roadway of the bridge which was made of planks. But there was a gap in the middle where a lot of planks were missing and the ropes dangled in the breeze.
Forester said softly, ‘That’s why they didn’t meet us at the airstrip. See the truck in the river – downstream, slapped up against the side of the gorge?’
O’Hara looked and saw the truck in the water, almost totally submerged, with a standing wave of water swirling over the top of the cab. He looked back at the bridge. ‘It seems as though it was crossing from this side when it went over.’
‘That figures,’ said Forester. ‘I reckon they’d have a couple of men to make the preliminary arrangements – stocking up the camp and so on – in readiness for the main party. When the main party was due they came down to the bridge to cross – God knows for what reason. But they didn’t make it – and they buggered the bridge, with the main party still on the other side.’
‘They’re repairing it now,’ said O’Hara. ‘Look.’
Two men crawled on to the swaying bridge pushing a plank before them. They lashed it into place with the aid of a barrage of shouted advice from terra firma and then retreated. O’Hara looked at his watch; it had taken them half an hour.
‘How many planks to go?’ he asked.
Rohde grunted. ‘About thirty.’
‘That gives us fifteen hours before they’re across,’ said O’Hara.
‘More than that,’ said Forester. ‘They’re not likely to do that trapeze act in the dark.’
Rohde took out his pistol and carefully sighted on the bridge, using his forearm as a rest. Forester said, ‘That’s no damned use – you won’t hit anything at fifty yards with a pistol.’
‘I can try,’ said Rohde.
Forester sighed. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘But just one shot to see how it goes. How many slugs have you got?’
‘I had two magazines with seven bullets in each,’ said Rohde. ‘I have fired three shots.’
‘You pop off another and that leaves ten. That’s not too many.’
Rohde tightened his lips stubbornly and kept the pistol where it was. Forester winked at O’Hara and said, ‘If you don’t mind I’m going to retire now. As soon as you start shooting they’re going to shoot right back.’
He withdrew slowly, then turned and lay on his back and looked at the sky, gesturing for O’Hara to join him. ‘It looks as though the time is ripe to hold our council of war,’ he said. ‘Surrender or fight. But there may be a way out of it – have you got that air chart of yours?’
O’Hara produced it. ‘We can’t cross the river – not here, at least,’ he said.
Forester spread out the chart and studied it. He put his finger down. ‘Here’s the river – and this is where we are. This bridge isn’t shown. What’s this shading by the river?’
‘That’s the gorge.’
Forester whistled. ‘Hell, it starts pretty high in the mountains, so we can’t get around it upstream. What about the other way?’
O’Hara measured off the distance roughly. ‘The gorge stretches for about eighty miles down stream, but there’s a bridge marked here – fifty miles away, as near as dammit.’
‘That’s a hell of a long way,’ commented Forester. ‘I doubt if the old man could make it – not over mountain country.’
O’Hara said, ‘And if that crowd over there have any sense they’ll have another truckload of men waiting for us if we do try it. They have the advantage of being able to travel fast on the lower roads.’
‘The bastards have got us boxed in,’ said Forester. ‘So it’s surrender or fight.’
‘I surrender to no communists,’ said O’Hara.
There was a flat report as Rohde fired his pistol and, almost immediately, an answering fusillade of rifle shots, the sound redoubled by echoes from the high ground behind. A bullet ricocheted from close by and whined over O’Hara’s head.
Rohde came slithering down. ‘I missed,’ he said.
Forester refrained from saying, ‘I told you so,’ but his expression showed it. Rohde grinned. ‘But it stopped them working on the bridge – they went back fast and the plank dropped in the river.’
‘That’s something,’ said O’Hara. ‘Maybe we can hold them off that way.’
‘For how long?’ asked Forester. ‘We can’t hold them off for ever – not with ten slugs. We’d better hold our council of war. You stay here, Miguel; but choose a different observation point – they might have spotted this one.’
O’Hara and Forester went back to the group on the road. As they approached O’Hara said in a low voice, ‘We’d better do something to ginger this lot up; they look too bloody nervous.’
There was a feeling of tension in the air. Peabody was muttering in a low voice to Miss Ponsky, who for once was silent herself. Willis was sitting on a rock, nervously tapping his foot on the ground, and Aguillar was speaking rapidly to Benedetta some little way removed from the group. The only one at ease seemed to be Armstrong, who was placidly sucking on an empty pipe, idly engaged in drawing patterns on the ground with a stick.
O’Hara crossed to Aguillar. ‘We’re going to decide what to do,’ he said. ‘As you suggested.’
Aguillar nodded gravely. ‘I said that it must happen.’
O’Hara said, ‘You’re going to be all right.’ He looked at Benedetta; her face was pale and her eyes were dark smudges in her head. He said, ‘I don’t know how long this is going to take, but why don’t you begin preparing a meal for us. We’ll all feel better when we’ve eaten.’
‘Yes, child,’ said Aguillar. ‘I will help you. I am a good cook, Señor O’Hara.’
O’Hara smiled at Benedetta. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’
He walked over to where Forester was giving a pep talk. ‘And that’s the position,’ he was saying. ‘We’re boxed in and there doesn’t seem to be any way out of it – but there is always a way out of anything, using brains and determination. Anyway, it’s a case of surrender or fight. I’m going to fight – and so is Tim O’Hara here; aren’t you, Tim?’
‘I am,’ said O’Hara grimly.
‘I’m going to go round and ask your views, and you must each make your own decision,’ continued Forester. ‘What about you, Doctor Willis?’
Willis looked up and his face was strained. ‘It’s difficult, isn’t it? You see, I’m not much of a fighter. Then again, it’s a question of the odds – can we win? I don’t see much reason in putting up a fight if we’re certain of losing – and I don’t see any chance at all of our winning out.’ He paused, then said hesitantly, ‘But I’ll go with the majority vote.’
Willis, you bastard, you’re a fine example of a fencesitter, thought O’Hara.
‘Peabody?’ Forester’s voice cut like a lash.
‘What the hell has this got to do with us?’ exploded Peabody. ‘I’m damned if I’m going to risk my life for any wop politician. I say hand the bastard over and let’s get the hell out of here.’
‘What do you say, Miss Ponsky?’
She gave Peabody a look of scorn, then hesitated. All the talk seemed to be knocked out of her, leaving her curiously deflated. At last she said in a small voice, ‘I know I’m only a woman and I can’t do much in the way of fighting, and I’m scared to death – but I think we ought to fight.’ She ended in a rush and looked defiantly at Peabody. ‘And that’s my vote.’
Good for you, Miss Ponsky, cheered O’Hara silently. That’s three to fight. It’s now up to Armstrong – he can tip it for fighting or make a deadlock, depending on his vote.
‘Doctor Armstrong, what do you have to say?’ queried Forester.
Armstrong sucked on his pipe and it made an obscene noise. ‘I suppose I’m more an authority on this kind of situation than anyone present,’ he observed. ‘With the possible exception of Señor Aguillar, who at present is cooking our lunch, I see. Give me a couple of hours and I could quote a hundred parallel examples drawn from history.’
Peabody muttered in exasperation, ‘What the hell!’
‘The question at issue is whether to hand Señor Aguillar to the gentlemen on the other side of the river. The important point, as I see it affecting us, is what would they do with him? And I can’t really see that there is anything they can do with him other than kill him. Keeping high-standing politicians as prisoners went out of fashion a long time ago. Now, if they kill him they will automatically be forced to kill us. They would not dare take the risk of letting this story loose upon the world. They would be most painfully criticized, perhaps to the point of losing what they have set out to gain. In short, the people of Cordillera would not stand for it. So you see, we are not fighting for the life of Señor Aguillar; we are fighting for our own lives.’
He put his pipe back into his mouth and made another rude noise.
‘Does that mean that you are in favour of fighting?’ asked Forester.
‘Of course,’ said Armstrong in surprise. ‘Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been saying?’
Peabody looked at him in horror. ‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘What have I got myself into?’ He buried his head in his hands.
Forester grinned at O’Hara, and said, ‘Well, Doctor Willis?’
‘I fight,’ said Willis briefly.
O’Hara chuckled. One academic man had convinced another.
Forester said, ‘Ready to change your mind, Peabody?’
Peabody looked up. ‘You really think they’re going to rub us all out?’
‘If they kill Aguillar I don’t see what else they can do,’ said Armstrong reasonably. ‘And they will kill Aguillar, you know.’
‘Oh, hell,’ said Peabody in an anguish of indecision.
‘Come on,’ Forester ordered harshly. ‘Put up or shut up.’
‘I guess I’ll have to throw in with you,’ Peabody said morosely.
‘That’s it, then,’ said Forester. ‘A unanimous vote. I’ll tell Aguillar and we’ll discuss how to fight over some food.’ Miss Ponsky went to help the Aguillars with their cooking and O’Hara went back to the river to see what Rohde was doing. He looked back and saw that Armstrong was talking to Willis and again drawing on the ground with a stick. Willis looked interested.
Rohde had chosen a better place for observation and at first O’Hara could not find him. At last he saw the sole of a boot protruding from behind a rock and joined Rohde, who seemed pleased. ‘They have not yet come out of their holes,’ he said. ‘It has been an hour. One bullet that missed has held them up for an hour.’
‘That’s great,’ said O’Hara sardonically. ‘Ten bullets – ten hours.’
‘It is better than that,’ protested Rohde. ‘They have thirty planks to put in – that would take them fifteen hours without my bullets. With the shooting it will take them twenty-five hours. They will not work at night – so that is two full days.’
O’Hara nodded. ‘It gives us time to decide what to do next,’ he admitted. But when the bullets were finished and the bridge completed a score of armed and ruthless men would come boiling over the river. It would be a slaughter.
‘I will stay here,’ said Rohde. ‘Send some food when it is ready.’ He nodded towards the bridge. ‘It takes a brave man to walk on that, knowing that someone will shoot at him. I do not think these men are very brave – maybe it will be more than one hour to a bullet.’
O’Hara went back and told Forester what was happening and Forester grimaced. ‘Two days – maybe – two days to come up with something. But with what?’
O’Hara said, ‘I think a Committee of Ways and Means is indicated.’
They all sat in a circle on the sparse grass and Benedetta and Miss Ponsky served the food on the aluminium plates they had found at the camp. Forester said, ‘This is a war council, so please stick to the point and let’s have no idle chit-chat – we’ve no time to waste. Any sensible suggestions will be welcome.’
There was a dead silence, then Miss Ponsky said, ‘I suppose the main problem is to stop them repairing the bridge. Well, couldn’t we do something at this end – cut the ropes or something?’
‘That’s good in principle,’ said Forester. ‘Any objections to it?’ He glanced at O’Hara, knowing what he would say.
O’Hara looked at Forester sourly; it seemed as though he was being cast as the cold-water expert and he did not fancy the role. He said deliberately, ‘The approaches to the bridge from this side are wide open; there’s no cover for at least a hundred yards – you saw what happened to Benedetta and me this morning. Anyone who tried to get to the bridge along the road would be cut down before he’d got halfway. It’s point blank range, you know – they don’t have to be crack shots.’ He paused. ‘Now I know it’s the only way we can get at the bridge, but it seems impossible to me.’
‘What about a night attack?’ asked Willis.
‘That sounds good,’ said Forester.
O’Hara hated to do it, but he spoke up. ‘I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I don’t think those chaps over there are entirely stupid. They’ve got two trucks and four jeeps, maybe more, and those vehicles have at least two headlights apiece. They’ll keep the bridge well lit during the dark hours.’
There was silence again.
Armstrong cleared his throat. ‘Willis and I have been doing a little thinking and maybe we have something that will help. Again I find myself in the position of being something of an expert. You know that my work is the study of medieval history, but it so happens that I’m a specialist, and my speciality is medieval warfare. The position as I see it is that we are in a castle with a moat and a drawbridge. The drawbridge is fortuitously pulled up, but our enemies are trying to rectify that state of affairs. Our job is to stop them.’
‘With what?’ asked O’Hara. ‘A push of a pike?’
‘I wouldn’t despise medieval weapons too much, O’Hara,’ said Armstrong mildly. ‘I admit that the people of those days weren’t as adept in the art of slaughter as we are, but still, they managed to kill each other off at a satisfactory rate. Now, Rohde’s pistol is highly inaccurate at the range he is forced to use. What we want is a more efficient missile weapon than Rohde’s pistol.’
‘So we all make like Robin Hood,’ said Peabody derisively. ‘With the jolly old longbow, what? For Christ’s sake, Professor!’
‘Oh, no,’ said Armstrong. ‘A longbow is very chancy in the hands of a novice. It takes five years at least to train a good bowman.’
‘I can use the bow,’ said Miss Ponsky unexpectedly. Everyone looked at her and she coloured. ‘I’m president of the South Bridge Ladies’ Greenwood Club. Last year I won our own little championship in the Hereford Round.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Armstrong.
O’Hara said, ‘Can you use a longbow lying down, Miss Ponsky?’
‘It would be difficult,’ she said. ‘Perhaps impossible.’
O’Hara jerked his head at the gorge. ‘You stand up there with a longbow and you’ll get filled full of holes.’
She bridled. ‘I think you’d do better helping than pouring cold water on all our ideas, Mr O’Hara.’
‘I’ve got to do it,’ said O’Hara evenly. ‘I don’t want anyone killed uselessly.’
‘For God’s sake,’ exclaimed Willis. ‘How did a longbow come into this? That’s out – we can’t make one; we haven’t the material. Now, will you listen to Armstrong; he has a point to make.’ His voice was unexpectedly firm.
The flat crack of Rohde’s pistol echoed on the afternoon air and there was the answering fire of shots from the other side of the gorge. Peabody ducked and O’Hara looked at his watch. It had been an hour and twenty minutes – and they had nine bullets left.
Forester said, ‘That’s one good thing – we’re safe here. Their rifles won’t shoot round corners. Make your point, Doctor Armstrong.’
‘I was thinking of something more on the lines of a prodd or crossbow,’ said Armstrong. ‘Anyone who can use a rifle can use a crossbow and it has an effective range of over a hundred yards.’ He smiled at O’Hara. ‘You can shoot it lying down, too.’
O’Hara’s mind jumped at it. They could cover the bridge and also the road on the other side where it turned north and followed the edge of the gorge and where the enemy trucks were. He said, ‘Does it have any penetrative power?’
‘A bolt will go through mail if it hits squarely,’ said Armstrong.
‘What about a petrol tank?’
‘Oh, it would penetrate a petrol tank quite easily.’
‘Now, take it easy,’ said Forester. ‘How in hell can we make a crossbow?’
‘You must understand that I’m merely a theoretician where this is concerned,’ explained Armstrong. ‘I’m no mechanic or engineer. But I described what I want to Willis and he thinks we can make it.’
‘Armstrong and I were rooting round up at the camp,’ said Willis. ‘One of the huts had been a workshop and there was a lot of junk lying about – you know, the usual bits and pieces that you find in a metal-working shop. I reckon they didn’t think it worthwhile carting the stuff away when they abandoned the place. There are some flat springs and odd bits of metal rod; and there’s some of that concrete reinforcing steel that we can cut up to make arrows.’
‘Bolts,’ Armstrong corrected mildly. ‘Or quarrels, if you prefer. I thought first of making a prodd, you know; that’s a type of crossbow which fires bullets, but Willis has convinced me that we can manufacture bolts more easily.’
‘What about tools?’ asked O’Hara. ‘Have you anything that will cut metal?’
‘There are some old hacksaw blades,’ Willis said. ‘And I saw a couple of worn-out files. And there’s a hand-powered grindstone that looks as though it came out of the Ark. I’ll make out; I’m good with my hands and I can adapt Armstrong’s designs with the material available.’
O’Hara looked at Forester, who said slowly, ‘A weapon accurate to a hundred yards built out of junk seems too good to be true. Are you certain about this, Doctor Armstrong?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Armstrong cheerfully. ‘The crossbow has killed thousands of men in its time – I see no reason why it shouldn’t kill a few more. And Willis seems to think he can make it.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve drawn the blueprints there.’ He pointed to a few lines scratched in the dust.
‘If we’re going to do this, we’d better do it quickly,’ said O’Hara.
‘Right.’ Forester looked up at the sun. ‘You’ve got time to make it up to the camp by nightfall. It’s uphill, but you’ll be travelling light. You go too, Peabody; Willis can use another pair of hands.’
Peabody nodded quickly. He had no taste for staying too near the bridge.
‘One moment,’ said Aguillar, speaking for the first time. ‘The bridge is made of rope and wood – very combustible materials. Have you considered the use of fire? Señor O’Hara gave me the idea when he spoke of petrol tanks.’
‘Um,’ said O’Hara. ‘But how to get the fire to the bridge?’
‘Everyone think of that,’ said Forester. ‘Now let’s get things moving.’
Armstrong, Willis and Peabody left immediately on the long trudge up to the camp. Forester said, ‘I didn’t know what to make of Willis – he’s not very forthcoming – but I’ve got him tagged now. He’s the practical type; give him something to do and he’ll get it done, come hell or high water. He’ll do.’
Aguillar smiled. ‘Armstrong is surprising, too.’
‘My God!’ said Forester. ‘Crossbows in this day and age!’
O’Hara said, ‘We’ve got to think about making camp. There’s no water here, and besides, our main force is too close to the enemy. There’s a pond about half a mile back – I think that’s a good spot.’
‘Benedetta, you see to that,’ Aguillar commanded. ‘Miss Ponsky will help you.’ He watched the two women go, then turned with a grave face. ‘There is something we must discuss, together with Miguel. Let us go over there.’
Rohde was happy. ‘They have not put a plank in the bridge yet. They ran again like the rabbits they are.’
Aguillar told him what was happening and he said uncertainly, ‘A crossbow?’
‘I think it’s crazy, too,’ said Forester. ‘But Armstrong reckons it’ll work.’
‘Armstrong is a good man,’ said Aguillar. ‘He is thinking of immediate necessities – but I think of the future. Suppose we hold off these men; suppose we destroy the bridge – what then?’
‘We’re not really any better off,’ said O’Hara reflectively. ‘They’ve got us pinned down anyway.’
‘Exactly,’ said Aguillar. ‘True, we have plenty of food, but that means nothing. Time is very valuable to these men, just as it is to me. They gain everything by keeping me inactive.’
‘By keeping you here they’ve removed you from the game,’ agreed Forester. ‘How long do you think it will be before they make their coup d’état?’
Aguillar shrugged. ‘One month – maybe two. Certainly not longer. We advanced our own preparations because the communists showed signs of moving. It is a race between us with the destiny of Cordillera as the prize – maybe the destiny of the whole of Latin America is at stake. And the time is short.’
‘Your map, Señor O’Hara,’ said Rohde suddenly.
O’Hara took out the chart and spread it on a rock, and Rohde traced the course of the river north and south, shaking his head. ‘This river – this gorge – is a trap, pinning us against the mountains,’ he said.
‘We’ve agreed it’s no use going for the bridge downstream,’ said Forester. ‘It’s a hell of a long way and it’s sure to be guarded.’
‘What’s to stop them crossing that bridge and pushing up on this side of the river to outflank us?’ asked O’Hara.
‘As long as they think they can repair this bridge they won’t do that,’ Aguillar said. ‘Communists are not supermen; they are as lazy as other people and they would not relish crossing eighty kilometres of mountain country – that would take at least four days. I think they will be content to stop the bolt hole.’
Rohde’s fingers swept across the map to the west. ‘That leaves the mountains.’
Forester turned and looked at the mountain wall, at the icy peaks. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t think Señor Aguillar could make it.’
‘I know,’ said Rohde. ‘He must stay here. But someone must cross the mountains for help.’
‘Let’s see if it’s practicable,’ said O’Hara. ‘I was going to fly through the Puerto de las Aguilas. That means that anyone going back would have to go twenty miles north before striking west through the pass. And he’d have to go pretty high to get round this bloody gorge. The pass isn’t so bad – it’s only about fourteen thousand feet.’
‘A total of about thirty miles before he got into the Santos Valley,’ said Forester. ‘That’s on straight line courses. It would probably be fifty over the ground.’
There is another way,’ said Rohde quietly. He pointed to the mountains. ‘This range is high, but not very wide. On the other side lies the Santos Valley. If you draw a line on the map from here to Altemiros in the Santos Valley you will find that it is not more than twenty-five kilometres.’
O’Hara bent over the map and measured the distance. ‘You’re right; about fifteen miles – but it’s all peaks.’
‘There is a pass about two miles north-west of the mine,’ said Rohde. ‘It has no name because no one is so foolish as to use it. It is about five thousand eight hundred metres.’
Forester rapidly translated. ‘Wow! Nineteen thousand feet.’
‘What about lack of oxygen?’ asked O’Hara. ‘We’ve had enough trouble with that already. Could a man go over that pass without oxygen?’
‘I have done so,’ said Rohde. ‘Under more favourable conditions. It is a matter of acclimatization. Mountaineers know this; they stay for days at one level and then move up the mountain to another camp and stay a few days there also before moving to a higher level. It is to attune their bodies to the changing conditions.’ He looked up at the mountains. ‘If I went up to the camp tomorrow and spent a day there then went to the mine and stayed a day there – I think I could cross that pass.’
Forester said, ‘You couldn’t go alone.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ said O’Hara promptly.
‘Hold on there,’ said Forester. ‘Are you a mountaineer?’
‘No,’ said O’Hara.
‘Well, I am. I mean, I’ve scrambled about in the Rockies – that should count for something.’ He appealed to Rohde. ‘Shouldn’t it?’
Aguillar said, ‘You should not go alone, Miguel.’
‘Very well,’ said Rohde. ‘I will take one man – you.’ He nodded to Forester and smiled grimly. ‘But I promise you – you will be sorry.’
Forester grinned cheerfully and said, ‘Well, Tim, that leaves you as garrison commander. You’ll have your hands full.’
‘Si,’ said Rohde. ‘You must hold them off.’
A new sound was added to the noise of the river and Rohde immediately wriggled up to his observation post, then beckoned to O’Hara. ‘They are starting their engines,’ he said. ‘I think they are going away.’
But the vehicles did not move. ‘What are they doing?’ asked Rohde in perplexity.
‘They’re charging their batteries,’ said O’Hara. ‘They’re making sure that they’ll have plenty of light tonight.’
II
O’Hara and Aguillar went back to help the women make camp, leaving Rohde and Forester watching the bridge. There was no immediate danger of the enemy forcing the crossing and any unusual move could soon be reported. Forester’s attitude had changed as soon as the decision to cross the mountains had been made. He no longer drove hard for action, seemingly being content to leave it to O’Hara. It was as though he had tacitly decided that there could be only one commander and the man was O’Hara.
O’Hara’s lips quirked as he mentally reviewed his garrison: An old man and a young girl; two sedentary academic types; a drunk and someone’s maiden aunt; and himself – a broken-down pilot. On the other side of the river were at least twenty ruthless men – with God knows how many more to back them up. His muscles tensed at the thought that they were communists; sloppy South American communists, no doubt – but still communists.
Whatever happens, they’re not going to get me again, he thought.
Benedetta was very quiet and O’Hara knew why. To be shot at for the first time took the pith out of a person – one came to the abrupt realization that one was a soft bag of wind and liquids, vulnerable and defenceless against steel-jacketed bullets which could rend and tear. He remembered the first time he had been in action, and felt very sorry for Benedetta; at least he had been prepared, however inadequately, for the bullets – the bullets and the cannon shells.
He looked across at the scattered rocks on the bleak hillside. ‘I wonder if there’s a cave over there?’ he suggested. ‘That would come in handy right now.’ He glanced at Benedetta. ‘Let’s explore a little.’
She looked at her uncle who was helping Miss Ponsky check the cans of food. ‘All right,’ she said.
They crossed the road and struck off at right angles, making their way diagonally up the slope. The ground was covered with boulders and small pebbles and the going was difficult, their feet slipping as the stones shifted. O’Hara thought that one could break an ankle quite easily and a faint idea stirred at the back of his mind.
After a while they separated, O’Hara to the left and the girl to the right. For an hour they toiled among the rocks, searching for something that would give shelter against the night wind, however small. O’Hara found nothing, but he heard a faint shout from Benedetta and crossed the hillside to see what she had found.
It was not a cave, merely a fortuitous tumbling of the rocks. A large boulder had rolled from above and wedged itself between two others, forming a roof. It reminded O’Hara of a dolmen he had seen on Dartmoor, although the whole thing was very much bigger. He regarded it appreciatively. At least it would be shelter from snow and rain and it gave a little protection from the wind.
He went inside and found a hollow at the back. ‘This is good,’ he said. ‘This will hold a lot of water – maybe twenty gallons.’
He turned and looked at Benedetta. The exercise had brought some colour into her cheeks and she looked better. He produced his cigarettes. ‘Smoke?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t.’
‘Good!’ he said with satisfaction. ‘I was hoping you didn’t.’ He looked into the packet – there were eleven left. ‘I’m a selfish type, you know; I want these for myself.’
He sat down on a rock and lit his cigarette, voluptuously inhaling the smoke. Benedetta sat beside him and said, ‘I’m glad you decided to help my uncle.’
O’Hara grinned. ‘Some of us weren’t too sure. It needed a little tough reasoning to bring them round. But it was finally unanimous.’
She said in a low voice, ‘Do you think there’s any chance of our coming out of this?’
O’Hara bit his lip and was silent for a time. Then he said, ‘There’s no point in hiding the truth – I don’t think we’ve got a cat in hell’s chance. If they bust across the bridge and we’re as defenceless as we are now, we won’t have a hope.’ He waved his hand at the terrain. ‘There’s just one chance – if we split up, every man for himself heading in a different direction, then they’ll have to split up, too. This is rough country and one of us might get away to tell what happened to the rest. But that’s pretty poor consolation.’
‘Then why did you decide to fight?’ she said in wonder.
O’Hara chuckled. ‘Armstrong put up some pretty cogent arguments,’ he said, and told her about it. Then he added, ‘But I’d have fought anyway. I don’t like those boys across the river; I don’t like what they do to people. It makes no difference if their skins are yellow, white or brown – they’re all of the same stripe.’
‘Señor Forester was telling me that you fought together in Korea,’ Benedetta said.
‘We might have – we probably did. He was in an American squadron which we flew with sometimes. But I never met him.’
‘It must have been terrible,’ she said. ‘All that fighting.’
‘It wasn’t too bad,’ said O’Hara. ‘The fighting part of it.’ He smiled. ‘You do get used to being shot at, you know. I think that people can get used to anything if it goes on long enough – most things, anyway. That’s the only way wars can be fought – because people can adapt and treat the craziest things as normal. Otherwise they couldn’t go through with it.’
She nodded. ‘I know. Look at us here. Those men shoot at us and Miguel shoots back – he regards it as the normal thing to do.’
‘It is the normal thing to do,’ said O’Hara harshly. ‘The human being is a fighting animal; it’s that quality which has put him where he is – the king of this planet.’ His lips twisted. ‘It’s also the thing that’s maybe holding him back from bigger things.’ He laughed abruptly. ‘Christ, this is no time for the philosophy of war – I’d better leave that to Armstrong.’
‘You said something strange,’ said Benedetta. ‘You said that Korea wasn’t too bad – the fighting part of it. What was bad, if it wasn’t the fighting?’
O’Hara looked into the distance. ‘It was when the fighting stopped – when I stopped fighting – when I couldn’t fight any more. Then it was bad.’
‘You were a prisoner? In the hands of the Chinese? Forester said something of that.’
O’Hara said slowly, ‘I’ve killed men in combat – in hot blood – and I’ll probably do it again, and soon, at that. But what those communist bastards can do intellectually and with cold purpose is beyond …’ He shook his head irritably. ‘I prefer not to talk about it.’
He had a sudden vision of the bland, expressionless features of the Chinese lieutenant, Feng. It was something that had haunted his dreams and woken him screaming ever since Korea. It was the reason he preferred to go to sleep in a sodden, dreamless and mindless coma. He said, ‘Let’s talk about you. You speak good English – where did you learn it?’
She was aware that she had trodden on forbidden and shaky ground. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Señor O’Hara,’ she said contritely.
‘That’s all right. But less of the Señor O’Hara; my name is Tim.’
She smiled quickly. ‘I was educated in the United States, Tim. My uncle sent me there after Lopez made the revolution.’ She laughed. ‘I was taught English by a teacher very like Miss Ponsky.’
‘Now there’s a game old trout,’ said O’Hara. ‘Your uncle sent you? What about your parents?’
‘My mother died when I was a child. My father – Lopez had him shot.’
O’Hara sighed. ‘We both seem to be scraping on raw nerves, Benedetta. I’m sorry.’
She said sadly, ‘It’s the way the world is, Tim.’
He agreed sombrely. ‘Anyone who expects fair play in this world is a damn fool. That’s why we’re in this jam. Come on, let’s get back; this isn’t getting us anywhere.’ He pinched off his cigarette and carefully put the stub back in the packet.
As Benedetta rose she said, ‘Do you think that Señor Armstrong’s idea of a crossbow will work?’
‘I don’t,’ said O’Hara flatly. ‘I think that Armstrong is a romantic. He’s specialized as a theoretician in wars a thousand years gone, and I can’t think of anything more futile than that. He’s an ivory-tower man – an academician – bloodthirsty in a theoretical way, but the sight of blood will turn his stomach. And I think he’s a little bit nuts.’
III
Armstrong’s pipe gurgled as he watched Willis rooting about in the rubbish of the workshop. His heart was beating rapidly and he felt breathless, although the altitude did not seem to affect him as much as the previous time he had been at the hutted camp. His mind was turning over the minutiae of his profession – the science of killing without gunpowder. He thought coldly and clearly about the ranges, trajectories and penetrations that could be obtained from pieces of bent steel and twisted gut, and he sought to adapt the ingenious mechanisms so clearly diagrammed in his mind to the materials and needs of the moment. He looked up at the roof beams of the hut and a new idea dawned on him. But he put it aside – the crossbow came first.
Willis straightened, holding a flat spring. ‘This came from an auto – will it do for the bow?’
Armstrong tried to flex it and found it very stiff. ‘It’s very strong,’ he said. ‘Probably stronger than anything they had in the Middle Ages. This will be a very powerful weapon. Perhaps this is too strong – we must be able to bend it.’
‘Let’s go over that problem again,’ Willis said.
Armstrong drew on the back of an envelope. ‘For the light sporting bows they had a goat’s-foot lever, but that is not strong enough for the weapon we are considering. For the heavier military bows they had two methods of bending – the cranequin, a ratchet arranged like this, which was demounted for firing, and the other was a windlass built into the bow which worked a series of pulleys.’
Willis looked at the rough sketches and nodded. ‘The windlass is our best bet,’ he said. ‘That ratchet thing would be difficult to make. And if necessary we can weaken the spring by grinding it down.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Peabody?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Armstrong. ‘Let’s get on with this.’
‘You’d better find him,’ Willis said. ‘We’ll put him on to making arrows – that should be an easy job.’
‘Bolts or quarrels,’ said Armstrong patiently.
‘Whatever they’re called, let’s get on with it,’ Willis said.
They found Peabody taking it easy in one of the huts, heating a can of beans. Reluctantly he went along to the workshop and they got to work. Armstrong marvelled at the dexterity of Willis’s fingers as he contrived effective parts from impossible materials and worse tools. They found the old grindstone to be their most efficient cutting tool, although it tended to waste material. Armstrong sweated in turning the crank and could not keep it up for long, so they took it in turns, he and Willis silently, Peabody with much cursing.
They ripped out electric wiring from a hut and tore down conduit tubing. They cut up reinforcing steel into lengths and slotted the ends to take flights. It was cold and their hands were numb and the blood oozed from the cuts made when their makeshift tools slipped.
They worked all night and dawn was brightening the sky as Armstrong took the completed weapon in his hands and looked at it dubiously. ‘It’s a bit different from how I imagined it, but I think it will do.’ He rubbed his eyes wearily. I’ll take it down now – they might need it.’
Willis slumped against the side of the hut. ‘I’ve got an idea for a better one,’ he said. ‘That thing will be a bastard to cock. But I must get some sleep first – and food.’ His voice trailed to a mumble and he blinked his eyes rapidly.
All that night the bridge had been illuminated by the headlamps of the enemy vehicles and it was obviously hopeless to make a sortie in an attempt to cut the cables. The enemy did not work on the bridge at night, not relishing being in a spotlight when a shot could come out of the darkness.
Forester was contemptuous of them. ‘The goddam fools,’ he said. ‘If we can’t hit them in daylight then it’s sure we can’t at night – but if they’d any sense they’d see that they could spot our shooting at night and they’d send a man on to the bridge to draw our fire – then they’d fill our man full of holes.’
But during the daylight hours the enemy had worked on the bridge, and had been less frightened of the shots fired at them. No one had been hit and it had become obvious that there was little danger other than that from a freakishly lucky shot. By morning there were but six bullets left for Rohde’s pistol and there were nine more planks in the bridge.
By nine o’clock Rohde had expended two more bullets and it was then that Armstrong stumbled down the road carrying a contraption. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Here’s your crossbow.’ He rubbed his eyes which were red-rimmed and tired. ‘Professionally speaking, I’d call it an arbalest.’
‘My God, that was quick,’ said O’Hara.
‘We worked all night,’ Armstrong said tiredly. ‘We thought you’d need it in a hurry.’
‘How does it work?’ asked O’Hara, eyeing it curiously.
‘The metal loop on the business end is a stirrup,’ said Armstrong. ‘You put it on the ground and put your foot in it. Then you take this cord and clip the hook on to the bowstring and start winding on this handle. That draws back the bowstring until it engages on this sear. You drop a bolt in this trough and you’re ready to shoot. Press the trigger and the sear drops to release the bowstring.’
The crossbow was heavy in O’Hara’s hands. The bow itself was made from a car spring and the bowstring was a length of electric wire woven into a six-strand cord to give it strength. The cord which drew it back was also electric wire woven from three strands. The sear and trigger were carved from wood, and the trough where the bolt went was made from a piece of electric conduit piping.
It was a triumph of improvisation.
‘We had to weaken the spring,’ said Armstrong. ‘But it’s still got a lot of bounce. Here’s a bolt – we made a dozen.’
The bolt was merely a length of round steel, three-eighths of an inch in diameter and fifteen inches long. It was very rusty. One end was slotted to hold metal flights cut from a dried-milk can and the other end was sharpened to a point. O’Hara hefted it thoughtfully; it was quite heavy. ‘If this thing doesn’t kill immediately, anyone hit will surely die of blood-poisoning. Does it give the range you expected?’
‘A little more,’ said Armstrong. ‘These bolts are heavier than the medieval originals because they’re steel throughout instead of having a wooden shaft – but the bow is very powerful and that makes up for it. Why don’t you try it out?’
O’Hara put his foot in the stirrup and cranked the windlass handle. He found it more difficult than he had anticipated – the bow was very strong. As he slipped a bolt into the trough he said, ‘What should I shoot at?’
‘What about the earth bank over there?’
The bank was about sixty yards away. He raised the crossbow and Armstrong said quickly, ‘Try it lying down, the way we’ll use it in action. The trajectory is very flat so you won’t have much trouble with sighting. I thought we’d wait until we got down here before sighting in.’ He produced a couple of gadgets made of wire. ‘We’ll use a ring-and-pin sight.’
O’Hara lay down and fitted the rough wooden butt awkwardly into his shoulder. He peered along the trough and sighted as best he could upon a brown patch of earth on the bank. Then he squeezed the trigger and the crossbow bucked hard against his shoulder as the string was released.
There was a puff of dust from the extreme right of the target at which he had aimed. He got up and rubbed his shoulder. ‘My God!’ he said with astonishment. ‘She’s got a hell of a kick.’
Armstrong smiled faintly. ‘Let’s retrieve the bolt.’
They walked over to the bank but O’Hara could not see it. ‘It went in about here,’ he said. ‘I saw the dust distinctly – but where is it?’
Armstrong grinned. ‘I told you this weapon was powerful. There’s the bolt.’
O’Hara grunted with amazement as he saw what Armstrong meant. The bolt had penetrated more than its own length into the earth and had buried itself completely. As Armstrong dug it out, O’Hara said, ‘We’d better all practise with this thing and find out who’s the best shot.’ He looked at Armstrong. ‘You’d better get some sleep; you look pooped.’
‘I’ll wait until I see the bow in action,’ said Armstrong. ‘Maybe it’ll need some modification. Willis is making another – he has some ideas for improvements – and we put Peabody to making more bolts.’ He stood upright with the bolt in his hands. ‘And I’ve got to fix the sights.’
All of them, excepting Aguillar and Rohde, practised with the crossbow, and – perhaps not surprisingly – Miss Ponsky turned out to be the best shot, with Forester coming next and O’Hara third. Shooting the bow was rough on Miss Ponsky’s shoulder, but she made a soft shoulder-pad and eight times out of ten she put a bolt into a twelve-inch circle, clucking deprecatingly when she missed.
‘She’s not got the strength to crank it,’ said Forester. ‘But she’s damned good with the trigger.’
‘That settles it,’ said O’Hara. ‘She gets first crack at the enemy – if she’ll do it.’ He crossed over to her and said with a smile, ‘It looks as though you’re elected to go into action first. Will you give it a go?’
Her face paled and her nose seemed even sharper. ‘Oh, my!’ she said, flustered. ‘Do you think I can do it?’
‘They’ve put in another four planks,’ said O’Hara quietly. ‘And Rohde’s saving his last four bullets until he’s reasonably certain of making a hit. This is the only other chance we’ve got – and you’re the best shot.’
Visibly she pulled herself together and her chin rose in determination. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Good! You’d better come and have a look at the bridge to get your range right – and maybe you’d better take a few practice shots at the same range.’
He took her up to where Rohde was lying. ‘Miss Ponsky’s going to have a go with the crossbow,’ he said.
Rohde looked at it with interest. ‘Does it work?’
‘It’s got the range and velocity,’ O’Hara told him. ‘It should work all right.’ He turned his attention to the bridge. Two men had just put in another plank and were retreating. The gap in the bridge was getting very small – soon it would be narrow enough for a determined man to leap. ‘You’d better take the nearest man the next time they come out,’ he said. ‘What would you say the range is?’
Miss Ponsky considered. ‘A little less than the range I’ve been practising at,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I need to practise any more.’ There was a tremor in her voice.
O’Hara regarded her. ‘This has got to be done, Miss Ponsky. Remember what they did to Mrs Coughlin – and what they’ll do to us if they get across the bridge.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ she said in a low voice.
O’Hara nodded in satisfaction. ‘You take Rohde’s place. I’ll be a little way along. Take your time – you needn’t hurry. Regard it as the target practice you’ve just been doing.’
Forester had already cocked the bow and handed it up to Miss Ponsky. She put a bolt in the trough and slid forward on her stomach until she got a good view of the bridge. O’Hara waited until she was settled, then moved a little way farther along the edge of the gorge. He looked back and saw Forester talking to Armstrong, who was lying full-length on the ground, his eyes closed.
He found a good observation post and lay waiting. Presently the same two men appeared again, carrying a plank. They crawled the length of the bridge, pushing the plank before them until they reached the gap – even though none of them had been hit, they weren’t taking unnecessary chances. Once at the gap they got busy, lashing the plank to the two main ropes.
O’Hara found his heart thumping and the wait seemed intolerably long. The nearest man was wearing a leather jacket similar to his own and O’Hara could see quite clearly the flicker of his eyes as he gazed apprehensively at the opposite bank from time to time. O’Hara clenched his fist. ‘Now!’ he whispered. ‘For God’s sake – now!’
He did not hear the twang as the crossbow fired, but he saw the spurt of dust from the man’s jacket as the bolt hit him, and suddenly a shaft of steel sprouted from the man’s back just between the shoulder blades. There was a faint cry above the roar of the river and the man jerked his legs convulsively. He thrust his arms forward, almost in an imploring gesture, then he toppled sideways and rolled off the edge of the bridge, to fall in a spinning tangle of arms and legs into the raging river.
The other man paused uncertainly, then ran back across the bridge to the other side of the gorge. The bridge swayed under his pounding feet and as he ran he looked back fearfully. He joined the group at the end of the bridge and O’Hara saw him indicate his own back and another man shaking his head in disbelief.
Gently he withdrew and ran back to the place from which Miss Ponsky had fired the shot. She was lying on the ground, her body racked with sobs, and Forester was bending over her. ‘It’s all right, Miss Ponsky,’ he was saying. ‘It had to be done.’
‘But I’ve killed a man,’ she wailed. ‘I’ve taken a life.’
Forester got her to her feet and led her away, talking softly to her all the time. O’Hara bent and picked up the crossbow. ‘What a secret weapon!’ he said in admiration. ‘No noise, no flash – just zing.’ He laughed. ‘They still don’t know what happened – not for certain. Armstrong, you’re a bloody genius.’
But Armstrong was asleep.
IV
The enemy made no further attempts to repair the bridge that morning. Instead, they kept up a steady, if slow, light barrage of rifle fire, probing the tumble of rocks at the edge of the gorge in the hope of making hits. O’Hara withdrew everyone to safety, including Rohde. Then he borrowed a small mirror from Benedetta and contrived a makeshift periscope, being careful to keep the glass in the shadow of a rock so that it would not reflect direct sunlight. He fixed it so that an observer could lie on his back in perfect cover, but could still keep an eye on the bridge. Forester took first watch.
O’Hara said, ‘If they come on the bridge again use the gun – just one shot. We’ve got them off-balance now and a bit nervous. They don’t know if that chap fell off the bridge by accident, whether he was shot and they didn’t hear the report, or whether it was something else. We know it was something else and so does the other man who was on the bridge, but I don’t think they believe him. There was a hell of an argument going on the last I saw of it. At any rate, I think they’ll be leery of coming out now, and a shot ought to put them off.’
Forester checked the pistol and looked glumly at the four remaining bullets. ‘I feel a hell of a soldier – firing off twenty-five per cent of the available ammunition at one bang.’
‘It’s best this way,’ said O’Hara. ‘They don’t know the state of our ammunition, the crossbow is our secret weapon, and by God we must make the best use of it. I have ideas about that, but I want to wait for the second crossbow.’ He paused. ‘Have you any idea how many of the bastards are across there?’
‘I tried a rough count,’ said Forester. ‘I made it twenty-three. The leader seems to be a big guy with a Castro beard. He’s wearing some kind of uniform – jungle-green pants and a bush-jacket.’ He rubbed his chin and said thoughtfully, ‘It’s my guess that he’s a Cuban specialist.’
‘I’ll look out for him,’ said O’Hara. ‘Maybe if we can nail him the rest will pack up.’
‘Maybe,’ said Forester non-committally.
O’Hara trudged back to the camp which had now been transferred to the rock shelter on the hillside. That was a better defensive position and could not be so easily rushed, the attackers having to move over broken ground. But O’Hara had no great faith in it; if the enemy crossed the bridge they could move up the road fast, outflanking the rock shelter to move in behind and surround them. He had cudgelled his brain to find a way of blocking the road but had not come up with anything.
But there it was – a better place than the camp by the pond and the roadside. The trouble was water, but the rock hollow at the rear of the shelter had been filled with twenty-five gallons of water, transported laboriously a canful at a time, much of it spilling on the way. And it was a good place to sleep, too.
Miss Ponsky had recovered from her hysteria but not from her remorse. She was unaccustomedly quiet and withdrawn, speaking to no one. She had helped to transport the water and the food but had done so mechanically, as if she did not care. Aguillar was grave. ‘It is not right that this should be,’ he said. ‘It is not right that a lady like Miss Ponsky should have to do these things.’
O’Hara felt exasperated. ‘Dammit, we didn’t start this fight,’ he said. ‘The Coughlins are dead, and Benedetta was nearly killed – not to mention me. I’ll try not to let it happen again, but she is the best shot and we are fighting for our lives.’
‘You are a soldier,’ said Aguillar. ‘Almost I seem to hear you say, with Napoleon, that one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.’ His voice was gently sardonic.
O’Hara disregarded that. ‘We must all practise with the bow – we must learn to use it while we have time.’
Aguillar tapped him on the arm. ‘Señor O’Hara, perhaps if I gave myself to these people they would be satisfied.’
O’Hara stared at him. ‘You know they wouldn’t; they can’t let us go – knowing what we know.’
Aguillar nodded. ‘I know that; I was wondering if you did.’ He shrugged half-humorously. ‘I wanted you to convince me there is nothing to gain by it – and you have. I am sorry to have brought this upon all these innocent people.’
O’Hara made an impatient noise and Aguillar continued, ‘There comes a time when the soldier takes affairs out of the hands of the politician – all ways seem to lead to violence. So I must cease to be a politician and become a soldier. I will learn how to shoot this bow well, señor.’
‘I wouldn’t do too much, Señor Aguillar,’ said O’Hara. ‘You must conserve your strength in case we must move suddenly and quickly. You’re not in good physical shape, you know.’
Aguillar’s voice was sharp. ‘Señor, I will do what I must.’
O’Hara said no more, guessing he had touched on Spanish-American pride. He went to talk to Miss Ponsky.
She was kneeling in front of the pressure stove, apparently intent on watching a can of water boil, but her eyes were unfocused and staring far beyond. He knew what she was looking at – the steel bolt that had sprouted like a monstrous growth in the middle of a man’s back.
He said, ‘Killing another human being is a terrible thing, Miss Ponsky. I know – I’ve done it, and I was sickened for days afterwards. The first time I shot down an enemy fighter in Korea I followed him down – it was a dangerous thing to do, but I was young and inexperienced then. The Mig went down in flames, and his ejector seat didn’t work, so he opened the canopy manually and jumped out against the slipstream.
‘It was brave or desperate of that man to do that. But he had the Chinese sort of courage – or maybe the Russian courage, for all I know. You see, I didn’t know the nationality or even the colour of the man I had killed. He fell to earth, a spinning black speck. His parachute didn’t open. I knew he was a dead man.’
O’Hara moistened his lips. ‘I felt bad about that, Miss Ponsky; it sickened me. But then I thought that the same man had been trying to kill me – he nearly succeeded, too. He had pumped my plane full of holes before I got him and I crash-landed on the airstrip. I was lucky to get away with it – I spent three weeks in hospital. I finally worked it out that it was a case of him or me, and I was the lucky one. I don’t know if he would have had regrets if he had killed me – I think probably not. Those people aren’t trained to have much respect for life.’
He regarded her closely. ‘These people across the river are the same that I fought in Korea, no matter that their skins are a different colour. We have no fight with them if they will let us go in peace – but they won’t do that, Miss Ponsky. So it’s back to basics; kill or be killed and the devil take the loser. You did all right, Miss Ponsky; what you did may have saved all our lives and maybe the lives of a lot of people in this country. Who knows?’
As he lapsed into silence she turned to him and said in a husky, broken voice, ‘I’m a silly old woman, Mr O’Hara. For years I’ve been talking big, like everyone else in America, about fighting the communists; but I didn’t have to do it myself, and when it comes to doing it yourself it’s a different matter. Oh, we women cheered our American boys when they went to fight – there’s no one more bloodthirsty than one who doesn’t have to do the fighting. But when you do your own killing, it’s a dreadful thing, Mr O’Hara.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘The only thing that makes it bearable is that if you don’t kill, then you are killed. It reduces to a simple choice in the end.’
‘I realize that now, Mr O’Hara,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right now.’
‘My name is Tim,’ he said. ‘The English are pretty stuffy about getting on to first-name terms, but not we Irish.’
She gave him a tremulous smile. ‘I’m Jennifer.’
‘All right, Jenny,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ll try not to put you in a spot like that again.’
She turned her head away and said in a muffled voice, ‘I think I’m going to cry.’ Hastily she scrambled to her feet and ran out of the shelter.
Benedetta said from behind O’Hara, ‘That was well done, Tim.’
He turned and looked at her stonily. ‘Was it? It was something that had to be done.’ He got up and stretched his legs. ‘Let’s practise with that crossbow.’
V
For the rest of the day they practised, learning to allow for wind and the effect of a change of range. Miss Ponsky tightened still further her wire-drawn nerves and became instructress, and the general level of performance improved enormously.
O’Hara went down to the gorge and, by triangulation, carefully measured the distance to the enemy vehicles and was satisfied that he had the range measured to a foot. Then he went back and measured the same distance on the ground and told everyone to practise with the bow at that range. It was one hundred and eight yards.
He said to Benedetta, ‘I’m making you my chief-of-staff – that’s a sort of glorified secretary that a general has. Have you got pencil and paper?’
She smiled and nodded, whereupon he reeled off a dozen things that had to be done. ‘You pass on that stuff to the right people in case I forget – I’ve got a hell of a lot of things on my mind right now and I might slip up on something important when the action starts.’
He set Aguillar to tying bunches of rags around half a dozen bolts, then shot them at the target to see if the rags made any difference to the accuracy of the flight. There was no appreciable difference, so he soaked one of them in paraffin and lit it before firing, but the flame was extinguished before it reached the target.
He swore and experimented further, letting the paraffin burn fiercely before he pulled the trigger. At the expense of a scorched face he finally landed three fiercely burning bolts squarely in the target and observed happily that they continued to burn.
‘We’ll have to do this in the day-time,’ he said. ‘It’ll be bloody dangerous in the dark – they’d spot the flame before we shot.’ He looked up at the sun. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to drag this thing out as long as we can.’
It was late afternoon before the enemy ventured on to the bridge again and they scattered at a shot from Rohde who, after a long sleep, had taken over again from Forester. Rohde fired another shot before sunset and then stopped on instructions from O’Hara. ‘Keep the last two bullets,’ he said. ‘We’ll need them.’
So the enemy put in three more planks and stepped up their illumination that night, although they dared not move on the bridge.
FOUR (#ulink_84ea8bc1-6dee-5542-87af-a5597d4b2fd1)
Forester awoke at dawn. He felt refreshed after having had a night’s unbroken sleep. O’Hara had insisted that he and Rohde should not stand night watches but should get as much sleep as they could. This was the day that he and Rohde were to go up to the hutted camp to get acclimatized and the next day to go on up to the mine.
He looked up at the white mountains and felt a sudden chill in his bones. He had lied to O’Hara when he said he had mountaineered in the Rockies – the highest he had climbed was to the top of the Empire State Building in an elevator. The high peaks were blindingly bright as the sun touched them and he wrinkled his eyes to see the pass that Rohde had pointed out. Rohde had said he would be sorry and Forester judged he was right; Rohde was a tough cookie and not given to exaggeration.
After cleaning up he went down to the bridge. Armstrong was on watch, lying on his back beneath the mirror. He was busy sketching on a scrap of paper with a pencil stub, glancing up at the mirror every few minutes. He waved as he saw Forester crawling up and said, ‘All quiet. They’ve just switched off the lights.’
Forester looked at the piece of paper. Armstrong had drawn what looked like a chemist’s balance. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘The scales of justice?’
Armstrong looked startled and then pleased. ‘Why, sir, you have identified it correctly,’ he said.
Forester did not press it further. He thought Armstrong was a nut – clever, but still a nut. That crossbow of his had turned out to be some weapon – but it took a nut to think it up. He smiled at Armstrong and crawled away to where he could get a good look at the bridge.
His mouth tightened when he saw how narrow the gap was. Maybe he wouldn’t have to climb the pass after all; maybe he’d have to fight and die right where he was. He judged that by the afternoon the gap would be narrow enough for a man to jump and that O’Hara had better prepare himself for a shock. But O’Hara had seemed untroubled and talked of a plan, and Forester hoped to God that he knew what he was doing.
When he got back to the rock shelter he found that Willis had come down from the hutted camp. He had hauled a travois the whole way and it was now being unpacked. He had brought more food, some blankets and another crossbow which he was demonstrating to O’Hara.
‘This will be faster loading,’ he said. ‘I found some small gears, so I built them into the windlass – they make the cranking a lot easier. How did the other bow work?’
‘Bloody good,’ said O’Hara. ‘It killed a man.’
Willis paled a little and the unshaven bristles stood out against his white skin. Forester smiled grimly. The backroom boys always felt squeamish when they heard the results of their tinkering.
O’Hara turned to Forester. ‘As soon as they start work on the bridge we’ll give them a surprise,’ he said. ‘It’s time we put a bloody crimp in their style. We’ll have breakfast and then go down to the bridge – you’d better stick around and see the fun; you can leave immediately afterwards.’
He swung around. ‘Jenny, don’t bother about helping with the breakfast. You’re our star turn. Take a crossbow and have a few practice shots at the same range as yesterday.’ As she paled, he smiled and said gently, ‘We’ll be going down to the bridge and you’ll be firing at a stationary, inanimate target.’
Forester said to Willis, ‘Where’s Peabody?’
‘Back at the camp – making more arrows.’
‘Have any trouble with him?’
Willis grinned briefly. ‘He’s a lazy swine but a couple of kicks up the butt soon cured that,’ he said, unexpectedly coarsely. ‘Where’s Armstrong?’
‘On watch down by the bridge.’
Willis rubbed his chin with a rasping noise. ‘That man’s got ideas,’ he said. ‘He’s a whole Manhattan Project by himself. I want to talk to him.’
He headed down the hill and Forester turned to Rohde, who had been talking to Aguillar and Benedetta in Spanish. ‘What do we take with us?’
‘Nothing from here,’ Rohde said. ‘We can get what we want at the camp; but we must take little from there – we travel light.’
O’Hara looked up from the can of stew he was opening. ‘You’d better take warm clothing – you can have my leather jacket,’ he offered.
‘Thanks,’ Forester said.
O’Hara grinned. ‘And you’d better take your boss’s vicuna coat – he may need it. I hear it gets cold in New York.’
Forester smiled and took the can of hot stew. ‘I doubt if he’ll appreciate it,’ he said drily.
They had just finished breakfast when Willis came running back. ‘They’ve started work on the bridge,’ he shouted. ‘Armstrong wants to know if he should shoot.’
‘Hell no,’ said O’Hara. ‘We’ve only got two bullets.’ He swung on Rohde. ‘Go down there, get the gun from Armstrong and find yourself a good spot for shooting – but don’t shoot until I tell you.’
Rohde plunged down the hill and O’Hara turned to the others. ‘Everyone gather round,’ he ordered. ‘Where’s Jenny?’
‘I’m here,’ called Miss Ponsky from inside the shelter.
‘Come to the front, Jenny; you’ll play a big part in all this.’ O’Hara squatted down and drew two parallel lines in the dust with a sharp stone. ‘That’s the gorge and this is the bridge. Here is the road; it crosses the bridge, turns sharply on the other side and runs on the edge of the gorge, parallel to the river.’
He placed a small stone on his rough diagram. ‘Just by the bridge there’s a jeep, and behind it another jeep. Both are turned so that their lights illuminate the bridge. Behind the second jeep there’s a big truck half full of timber.’ O’Hara placed a larger stone. ‘Behind the truck there’s another jeep. There are some other vehicles farther down, but we’re not concerned with those now.’
He shifted his position. ‘Now for our side of the gorge. Miguel will be here, upstream of the bridge. He’ll take one shot at the men on the bridge. He won’t hit anyone – he hasn’t yet, anyway – but that doesn’t matter. It’ll scare them and divert their attention, which is what I want.
‘Jenny will be here, downstream of the bridge and immediately opposite the truck. The range is one hundred and eight yards, and we know the crossbow will do it because Jenny was shooting consistently well at that range all yesterday afternoon. As soon as she hears the shot she lets fly at the petrol tank of the truck.’
He looked up at Forester. ‘You’ll be right behind Jenny. As soon as she has fired she’ll hand you the bow and tell you if she’s hit the tank. If she hasn’t, you crank the bow, reload it and hand it back to her for another shot. If she has hit it, then you crank it, run up to where Benedetta will be waiting and give it to her cocked but unloaded.’
He placed another small stone. ‘I’ll be there with Benedetta right behind me. She’ll have the other crossbow ready cocked and with a fire-bolt in it.’ He looked up at her. ‘When I give you the signal you’ll light the paraffin rags on the bolt and hand the crossbow to me, and I’ll take a crack at the truck. We might need a bit of rapid fire at this point, so crank up the bows. You stick to seeing that the bolts are properly ignited before the bows are handed to me, just like we did yesterday in practice.’
He stood up and stretched. ‘Is that clear to everyone?’
Willis said, ‘What do I do?’
‘Anyone not directly concerned with this operation will keep his head down and stay out of the way.’ O’Hara paused. ‘But stand by in case anything goes wrong with the bows.’
‘I’ve got some spare bowstrings,’ said Willis. ‘I’ll have a look at that first bow to see if it’s okay.’
‘Do that,’ said O’Hara. ‘Any more questions?’
There were no questions. Miss Ponsky held up her chin in a grimly determined manner; Benedetta turned immediately to collect the fire-bolts which were her care; Forester merely said, ‘Okay with me.’
As they were going down the hill, though, he said to O’Hara, ‘It’s a good plan, but your part is goddam risky. They’ll see those fire-bolts before you shoot. You stand a good chance of being knocked off.’
‘You can’t fight a war without risk,’ said O’Hara. ‘And that’s what this is, you know; it’s as much a war as any bigger conflict.’
‘Yeah,’ said Forester thoughtfully. He glanced at O’Hara sideways. ‘What about me doing this fire-bolt bit?’
O’Hara laughed. ‘You’re going with Rohde – you picked it, you do it. You said I was garrison commander, so while you’re here you’ll bloody well obey orders.’
Forester laughed too. ‘It was worth a try,’ he said.
Close to the gorge they met Armstrong. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked plaintively.
‘Willis will tell you all about it,’ said O’Hara. ‘Where’s Rohde?’
Armstrong pointed. ‘Over there.’
O’Hara said to Forester, ‘See that Jenny has a good seat for the performance,’ and went to find Rohde.
As always, Rohde had picked a good spot. O’Hara wormed his way next to him and asked, ‘How much longer do you think they’ll be fixing that plank?’
‘About five minutes.’ Rohde lifted the pistol, obviously itching to take a shot.
‘Hold it,’ O’Hara said sharply. ‘When they come with the next plank give them five minutes and then take a crack. We’ve got a surprise cooking for them.’
Rohde raised his eyebrows but said nothing. O’Hara looked at the massive stone buttresses which carried the cables of the bridge. ‘It’s a pity those abutments aren’t made of timber – they’d have burnt nicely. What the hell did they want to build them so big for?’
‘The Incas always built well,’ said Rohde.
‘You mean this is Inca work?’ said O’Hara, astonished.
Rohde nodded. ‘It was here before the Spaniards came. The bridge needs constant renewal, but the buttresses will last for ever.’
‘Well, I’m damned,’ said O’Hara. ‘I wonder why the Incas wanted a bridge here – in the middle of nowhere.’
‘The Incas did many strange things.’ Rohde paused. ‘I seem to remember that the ore deposit of this mine was found by tracing the surface workings of the Incas. They would need the bridge if they worked metals up here.’
O’Hara watched the men on the other side of the gorge. He spotted the big man with the beard whom Forester thought was the leader, wearing a quasi-uniform and with a pistol at his waist. He walked about bellowing orders and when he shouted men certainly jumped to it. O’Hara smiled grimly as he saw that they did not bother to take cover at all. No one had been shot at while on the other side – only when on the bridge – and that policy was now going to pay off.
He said to Rohde, ‘You know what to do. I’m going to see to the rest of it.’ He slid back cautiously until it was safe to stand, then ran to where the rest were waiting, skirting the dangerous open ground at the approach to the bridge.
He said to Benedetta, ‘I’ll be posted there; you’d better get your stuff ready. Have you got matches?’
‘I have Señor Forester’s cigarette lighter.’
‘Good. You’d better keep it burning all the time, once the action starts. I’m just going along to see Jenny, then I’ll be back.’
Miss Ponsky was waiting with Forester a little farther along. She was bright-eyed and a little excited and O’Hara knew that she’d be all right if she didn’t have to kill anyone. Well, that was all right, too; she would prepare the way and he’d do the killing. He said, ‘Have you had a look?’
She nodded quickly. ‘The gas tank is that big cylinder fastened under the truck.’
‘That’s right; it’s a big target. But try to hit it squarely – a bolt might glance off unless you hit it in the middle.’
‘I’ll hit it,’ she said confidently.
He said, ‘They’ve just about finished putting a plank in. When they start to fasten the next one Rohde is going to give them five minutes and then pop off. That’s your signal.’
She smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry, Tim, I’ll do it.’
Forester said, ‘I’ll keep watch. When they bring up the plank Jenny can take over.’
‘Right,’ said O’Hara and went back to Benedetta. Armstrong was cocking the crossbow and Benedetta had arranged the fire-bolts in an arc, their points stuck in the earth. She lifted a can. ‘This is the last of the kerosene; we’ll need more for cooking.’
O’Hara smiled at this incongruous domestic note, and Willis said, ‘There’s plenty up at the camp; we found two forty-gallon drums.’
‘Did you, by God?’ said O’Hara. ‘That opens up possibilities.’ He climbed up among the rocks to the place he had chosen and tried to figure what could be done with a forty-gallon drum of paraffin. But then two men walked on to the bridge carrying a plank and he froze in concentration. One thing at a time, Tim, my boy, he thought.
He turned his head and said to Benedetta who was standing below, ‘Five minutes.’
He heard the click as she tested the cigarette lighter and turned his attention to the other side of the gorge. The minutes ticked by and he found the palms of his hands sweating. He wiped them on his shirt and cursed suddenly. A man had walked by the truck and was standing negligently in front of it – dead in front of the petrol tank.
‘For Christ’s sake, move on,’ muttered O’Hara. He knew that Miss Ponsky must have the man in her sights – but would she have the nerve to pull the trigger? He doubted it.
Hell’s teeth, I should have told Rohde what was going on, he thought. Rohde wouldn’t know about the crossbow and would fire his shot on time, regardless of the man covering the petrol tank. O’Hara ground his teeth as the man, a short, thick-set Indian type, produced a cigarette and carelessly struck a match on the side of the truck.
Rohde fired his shot and there was a yell from the bridge. The man by the truck stood frozen for a long moment and then started to run. O’Hara ignored him from then on – the man disappeared, that was all he knew – and his attention was riveted on the petrol tank. He heard a dull thunk even at that distance, and saw a dark shadow suddenly appear in the side of the tank, and saw the tank itself shiver abruptly.
Miss Ponsky had done it!
O’Hara wiped the sweat from his eyes and wished he had binoculars. Was that petrol dropping on to the road? Was that dark patch in the dust beneath the truck the spreading stain of leaking petrol, or was it just imagination? The trigger-happy bandits on the other side were letting go with all they had in their usual futile barrage, but he ignored the racket and strained his aching eyes.
The Indian came back and looked with an air of puzzlement at the truck. He sniffed the air suspiciously and then bent down to look underneath the vehicle. Then he let out a yell and waved violently.
By God, thought O’Hara exultantly, it is petrol!
He turned and snapped his fingers at Benedetta who immediately lit the fire-bolt waiting ready in the crossbow. O’Hara thumped the rock impatiently with his fist while she waited until it got well alight. But he knew this was the right way – if the rags were not burning well the flame would be extinguished in flight.
She thrust the bow at him suddenly and he twisted with it in his hands, the flame scorching his face. Another man had run up and was looking incredulously under the truck. O’Hara peered through the crude wire sight and through the flames of the burning bolt and willed himself to take his time. Gently he squeezed the trigger.
The butt lurched against his shoulder and he quickly twisted over to pass the bow back into Benedetta’s waiting hands, but he had time to see the flaming bolt arch well over the truck to bury itself in the earth on the other side of the road.
This new bow was shooting too high.
He grabbed the second bow and tried again, burning his fingers as he incautiously put his hand in the flame. He could feel his eyebrows shrivelling as he aimed and again the butt slammed his shoulder as he pulled the trigger. The shot went too far to the right and the bolt skidded on the road surface, sending up a shower of sparks.
The two men by the truck had looked up in alarm when the first bolt had gone over their heads. At the sight of the second bolt they both shouted and pointed across the gorge.
Let this one be it, prayed O’Hara, as he seized the bow from Benedetta. This is the one that shoots high, he thought, as he deliberately aimed for the lip of the gorge. As he squeezed the trigger a bullet clipped the rock by his head and a granite splinter scored a bloody line across his forehead. But the bolt went true, a flaming line drawn across the gorge which passed between the two men and beneath the truck.
With a soft thud the dripping petrol caught alight and the truck was suddenly enveloped in flames. The Indian staggered out of the inferno, his clothing on fire, and ran screaming down the road, his hands clawing at his eyes. O’Hara did not see the other man; he had turned and was grabbing for the second bow.
But he didn’t get off another shot. He had barely lined up the sights on one of the jeeps when the bow slammed into him before he touched the trigger. He was thrown back violently and the bow must have sprung of its own volition, for he saw a fire-bolt arch into the sky. Then his head struck a rock and he was knocked unconscious.
II
He came round to find Benedetta bathing his head, looking worried. Beyond, he saw Forester talking animatedly to Willis and beyond them the sky, disfigured by a coil of black, greasy smoke. He put his hand to his head and winced. ‘What the hell hit me?’
‘Hush,’ said Benedetta. ‘Don’t move.’
He grinned weakly and lifted himself up on his elbow. Forester saw that he was moving. ‘Are you all right, Tim?’
‘I don’t know,’ said O’Hara. ‘I don’t think so.’ His head ached abominably. ‘What happened?’
Willis lifted the crossbow. ‘A rifle bullet hit this,’ he said. ‘It smashed the stirrup – you were lucky it didn’t hit you. You batted your head against a rock and passed out.’
O’Hara smiled painfully at Benedetta. ‘I’m all right,’ he said and sat up. ‘Did we do the job?’
Forester laughed delightedly. ‘Did we do the job? Oh, boy!’ He knelt down next to O’Hara. ‘To begin with, Rohde actually hit his man on the bridge when he shot – plugged him neatly through the shoulder. That caused all the commotion we needed. Jenny Ponsky had a goddam tricky time with that guy in front of the gas tank, but she did her job in the end. She was shaking like a leaf when she gave me the bow.’
‘What about the truck?’ asked O’Hara. ‘I saw it catch fire – that’s about the last thing I did see.’
‘The truck’s gone,’ said Forester. ‘It’s still burning – and the jeep next to it caught fire when the second gas tank on the other side of the truck blew up. Hell, they were running about like ants across there.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Both the men who were by the truck were killed. The Indian ran plumb over the edge of the gorge – I reckon he was blinded – and the other guy was burned to a crisp. Jenny didn’t see it and I didn’t tell her.’
O’Hara nodded; it would be a nasty thing for her to live with.
‘That’s about it,’ said Forester. ‘They’ve lost all their timber – it burned with the truck. They’ve lost the truck and a jeep and they’ve abandoned the jeep by the bridge – they couldn’t get it back past the burning truck. All the other vehicles they’ve withdrawn a hell of a long way down the road where it turns away from the gorge. I’d say it’s a good half-mile. They were hopping mad, judging by the way they opened up on us. They set up the damnedest barrage of rifle fire – they must have all the ammunition in the world.’
‘Anybody hurt?’ demanded O’Hara.
‘You’re our most serious casualty – no one else got a scratch.’
‘I must bandage your head, Tim,’ said Benedetta.
‘We’ll go up to the pond,’ said O’Hara.
As he got to his feet Aguillar approached. ‘You did well, Señor O’Hara,’ he said.
O’Hara swayed and leaned on Forester for support. ‘Well enough, but they won’t fall for that trick again. All we’ve bought is time.’ His voice was sober.
‘Time is what we need,’ said Forester. ‘Earlier this morning I wouldn’t have given two cents for our scheme to cross the mountains. But now Rohde and I can leave with an easy conscience.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’d better get on the road.’
Miss Ponsky came up. ‘Are you all right, Mr O’Hara – Tim?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘You did all right, Jenny.’
She blushed. ‘Why – thank you, Tim. But I had a dreadful moment. I really thought I’d have to shoot that man by the truck.’
O’Hara looked at Forester and grinned weakly and Forester suppressed a macabre laugh. ‘You did just what you were supposed to do,’ said O’Hara, ‘and you did it very well.’ He looked around. ‘Willis, you stay down here – get the gun from Rohde and if anything happens fire the last bullet. But I don’t think anything will happen – not yet a while. The rest of us will have a war council up by the pond. I’d like to do that before Ray goes off.’
‘Okay,’ said Forester.
They went up to the pond and O’Hara walked over to the water’s edge. Before he took a cupped handful of water he caught sight of his own reflection and grimaced distastefully. He was unshaven and very dirty, his face blackened by smoke and dried blood and his eyes red-rimmed and sore from the heat of the fire-bolts. My God, I look like a tramp, he thought.
He dashed cold water at his face and shivered violently, then turned to find Benedetta behind him, a strip of cloth in her hands. ‘Your head,’ she said. ‘The skin was broken.’
He put a hand to the back of his head and felt the stickiness of drying blood. ‘Hell, I must have hit hard,’ he said.
‘You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Let me see to it.’
Her fingers were cool on his temples as she washed the wound and bandaged his head. He rubbed his hand raspingly over his cheek; Armstrong is always clean-shaven, he thought; I must find out how he does it.
Benedetta tied a neat little knot and said, ‘You must take it easy today, Tim. I think you are concussed a little.’
He nodded, then winced as a sharp pain stabbed through his head. ‘I think you’re right. But as for taking it easy – that isn’t up to me; that’s up to the boys on the other side of the river. Let’s get back to the others.’
Forester rose up as they approached. ‘Miguel thinks we should get going,’ he said.
‘In a moment,’ said O’Hara. ‘There are a few things I want to find out.’ He turned to Rohde. ‘You’ll be spending a day at the camp and a day at the mine. That’s two days used up. Is this lost time necessary?’
‘It is necessary and barely enough,’ said Rohde. ‘It should be longer.’
‘You’re the expert on mountains,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ll take your word for it. How long to get across?’
‘Two days,’ said Rohde positively. ‘If we have to take longer we will not do it at all.’
‘That’s four days,’ said O’Hara. ‘Add another day to convince someone that we’re in trouble and another for that someone to do something about it. We’ve got to hold out for six days at least – maybe longer.’
Forester looked grave. ‘Can you do it?’
‘We’ve got to do it,’ said O’Hara. ‘I think we’ve gained one day. They’ve got to find some timber from somewhere, and that means going back at least fifty miles to a town. They might have to get another truck as well – and it all takes time. I don’t think we’ll be troubled until tomorrow – maybe not until the next day. But I’m thinking about your troubles – how are you going to handle things on the other side of the mountain?’
Miss Ponsky said, ‘I’ve been wondering about that, too. You can’t go to the government of this man Lopez. He would not help Señor Aguillar, would he?’
Forester smiled mirthlessly. ‘He wouldn’t lift a finger. Are there any of your people in Altemiros, Señor Aguillar?’
‘I will give you an address,’ said Aguillar. ‘And Miguel will know. But you may not have to go as far as Altemiros.’
Forester looked interested and Aguillar said to Rohde, ‘The airfield.’
‘Ah,’ said Rohde. ‘But we must be careful.’
‘What’s this about an airfield?’ Forester asked.
‘There is a high-level airfield in the mountains this side of Altemiros,’ said Aguillar. ‘It is a military installation which the fighter squadrons use in rotation. Cordillera has four squadrons of fighter aircraft – the eighth, the tenth, the fourteenth and the twenty-first squadrons. We – like the communists – have been infiltrating the armed forces. The fourteenth squadron is ours; the eighth is communist; and the other two still belong to Lopez.’
‘So the odds are three to one that any squadron at the airfield will be a rotten egg,’ commented Forester.
‘That is right,’ said Aguillar. ‘But the airfield is directly on your way to Altemiros. You must tread carefully and act discreetly, and perhaps you can save much time. The commandant of the fourteenth squadron, Colonel Rodriguez, is an old friend of mine – he is safe.’
‘If he’s there,’ said Forester. ‘But it’s worth the chance. We’ll make for this airfield as soon as we’ve crossed the mountains.’
‘That’s settled,’ said O’Hara with finality. ‘Doctor Armstrong, have you any more tricks up your medieval sleeve?’
Armstrong removed his pipe from his mouth. ‘I think I have. I had an idea and I’ve been talking to Willis about it and he thinks he can make it work.’ He nodded towards the gorge. ‘Those people are going to be more prepared when they come back with their timber. They’re not going to stand up and be shot at like tin ducks in a shooting gallery – they’re going to have their defences against our crossbows. So what we need now is a trench mortar.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ exploded O’Hara. ‘Where the devil are we going to get a trench mortar?’
‘Willis is going to make it,’ Armstrong said equably. ‘With the help of Señor Rohde, Mr Forester and myself – and Mr Peabody, of course, although he isn’t much help, really.’
‘So I’m going to make a trench mortar,’ said Forester helplessly. He looked baffled. ‘What do we use for explosives? Something cleverly cooked up out of match-heads?’
‘Oh, you misunderstand me,’ said Armstrong. ‘I mean the medieval equivalent of a trench mortar. We need a machine that will throw a missile in a high trajectory to lob behind the defences which our enemies will undoubtedly have when they make their next move. There are no really new principles in modern warfare, you know; merely new methods of applying the old principles. Medieval man knew all the principles.’
He looked glumly at his empty pipe. ‘They had a variety of weapons. The onager is no use for our purpose, of course. I did think of the mangonel and the ballista, but I discarded those too, and finally settled on the trebuchet. Powered by gravity, you know, and very effective.’
If the crossbows had not been such a great success O’Hara would have jeered at Armstrong, but now he held his peace, contenting himself with looking across at Forester ironically. Forester still looked baffled and shrugged his shoulders. ‘What sort of missile would the thing throw?’ he asked.
‘I was thinking of rocks,’ said Armstrong. ‘I explained the principle of the trebuchet to Willis and he has worked it all out. It’s merely the application of simple mechanics, you know, and Willis has got all that at his fingertips. We’ll probably make a better trebuchet than they could in the Middle Ages – we can apply the scientific principles with more understanding. Willis thinks we can throw a twenty-pound rock over a couple of hundred yards with no trouble at all.’
‘Wow!’ said O’Hara. He visualized a twenty-pound boulder arching in a high trajectory – it would come out of the sky almost vertically at that range. ‘We can do the bridge a bit of no good with a thing like that.’
‘How long will it take to make?’ asked Forester.
‘Not long,’ said Armstrong. ‘Not more than twelve hours, Willis thinks. It’s a very simple machine, really.’
O’Hara felt in his pocket and found his cigarette packet. He took one of his last cigarettes and gave it to Armstrong. ‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it. You deserve it.’
Armstrong smiled delightedly and began to shred the cigarette. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I can think much better when I smoke.’
O’Hara grinned. ‘I’ll give you all my cigarettes if you can come up with the medieval version of the atom bomb.’
‘That was gunpowder,’ said Armstrong seriously. ‘I think that’s beyond us at the moment.’
‘There’s just one thing wrong with your idea,’ O’Hara commented. ‘We can’t have too many people up at the camp. We must have somebody down at the bridge in case the enemy does anything unexpected. We’ve got to keep a fighting force down here.’
‘I’ll stay,’ said Armstrong, puffing at his pipe contentedly. ‘I’m not very good with my hands – my fingers are all thumbs. Willis knows what to do; he doesn’t need me.’
‘That’s it, then,’ said O’Hara to Forester. ‘You and Miguel go up to the camp, help Willis and Peabody build this contraption, then push on to the mine tomorrow. I’ll go down and relieve Willis at the bridge.’
III
Forester found the going hard as they climbed up to the camp. His breath wheezed in his throat and he developed slight chest pains. Rohde was not so much affected and Willis apparently not at all. During the fifteen-minute rest at the halfway point he commented on it. ‘That is acclimatization,’ Rohde explained. ‘Señor Willis has spent much time at the camp – to come down means nothing to him. For us going up it is different.’
‘That’s right,’ said Willis. ‘Going down to the bridge was like going down to sea-level, although the bridge must be about twelve thousand feet up.’
‘How high is the camp?’ asked Forester.
‘I’d say about fourteen and a half thousand feet,’ said Willis. ‘I’d put the mine at a couple of thousand feet higher.’
Forester looked up at the peaks. ‘And the pass is nineteen thousand. Too close to heaven for my liking, Miguel.’
Rohde’s lips twisted. ‘Not heaven – it is a cold hell.’
When they arrived at the camp Forester was feeling bad and said so. ‘You will be better tomorrow,’ said Rohde.
‘But tomorrow we’re going higher,’ said Forester morosely.
‘One day at each level is not enough to acclimatize,’ Rohde admitted. ‘But it is all the time we can afford.’
Willis looked around the camp. ‘Where the hell is Peabody? I’ll go and root him out.’
He wandered off and Rohde said, ‘I think we should search this camp thoroughly. There may be many things that would be of use to O’Hara.’
‘There’s the kerosene,’ said Forester. ‘Maybe Armstrong’s gadget can throw fire bombs. That would be one way of getting at the bridge to burn it.’
They began to search the huts. Most of them were empty and disused, but three of them had been fitted out for habitation and there was much equipment. In one of the huts they found Willis shaking a recumbent Peabody, who was stretched out on a bunk.
‘Five arrows,’ said Willis bitterly. ‘That’s all this bastard has done – made five arrows before he drank himself stupid.’
‘Where’s he getting the booze?’ asked Forester.
‘There’s a case of the stuff in one of the other huts.’
‘Lock it up if you can,’ said Forester. ‘If you can’t, pour it away – I ought to have warned you about this, but I forgot. We can’t do much about him now – he’s too far gone.’
Rohde who had been exploring the hut grunted suddenly as he took a small leather bag from a shelf. ‘This is good.’
Forester looked with interest at the pale green leaves which Rohde shook out into the palm of his hand. ‘What’s that?’
‘Coca leaves,’ said Rohde. ‘They will help us when we cross the mountain.’
‘Coca?’ said Forester blankly.
‘The curse of the Andes,’ said Rohde. ‘This is where cocaine comes from. It has been the ruin of the indios – this and aguardiente. Señor Aguillar intends to restrict the growing of coca when he comes into power.’ He smiled slowly. ‘It would be asking too much to stop it altogether.’
‘How is it going to help us?’ asked Forester.
‘Look around for another bag like this one containing a white powder,’ said Rohde. As they rummaged among the shelves, he continued, ‘In the great days of the Incas the use of coca was restricted to the nobles. Then the royal messengers were permitted to use it because it increased their running power and stamina. Now all the indios chew coca – it is cheaper than food.’
‘It isn’t a substitute for food, is it?’
‘It anaesthetises the stomach lining,’ said Rohde. ‘A starving man will do anything to avoid the pangs of hunger. It is also a narcotic, bringing calmness and tranquillity – at a price.’
‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ asked Forester. He opened a small bag he had found and tipped out some of the powder. ‘What is it?’
‘Lime,’ said Rohde. ‘Cocaine is an alkaloid and needs a base for it to precipitate. While we are waiting for Señor Willis to tell us what to do, I will prepare this for us.’
He poured the coca leaves into a saucer and began to grind them, using the back of a spoon as a pestle. The leaves were brittle and dry and broke up easily. When he had ground them to a powder he added lime and continued to grind until the two substances were thoroughly mixed. Then he put the mixture into an empty tin and added water, stirring until he had a light green paste. He took another tin and punched holes in the bottom, and, using it as a strainer, he forced the paste through.
He said, ‘In any of the villages round here you can see the old women doing this. Will you get me some small, smooth stones?’
Forester went out and got the stones and Rohde used them to roll and squeeze the paste like a pastrycook. Finally the paste was rolled out for the last time and Rohde cut it into rectangles with his pocket-knife. ‘These must dry in the sun,’ he said. ‘Then we put them back in the bags.’
Forester looked dubiously at the small green squares. ‘Is this stuff habit-forming?’
‘Indeed it is,’ said Rohde. ‘But do not worry; this amount will do us no harm. And it will give us the endurance to climb the mountains.’
Willis came back. ‘We can swing it,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the material to make this – what did Armstrong call it?’
‘A trebuchet,’ Forester said.
‘Well, we can do it,’ said Willis. He stopped and looked down at the table. ‘What’s that stuff?’
Forester grinned. ‘A substitute for prime steak; Miguel just cooked it up.’ He shook his head. ‘Medieval artillery and pep pills – what a hell of a mixture.’
‘Talking about steak reminds me that I’m hungry,’ said Willis. ‘We’ll eat before we get started.’
They opened some cans of stew and prepared a meal. As Forester took the first mouthful, he said, ‘Now tell me – what the hell is a trebuchet?’
Willis smiled and produced a stub of pencil. ‘Just an application of the lever,’ he said. ‘Imagine a thing like an out-of-balance seesaw – like this.’ Rapidly he sketched on the soft pine top of the table. ‘The pivot is here and one arm is, say, four times as long as the other. On the short arm you sling a weight, of, say, five hundred pounds, and on the other end you have your missile – a twenty-pound rock.’
He began to jot down calculations. ‘Those medieval fellows worked empirically – they didn’t have the concepts of energy that we have. We can do the whole thing precisely from scratch. Assuming your five-hundred-pound weight drops ten feet. The acceleration of gravity is such that, taking into account frictional losses at the pivot, it will take half a second to fall. That’s five thousand foot-pounds in a half-second, six hundred thousand foot-pounds to the minute, eighteen horse-power of energy applied instantaneously to a twenty-pound rock on the end of the long arm.’
‘That should make it move,’ said Forester.
‘I can tell you the speed,’ said Willis. ‘Assuming the ratio between the two arms is four to one, then the … the …’ He stopped, tapped on the table for a moment, then grinned. ‘Let’s call it the muzzle velocity, although this thing hasn’t a muzzle. The muzzle velocity will be eighty feet per second.’
‘Is there any way of altering the range?’
‘Sure,’ said Willis. ‘Heavy stones won’t go as far as light stones. You want to decrease the range, you use a heavier rock. I must tell O’Hara that – he’d better get busy collecting and grading ammunition.’
He began to sketch on the table in more detail. ‘For the pivot we have the back axle of a wrecked truck that’s back of the huts. The arms we make from the roof beams of a hut. There’ll have to be a cup of some kind to hold the missile – we’ll use a hub-cap bolted on to the end of the long arm. The whole thing will need a mounting but we’ll figure that out when we come to it.’
Forester looked at the sketch critically. ‘It’s going to be damned big and heavy. How are we going to get it down the mountain?’
Willis grinned. ‘I’ve figured that out too. The whole thing will pull apart and we’ll use the axle to carry the rest of it. We’ll wheel the damn thing down the mountain and assemble it again at the bridge.’
‘You’ve done well,’ said Forester.
‘It was Armstrong who thought it up,’ said Willis. ‘For a scholar, he has the most murderous tendencies. He knows more ways of killing people – say, have you ever heard of Greek fire?’
‘In a vague sort of way.’
‘Armstrong says it was as good as napalm, and that the ancients used to have flame-throwers mounted on the prows of their warships. We’ve done a bit of thinking along those lines and got nowhere.’ He looked broodingly at his sketch. ‘He says this thing is nothing to the siege weapons they had. They used to throw dead horses over city walls to start a plague. How heavy is a horse?’
‘Maybe horses weren’t as big in those days,’ said Forester.
‘Any horse that could carry a man in full armour was no midget,’ Willis pointed out. He spooned the last of the gravy from his plate. ‘We’d better get started – I don’t want to work all night again.’
Rohde nodded briefly and Forester looked over at Peabody, snoring on the bunk. ‘I think we’ll start with a bucket of the coldest water we can get,’ he said.
IV
O’Hara looked across the gorge.
Tendrils of smoke still curled from the burnt-out vehicles and he caught the stench of burning rubber. He looked speculatively at the intact jeep at the bridgehead and debated whether to do something about it, but discarded the idea almost as soon as it came to him. It would be useless to destroy a single vehicle – the enemy had plenty more – and he must husband his resources for more vital targets. It was not his intention to wage a war of attrition; the enemy could beat him hands down at that game.
He had been along the edge of the gorge downstream to where the road turned away, half a mile from the bridge, and had picked out spots from which crossbowmen could keep up a harassing fire. Glumly, he thought that Armstrong was right – the enemy would not be content to be docile targets; they would certainly take steps to protect themselves against further attack. The only reason for the present success was the unexpectedness of it all, as though a rabbit had taken a weasel by the throat.
The enemy was still vigilant by the bridge. Once, when O’Hara had incautiously exposed himself, he drew a concentrated fire that was unpleasantly accurate and it was only his quick reflexes and the fact that he was in sight for so short a time that saved him from a bullet in the head. We can take no chances, he thought; no chances at all.
Now he looked at the bridge with the twelve-foot gap yawning in the middle and thought of ways of getting at it. Fire still seemed the best bet and Willis had said that there were two drums of paraffin up at the camp. He measured with his eye the hundred-yard approach to the bridge; there was a slight incline and he thought that, given a good push, a drum would roll as far as the bridge. It was worth trying.
Presently Armstrong came down to relieve him. ‘Grub’s up,’ he said.
O’Hara regarded Armstrong’s smooth cheeks. ‘I didn’t bring my shaving-kit,’ he said. ‘Apparently you did.’
‘I’ve got one of those Swiss wind-up dry shavers,’ said Armstrong. ‘You can borrow it if you like. It’s up at the shelter in my coat pocket.’
O’Hara thanked him and pointed out the enemy observation posts he had spotted. ‘I don’t think they’ll make an attempt on the bridge today,’ he said, ‘so I’m going up to the camp this afternoon. I want those drums of paraffin. But if anything happens while I’m gone and the bastards get across, then you scatter. Aguillar, Benedetta and Jenny rendezvous at the mine – not the camp – and they go up the mountain the hard way, steering clear of the road. You get up to the camp by the road as fast as you can – you’d better move fast because they’ll be right on your tail.’
Armstrong nodded. ‘I have the idea. We stall them off at the camp, giving the others time to get to the mine.’
‘That’s right,’ said O’Hara. ‘But you’re the boss in my absence and you’ll have to use your own judgment.’
He left Armstrong and went back to the shelter, where he found the professor’s coat and rummaged in the pockets. Benedetta smiled at him and said, ‘Lunch is ready.’
‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ he said, and went down the hill towards the pond, carrying the dry shaver.
Aguillar pulled his overcoat tighter about him and looked at O’Hara’s retreating figure with curious eyes. ‘That one is strange,’ he said. ‘He is a fighter but he is too cold – too objective. There is no hot blood in him, and that is not good for a young man.’
Benedetta bent her head and concentrated on the stew. ‘Perhaps he has suffered,’ she said.
Aguillar smiled slightly as he regarded Benedetta’s averted face. ‘You say he was a prisoner in Korea?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Then he must have suffered,’ agreed Aguillar. ‘Perhaps not in the body, but certainly in the spirit. Have you asked him about it?’
‘He will not talk about it.’
Aguillar wagged his head. That is also very bad. It is not good for a man to be so self-contained – to have his violence pent-up. It is like screwing down the safety-valve on a boiler – one can expect an explosion.’ He grimaced. ‘I hope I am not near when that young man explodes.’
Benedetta’s head jerked up. ‘You talk nonsense, Uncle. His anger is directed against those others across the river. He would do us no harm.’
Aguillar looked at her sadly. ‘You think so, child? His anger is directed against himself as the power of a bomb is directed against its casing – but when the casing shatters everyone around is hurt. O’Hara is a dangerous man.’
Benedetta’s lips tightened and she was going to reply when Miss Ponsky approached, lugging a crossbow. She seemed unaccountably flurried and the red stain of a blush was ebbing from her cheeks. Her protection was volubility. ‘I’ve got both bows sighted in,’ she said rapidly. ‘They’re both shooting the same now, and very accurately. They’re very strong too – I was hitting a target at one hundred and twenty yards. I left the other with Doctor Armstrong; I thought he might need it.’
‘Have you seen Señor O’Hara?’ asked Benedetta.
Miss Ponsky turned pink again. ‘I saw him at the pond,’ she said in a subdued voice. ‘What are we having for lunch?’ she continued brightly.
Benedetta laughed. ‘As always – stew.’
Miss Ponsky shuddered delicately. Benedetta said, ‘It is all that Señor Willis brought from the camp – cans of stew. Perhaps it is his favourite food.’
‘He ought to have thought of the rest of us,’ complained Miss Ponsky.
Aguillar stirred. ‘What do you think of Señor Forester, madam?’
‘I think he is a very brave man,’ she said simply. ‘He and Señor Rohde.’
‘I think so too,’ said Aguillar. ‘But also I think there is something strange about him. He is too much the man of action to be a simple businessman.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Miss Ponsky demurred. ‘A good businessman must be a man of action, at least in the States.’
‘Somehow I don’t think Forester’s idea is the pursuit of the dollar,’ Aguillar said reflectively. ‘He is not like Peabody.’
Miss Ponsky flared. ‘I could spit when I think of that man. He makes me ashamed to be an American.’
‘Do not be ashamed,’ Aguillar said gently. ‘He is not a coward because he is an American; there are cowards among all people.’
O’Hara came back. He looked better now that he had shaved the stubble from his cheeks. It had not been easy; the clockwork rotary shaver had protested when asked to attack the thicket of his beard, but he had persisted and was now smooth-cheeked and clean. The water in the pond had been too cold for bathing, but he had stripped and taken a sponge-bath and felt the better for it. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen Miss Ponsky toiling up the hill towards the shelter and hoped she had not seen him – he did not want to offend the susceptibilities of maiden ladies.
‘What have we got?’ he asked.
‘More stew,’ said Aguillar wryly.
O’Hara groaned and Benedetta laughed. He accepted the aluminium plate and said, ‘Maybe I can bring something else when I go up to the camp this afternoon. But I won’t have room for much – I’m more interested in the paraffin.’
Miss Ponsky asked, ‘What is it like by the river?’
‘Quiet,’ said O’Hara. ‘They can’t do much today so they’re contenting themselves with keeping the bridge covered. I think it’s safe enough for me to go up to the camp.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Benedetta quickly.
O’Hara paused, his fork in mid-air. ‘I don’t know if …’
‘We need food,’ she said. ‘And if you cannot carry it, somebody must.’
O’Hara glanced at Aguillar, who nodded tranquilly. ‘I will be all right,’ he said.
O’Hara shrugged. ‘It will be a help,’ he admitted.
Benedetta sketched a curtsy at him, but there was a flash of something in her eyes that warned O’Hara he must tread gently. ‘Thank you,’ she said, a shade too sweetly. ‘I’ll try not to get in the way.’
He grinned at her. ‘I’ll tell you when you are.’
V
Like Forester, O’Hara found the going hard on the way up to the camp. When he and Benedetta took a rest halfway, he sucked in the thin, cold air greedily, and gasped, ‘My God, this is getting tough.’
Benedetta’s eyes went to the high peaks. ‘What about Miguel and Señor Forester? They will have it worse.’
O’Hara nodded, then said, ‘I think your uncle ought to come up to the camp tomorrow. It is better that he should do it when he can do it in his own time, instead of being chased. And it will acclimatize him in case we have to retreat to the mine.’
‘I think that is good,’ she said. ‘I will go with him to help, and I can bring more food when I return.’
‘He might be able to help Willis with his bits and pieces,’ said O’Hara. ‘After all, he can’t do much down at the bridge anyway, and Willis wouldn’t mind another pair of hands.’
Benedetta pulled her coat about her. ‘Was it as cold as this in Korea?’
‘Sometimes,’ O’Hara said. He thought of the stonewalled cell in which he had been imprisoned. Water ran down the walls and froze into ice at night – and then the weather got worse and the walls were iced day and night. It was then that Lieutenant Feng had taken away all his clothing. ‘Sometimes,’ he repeated bleakly.
‘I suppose you had warmer clothing than we have,’ said Benedetta. ‘I am worried about Forester and Miguel. It will be very cold up in the pass.’
O’Hara felt suddenly ashamed of himself and his self-pity. He looked away quickly from Benedetta and stared at the snows above. ‘We must see if we can improvise a tent for them. They’ll spend at least one night in the open up there.’ He stood up. ‘We’d better get on.’
The camp was busy with the noise of hammering and the trebuchet was taking shape in the central clearing between the huts. O’Hara stood unnoticed for a moment and looked at it. It reminded him very much of something he had once seen in an avant-garde art magazine; a modern sculptor had assembled a lot of junk into a crazy structure and had given it some high-falutin’ name, and the trebuchet had the same appearance of wild improbability.
Forester paused and leaned on the length of steel he was using as a crude hammer. As he wiped the sweat from his eyes he caught sight of the newcomers and hailed them. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Is anything wrong?’
‘All’s quiet,’ said O’Hara reassuringly. ‘I’ve come for one of the drums of paraffin – and some grub.’ He walked round the trebuchet. ‘Will this contraption work?’
‘Willis is confident,’ said Forester. ‘That’s good enough for me.’
‘You won’t be here,’ O’Hara said stonily. ‘But I suppose I’ll have to trust the boffins. By the way – it’s going to be bloody cold up there – have you made any preparations?’
‘Not yet. We’ve been too busy on this thing.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ said O’Hara sternly. ‘We’re depending on you to bring the good old U.S. cavalry to the rescue. You’ve got to get across that pass – if you don’t, then this piece of silly artillery will be wasted. Is there anything out of which you can improvise a tent?’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Forester. ‘I’ll have a look around.’
‘Do that. Where’s the paraffin?’
‘Paraffin? Oh, you mean the kerosene. It’s in that hut there. Willis locked it up; he put all the booze in there – we had to keep Peabody sober somehow.’
‘Um,’ said O’Hara. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘He’s not much good. He’s out of condition and his disposition doesn’t help. We’ve got to drive him.’
‘Doesn’t the bloody fool realize that if the bridge is forced he’ll get his throat cut?’
Forester sighed. ‘It doesn’t seem to make any difference – logic isn’t his strong point. He goofs off at the slightest opportunity.’
O’Hara saw Benedetta going into one of the huts. ‘I’d better get that paraffin. We must have it at the bridge before it gets dark.’
He got the key of the hut from Willis and opened the door. Just inside was a crate, half-filled with bottles. There was a stir of longing in his guts as he looked at them, but he suppressed it firmly and switched his attention to the two drums of paraffin. He tested the weight of one of them, and thought, this is going to be a bastard to get down the mountain.
He heaved the drum on to its side and rolled it out of the hut. Across the clearing he saw Forester helping Benedetta to make a travois, and crossed over to them. ‘Is there any rope up here?’
‘Rope we’ve got,’ replied Forester. ‘But Rohde was worried about that – he said we’ll need it in the mountains, rotten though it is; and Willis needs it for the trebuchet, too. But there’s plenty of electric wire that Willis ripped out to make crossbow-strings with.’
‘I’ll need some to help me get that drum down the mountain – I suppose the electric wire will have to do.’
Peabody wandered over. His face had a flabby, unhealthy look about it and he exuded the scent of fear. ‘Say, what is this?’ he demanded. ‘Willis tells me that you and the spic are making a getaway over the mountains.’
Forester’s eyes were cold. ‘If you want to put it that way – yes.’
‘Well, I wanna come,’ said Peabody. ‘I’m not staying here to be shot by a bunch of commies.’
‘Are you crazy?’ said Forester.
‘What’s so crazy about it? Willis says it’s only fifteen miles to this place Altemiros.’
Forester looked at O’Hara speechlessly. O’Hara said quietly, ‘Do you think it’s going to be like a stroll in Central Park, Peabody?’
‘Hell, I’d rather take my chance in the mountains than with the commies,’ said Peabody. ‘I think you’re crazy if you think you can hold them off. What have you got? You’ve got an old man, a silly bitch of a school-marm, two nutty scientists and a girl. And you’re fighting with bows and arrows, for God’s sake.’ He tapped Forester on the chest. ‘If you’re making a getaway, I’m coming along.’
Forester slapped his hand away. ‘Now get this, Peabody, you’ll do as you’re damn well told.’
‘Who the hell are you to give orders?’ said Peabody with venom. ‘To begin with I take no orders from a limey – and I don’t see why you should be so high and mighty, either. I’ll do as I damn well please.’
O’Hara caught Forester’s eye. ‘Let’s see Rohde,’ he said hastily. He had seen Forester balling his fist and wanted to prevent trouble, for an idea was crystallizing in his mind.
Rohde was positively against it. ‘This man is in no condition to cross the mountains,’ he said. ‘He will hold us back, and if he holds us back none of us will get across. We cannot spend more than one night in the open.’
‘What do you think?’ Forester asked O’Hara.
‘I don’t like the man,’ said O’Hara. ‘He’s weak and he’ll break under pressure. If he breaks it might be the end of the lot of us. I can’t trust him.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ Forester agreed. ‘He’s a weak sister, all right. I’m going to overrule you, Miguel; he comes with us. We can’t afford to leave him with O’Hara.’
Rohde opened his mouth to protest but stopped when he saw the expression on Forester’s face. Forester grinned wolfishly and there was a hard edge to his voice when he said, ‘If he hold us up, we’ll drop the bastard into the nearest crevasse. Peabody will have to put up or shut up.’
He called Peabody over. ‘All right, you come with us. But let’s get this straight right from the start. You take orders.’
Peabody nodded. ‘All right,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll take orders from you.’
Forester was merciless. ‘You’ll take orders from anyone who damn well gives them from now on. Miguel is the expert round here and when he gives an order – you jump fast.’
Peabody’s eyes flickered, but he gave in. He had no option if he wanted to go with them. He shot a look of dislike at Rohde and said, ‘Okay, but when I get back Stateside the State Department is going to get an earful from me. What kind of place is this where good Americans can be pushed around by spics and commies?’
O’Hara looked at Rohde quickly. His face was as placid as though he had not heard. O’Hara admired his self-control – but he pitied Peabody when he got into the mountains.
Half an hour later he and Benedetta left. She was pulling the travois and he was clumsily steering the drum of paraffin. There were two loops of wire round the drum in a sling so that he could have a measure of control. They had wasted little time in saying goodbye to Rohde and Forester, and still less on Peabody. Willis had said, ‘We’ll need you up here tomorrow; the trebuchet will be ready then.’
‘I’ll be here,’ promised O’Hara. ‘If I haven’t any other engagements.’
It was difficult going down the mountain, even though they were on the road. Benedetta hauled on the travois and had to stop frequently to rest, and more often to help O’Hara with the drum. It weighed nearly four hundred pounds and seemed to have a malevolent mind of its own. His idea of being able to steer it by pulling on the wires did not work well. The drum would take charge and go careering at an angle to wedge itself in the ditch at the side of the road. Then it would be a matter of sweat and strain to get it out, whereupon it would charge into the opposite ditch.
By the time they got down to the bottom O’Hara felt as though he had been wrestling with a malign and evil adversary. His muscles ached and it seemed as though someone had pounded him with a hammer all over his body. Worse, in order to get the drum down the mountain at all he had been obliged to lighten the load by jettisoning a quarter of the contents and had helplessly watched ten gallons of invaluable paraffin drain away into the thirsty dust.
When they reached the valley Benedetta abandoned the travois and went for help. O’Hara had looked at the sky and said, ‘I want this drum at the bridge before nightfall.’
Night swoops early on the eastern slopes of the Andes. The mountain wall catches the setting sun, casting long shadows across the hot jungles of the interior. At five in the afternoon the sun was just touching the topmost peaks and O’Hara knew that in an hour it would be dark.
Armstrong came up to help and O’Hara immediately asked, ‘Who’s on watch?’
‘Jenny. She’s all right. Besides, there’s nothing doing at all.’
With two men to control the erratic drum it went more easily and they manoeuvred it to the bridgehead within half an hour. Miss Ponsky came running up. ‘They switched on their lights just now and I think I heard an auto engine from way back along there.’ She pointed downstream.
‘I would have liked to try and put out the headlamps on this jeep,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t want to waste an arrow – a quarrel – and in any case there’s something in front of the glass.’
‘They have stone guards in front of the lights,’ said Armstrong. ‘Heavy mesh wire.’
‘Go easy on the bolts, anyway,’ said O’Hara. ‘Peabody was supposed to be making some but he’s been loafing on the job.’ He carefully crept up and surveyed the bridgehead. The jeep’s headlights illuminated the whole bridge and its approaches and he knew that at least a dozen sharp pairs of eyes were watching. It would be suicidal to go out there.
He dropped back and looked at the drum in the fading light. It was much dented by its careering trip down the mountain road but he thought it would roll a little farther. He said, ‘This is the plan. We’re going to burn the bridge. We’re going to play the same trick that we played this morning but we’ll apply it on this side of the bridge.’
He put his foot on top of the drum and rocked it gently. ‘If Armstrong gives this one good heave it should roll right down to the bridge – if we’re lucky. Jenny will be standing up there with her crossbow and when it gets into the right position she’ll puncture it. I’ll be in position too, with Benedetta to hand me the other crossbow with a fire-bolt. If the drum is placed right then we’ll burn through the ropes on this side and the whole bloody bridge will drop into the water.’
‘That sounds all right,’ said Armstrong.
‘Get the bows, Jenny,’ said O’Hara and took Armstrong to one side, out of hearing of the others. ‘It’s a bit more tricky than that,’ he said. ‘In order to get the drum in the right place you’ll have to come into the open.’ He held his head on one side; the noise of the vehicle had stopped. ‘So I want to do it before they get any more lights on the job.’
Armstrong smiled gently. ‘I think your little bit is more dangerous than mine. Shooting those fire-bolts in the dark will make you a perfect target – it won’t be as easy as this morning, and then you nearly got shot.’
‘Maybe,’ said O’Hara. ‘But this has got to be done. This is how we do it. When that other jeep – or whatever it is – comes up, maybe the chaps on the other side won’t be so vigilant. My guess is that they’ll tend to watch the vehicle manoeuvre into position; I don’t think they’re a very disciplined crowd. Now, while that’s happening is the time to do your stuff. I’ll give you the signal.’
‘All right, my boy,’ said Armstrong. ‘You can rely on me.’
O’Hara helped him to push the drum into the position easiest for him, and then Miss Ponsky and Benedetta came up with the crossbows. He said to Benedetta, ‘When I give Armstrong the signal to push off the drum, you light the first fire-bolt. This has got to be done quickly if it’s going to be done at all.’
‘All right, Tim,’ she said.
Miss Ponsky went to her post without a word.
He heard the engine again, this time louder. He saw nothing on the road downstream and guessed that the vehicle was coming slowly and without lights. He thought they’d be scared of being fired on during that half-mile journey. By God, he thought, if I had a dozen men with a dozen bows I’d make life difficult for them. He smiled sourly. Might as well wish for a machine-gun section – it was just as unlikely a possibility.
Suddenly the vehicle switched its lights on. It was quite near the bridge and O’Hara got ready to give Armstrong the signal. He held his hand until the vehicle – a jeep – drew level with the burnt-out truck, then he said in a whispered shout, ‘Now!’
He heard the rattle as the drum rolled over the rocks and out of the corner of his eye saw the flame as Benedetta ignited the fire-bolt. The drum came into sight on his left, bumping down the slight incline which led towards the bridge. It hit a larger stone which threw it off course. Christ, he whispered, we’ve bungled it.
Then he saw Armstrong run into the open, chasing after the drum. A few faint shouts came from across the river and there was a shot. ‘You damned fool,’ yelled O’Hara. ‘Get back.’ But Armstrong kept running forward until he had caught up with the drum and, straightening it on course again, he gave it another boost.
There was a rafale of rifle-fire and spurts of dust flew about Armstrong’s feet as he ran back at full speed, then a metallic thunk as a bullet hit the drum and, as it turned, O’Hara saw a silver spurt of liquid rise in the air. The enemy were divided in their intentions – they did not know which was more dangerous, Armstrong or the drum. And so Armstrong got safely into cover.
Miss Ponsky raised the bow. ‘Forget it, Jenny,’ roared O’Hara. ‘They’ve done it for us.’
Again and again the drum was hit as it rolled towards the bridge and the paraffin spurted out of more holes, rising in gleaming jets into the air until the drum looked like some strange kind of liquid Catherine wheel. But the repeated impact of bullets was slowing it down and there must have been a slight and unnoticed rise in the ground before the bridge because the drum rolled to a halt just short of the abutments.
O’Hara swore and turned to grasp the crossbow which Benedetta was holding. Firing in the dark with a fire-bolt was difficult; the flame obscured his vision and he had to will himself consciously to take aim slowly. There was another babble of shouts from over the river and a bullet ricocheted from a rock nearby and screamed over his head.
He pressed the trigger gently and the scorching heat was abruptly released from his face as the bolt shot away into the opposing glare of headlamps. He ducked as another bullet clipped the rock by the side of his head and thrust the bow at Benedetta for reloading.
It was not necessary. There was a dull explosion and a violent flare of light as the paraffin around the drum caught fire. O’Hara, breathing heavily, moved to another place where he could see what was happening. It would have been very foolish to pop his head up in the same place from which he had fired his bolt.
It was with dejection that he saw a raging fire arising from a great pool of paraffin just short of the bridge. The drum had stopped too soon and although the fire was spectacular it would do the bridge no damage at all. He watched for a long time, hoping the drum would explode and scatter burning paraffin on the bridge, but nothing happened and slowly the fire went out.
He dropped back to join the others. ‘Well, we messed that one up,’ he said bitterly.
‘I should have pushed it harder,’ Armstrong said.
O’Hara flared up in anger. ‘You damned fool, if you hadn’t run out and given it another shove it wouldn’t have gone as far as it did. Don’t do an idiotic thing like that again – you nearly got killed!’
Armstrong said quietly, ‘We’re all of us on the verge of getting killed. Someone has to risk something besides you.’
‘I should have surveyed the ground more carefully,’ said O’Hara self-accusingly.
Benedetta put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Tim; you did the best you could.’
‘Sure you did,’ said Miss Ponsky militantly. ‘And we’ve shown them we’re still here and fighting. I bet they’re scared to come across now for fear of being burned alive.’
‘Come,’ said Benedetta. ‘Come and eat.’ There was a flash of humour in her voice. ‘I didn’t bring the travois all the way down, so it will be stew again.’
Wearily O’Hara turned his back on the bridge. It was the third night since the plane crash – and six more to go!
FIVE (#ulink_c805c016-8dc0-509d-91bd-44c2fa8cdd8d)
Forester attacked his baked beans with gusto. The dawn light was breaking, dimming the bright glare of the Coleman lamp and smoothing out the harsh shadows on his face. He said, ‘One day at the mine – two days crossing the pass – another two days getting help. We must cut that down somehow. When we get to the other side we’ll have to act quickly.’
Peabody looked at the table morosely, ignoring Forester. He was wondering if he had made the right decision, done the right thing by Joe Peabody. The way these guys talked, crossing the mountains wasn’t going to be so easy. Aw, to hell with it – he could do anything any other guy could do – especially any spic.
Rohde said, ‘I thought I heard rifle-fire last night – just at sunset.’ His face was haunted by the knowledge of his helplessness.
‘They should be all right. I don’t see how the commies could have repaired the bridge and got across so quickly,’ said Forester reasonably. ‘That O’Hara’s a smart cookie. He must have been doing something with that drum of kerosene he took down the hill yesterday. He’s probably cooked the bridge to a turn.’
Rohde’s face cracked into a faint smile. ‘I hope so.’
Forester finished his beans. ‘Okay, let’s get the show on the road.’ He turned round in his chair and looked at the huddle of blankets on the bunk. ‘What about Willis?’
‘Let him sleep,’ said Rohde. ‘He worked harder and longer than any of us.’
Forester got up and examined the packs they had made up the previous night. Their equipment was pitifully inadequate for the job they had to do. He remembered the books he had read about mountaineering expeditions – the special rations they had, the lightweight nylon ropes and tents, the wind-proof clothing and the specialized gear – climbing-boots, ice-axes, pitons. He smiled grimly – yes, and porters to help hump it.
There was none of that here. Their packs were roughly cobbled together from blankets; they had an ice-axe which Willis had made – a roughly shaped metal blade mounted on the end of an old broom handle; their ropes were rotten and none too plentiful, scavenged from the rubbish heap of the camp and with too many knots and splices for safety; their climbing-boots were clumsy miners’ boots made of thick, unpliant leather, heavy and graceless. Willis had discovered the boots and Rohde had practically gone into raptures over them.
He lifted his pack and wished it was heavier – heavier with the equipment they needed. They had worked far into the night improvising, with Willis and Rohde being the most inventive. Rohde had torn blankets into long strips to make puttees, and Willis had practically torn down one of the huts single-handed in his search for extra long nails to use as pitons. Rohde shook his head wryly when he saw them. ‘The metal is too soft, but they will have to do.’
Forester heaved the pack on to his back and fastened the crude electric wiring fastenings. Perhaps it’s as well we’re staying a day at the mine, he thought; maybe we can do better than this. There are suitcases up there with proper straps, there is the plane – surely we can find something in there we can use. He zipped up the front of the leather jacket and was grateful to O’Hara for the loan of it. He suspected it would be windy higher up, and the jacket was windproof.
As he stepped out of the hut he heard Peabody cursing at the weight of his pack. He took no notice but strode on through the camp, past the trebuchet which crouched like a prehistoric monster, and so to the road which led up the mountain. In two strides Rohde caught up and came abreast of him. He indicated Peabody trailing behind. ‘This one will make trouble,’ he said.
Forester’s face was suddenly bleak. ‘I meant what I said, Miguel. If he makes trouble, we get rid of him.’
It took them a long time to get up to the mine. The air became very thin and Forester could feel that his heartbeat had accelerated and his heart thumped in his chest like a swinging stone. He breathed faster and was cautioned by Rohde against forced breathing. My God, he thought; what is it going to be like in the pass?
They reached the airstrip and the mine at midday. Forester felt dizzy and a little nauseated and was glad to reach the first of the deserted huts and to collapse on the floor. Peabody had been left behind long ago; they had ignored his pleas for them to stop and he had straggled farther and farther behind on the trail until he had disappeared from sight. ‘He’ll catch up,’ Forester said. ‘He’s more scared of the commies than he is of me.’ He grinned with savage satisfaction. ‘But I’ll change that before we’re through.’
Rohde was in nearly as bad shape as Forester, although he was more used to the mountains. He sat on the floor of the hut, gasping for breath, too weary to shrug off his pack. They both relaxed for over half an hour before Rohde made any constructive move. At last he fumbled with numb fingers at the fastenings of his pack, and said, ‘We must have warmth; get out the kerosene.’
As Forester undid his pack Rohde took the small axe which had been brought from the Dakota and left the hut. Presently Forester heard him chopping at something in one of the other huts and guessed he had gone for the makings of a fire. He got out the bottle of kerosene and put it aside, ready for when Rohde came back.
An hour later they had a small fire going in the middle of the hut. Rohde had used the minimum of kerosene to start it and small chips of wood built up in a pyramid. Forester chuckled. ‘You must have been a boy scout.’
‘I was,’ said Rohde seriously. ‘That is a fine organization.’ He stretched. ‘Now we must eat.’
‘I don’t feel hungry,’ objected Forester.
‘I know – neither do I. Nevertheless, we must eat.’ Rohde looked out of the window towards the pass. ‘We must fuel ourselves for tomorrow.’
They warmed a can of beans and Forester choked down his share. He had not the slightest desire for food, nor for anything except quietness. His limbs felt flaccid and heavy and he felt incapable of the slightest exertion. His mind was affected, too, and he found it difficult to think clearly and to stick to a single line of thought. He just sat there in a corner of the hut, listlessly munching his lukewarm beans and hating every mouthful.
He said, ‘Christ, I feel terrible.’
‘It is the soroche,’ said Rohde with a shrug. ‘We must expect to feel like this.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘We are not allowing enough time for acclimatization.’
‘It wasn’t as bad as this when we came out of the plane,’ said Forester.
‘We had oxygen,’ Rohde pointed out. ‘And we went down the mountain quickly. You understand that this is dangerous?’
‘Dangerous? I know I feel goddam sick.’
‘There was an American expedition here a few years ago, climbing mountains to the north of here. They went quickly to a level of five thousand metres – about as high as we are now. One of the Americans lost consciousness because of the soroche, and although they had a doctor, he died while being taken down the mountain. Yes, it is dangerous, Señor Forester.’
Forester grinned weakly. ‘In a moment of danger we ought to be on a first-name basis, Miguel. My name is Ray.’
After a while they heard Peabody moving outside. Rohde heaved himself to his feet and went to the door. ‘We are here, señor.’
Peabody stumbled into the hut and collapsed on the floor. ‘You lousy bastards,’ he gasped. ‘Why didn’t you wait?’
Forester grinned at him. ‘We’ll be moving really fast when we leave here,’ he said. ‘Coming up from the camp was like a Sunday morning stroll compared to what’s coming next. We’ll not wait for you then, Peabody.’
‘You son of a bitch. I’ll get even with you,’ Peabody threatened.
Forester laughed. ‘I’ll ram those words down your throat – but not now. There’ll be time enough later.’
Rohde put out a can of beans. ‘You must eat, and we must work. Come, Ray.’
‘I don’t wanna eat,’ moaned Peabody.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Forester. ‘I don’t care if you starve to death.’ He got up and went out of the hut, following Rohde. ‘This loss of appetite – is that soroche, too?’
Rohde nodded. ‘We will eat little from now on – we must live on the reserves of our bodies. A fit man can do it – but that man … ? I don’t know if he can do it.’
They walked slowly down the airstrip towards the crashed Dakota. To Forester it seemed incredible that O’Hara had found it too short on which to land because to him it now appeared to be several miles long. He plodded on, mechanically putting one foot in front of the other, while the cold air rasped in his throat and his chest heaved with the drudging effort he was making.
They left the airstrip and skirted the cliff over which the plane had plunged. There had been a fresh fall of snow which mantled the broken wings and softened the jagged outlines of the holes torn in the fuselage. Forester looked down over the cliff, and said, ‘I don’t think this can be seen from the air – the snow makes perfect camouflage. If there is an air search I don’t think they’ll find us.’
Walking with difficulty over the broken ground, they climbed to the wreck and got inside through the hole O’Hara had chopped when he and Rohde had retrieved the oxygen cylinder. It was dim and bleak inside the Dakota and Forester shivered, not from the cold which was becoming intense, but from the odd idea that this was the corpse of a once living and vibrant thing. He shook the idea from him, and said, ‘There were some straps on the luggage rack – complete with buckles. We could use those, and O’Hara says there are gloves in the cockpit.’
‘That is good,’ agreed Rohde. ‘I will look towards the front for what I can find.’
Forester went aft and his breath hissed when he saw the body of old Coughlin, a shattered smear of frozen flesh and broken bones on the rear seat. He averted his eyes and turned to the luggage-rack and began to unbuckle the straps. His fingers were numb with the cold and his movements clumsy, but at last he managed to get them free – four broad canvas straps which could be used on the packs. That gave him an idea and he turned his attention to the seat belts, but they were anchored firmly and it was hopeless to try to remove them without tools.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/desmond-bagley/high-citadel-landslide/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Desmond Bagley
Double action thrillers by the classic adventure writer set in the South American Andes and British Columbia.HIGH CITADELWhen Tim O'Hara's plane is hijacked and forced to crash land in the middle of the Andes, his troubles are only beginning. A heavily armed group of communist soldiers intent on killing one of his passengers - an influential political figure - have orders to leave no survivors. Isolated in the biting cold of the Andes, O'Hara's party must fight for their lives with only the most primitive weapons…LANDSLIDEBob Boyd is a geologist, as resilient as the British Columbia timber country where he works for the powerful Matterson Corporation. But his real name and his past are mysteries - wiped out by the accident that nearly killed him. Then Boyd reads a name that opens a door in his memory: Trinavant - and discovers that Bull Matterson and his son will do almost anything to keep the Trinavant family forgotten forever…Includes a unique bonus - My Old Man's Trumpet, a previously unpublished short story about a New Orleans music shop owner.
DESMOND BAGLEY
High Citadel
AND
Landslide
COPYRIGHT (#ulink_320a3c2d-993b-5f73-a118-500ccd1b9a9b)
HARPER
an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
High Citadel first published in Great Britain by Collins 1965 Landslide first published in Great Britain by Collins 1967 My Old Man’s Trumpet first published in Argosy magazine 1967
Desmond Bagley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works
Copyright © Brockhurst Publications 1965, 1967
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007304790
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN 9780007347650
Version: 2018–10–09
CONTENTS
Cover (#uc33f9390-0c46-5665-8bba-82f8595b9424)
Title Page (#u959a3764-a3ec-5352-8740-a9c6e7a100ad)
Copyright (#u270ed2fd-5649-5599-bcab-53a975143a9d)
High Citadel (#u84d357f4-f76a-5b3b-827a-32b36bef6d5e)
Dedication (#ue64bb002-8a44-5045-9ab7-10d279a544dd)
One (#ucf616e3a-2405-5e2f-ae8f-bafc2a455938)
Two (#u23b98c4c-692e-5c74-a088-ad9c1ada2fb2)
Three (#uc25aaa61-6033-5a42-9e31-c33b404e507b)
Four (#u88badec0-2147-50f8-b89b-1e26d5f48d04)
Five (#u108b3c45-9f21-59f6-891e-338b61116473)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Landslide (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
One (#litres_trial_promo)
Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
HIGH CITADEL (#ulink_5e57a241-2c8a-5230-95be-d127870bc30b)
DEDICATION (#ulink_c90f08e7-f9bc-50f7-9a4b-319c565bdbf1)
To John Donaldson and Bob Knittel
ONE (#ulink_ad74ca3a-f1f0-5ac7-92ee-4748d30545c1)
The bell shrilled insistently.
O’Hara frowned in his sleep and burrowed deeper into the pillow. He dragged up the thin sheet which covered him, but that left his feet uncovered and there was a sleepy protest from his companion. Without opening his eyes he put his hand out to the bedside table, seized the alarm clock, and hurled it violently across the room. Then he snuggled into the pillow again.
The bell still rang.
At last he opened his eyes, coming to the realization that it was the telephone ringing. He propped himself up on one elbow and stared hatefully into the darkness. Ever since he had been in the hotel he had been asking Ramón to transfer the telephone to the bedside, and every time he had been assured that it would be done tomorrow. It had been nearly a year.
He got out of bed and padded across the room to the dressing-table without bothering to switch on the light. As he picked up the telephone he tweaked aside the window curtain and glanced outside. It was still dark and the moon was setting – he estimated it was about two hours to dawn.
He grunted into the mouthpiece: ‘O’Hara.’
‘Goddammit, what’s the matter with you?’ said Filson. ‘I’ve been trying to get you for a quarter of an hour.’
‘I was asleep,’ said O’Hara. ‘I usually sleep at night – I believe most people do, with the exception of Yankee flight managers.’
‘Very funny,’ said Filson tiredly. ‘Well, drag your ass down here – there’s a flight scheduled for dawn.’
‘What the hell – I just got back six hours ago. I’m tired.’
‘You think I’m not?’ said Filson. ‘This is important – a Samair 727 touched down in an emergency landing and the flight inspector grounded it. The passengers are mad as hornets, so the skipper and the hostess have sorted out priorities and we’ve got to take passengers to the coast. You know what a connection with Samair means to us; it could be that if we treat ’em nice they’ll use us as a regular feeder.’
‘In a pig’s eye,’ said O’Hara. ‘They’ll use you in an emergency but they’ll never put you on their timetables. All you’ll get are thanks.’
‘It’s worth trying,’ insisted Filson. ‘So get the hell down here.’
O’Hara debated whether to inform Filson that he had already exceeded his month’s flying hours and that it was only two-thirds through the month. He sighed, and said, ‘All right, I’m coming.’ It would cut no ice with Filson to plead regulations; as far as that hard-hearted character was concerned, the I.A.T.A. regulations were meant to be bent, if not broken. If he conformed to every international regulation, his two-cent firm would be permanently in the red.
Besides, O’Hara thought, this was the end of the line for him. If he lost this job survival would be difficult. There were too many broken-down pilots in South America hunting too few jobs and Filson’s string-and-sealing-wax outfit was about as low as you could get. Hell, he thought disgustedly, I’m on a bloody escalator going the wrong way – it takes all the running I can do to stay in the same place.
He put down the hand-set abruptly and looked again into the night, scanning the sky. It looked all right here, but what about the mountains? Always he thought about the mountains, those cruel mountains with their jagged white swords stretched skywards to impale him. Filson had better have a good met. report.
He walked to the door and stepped into the corridor, unlit as usual. They turned off all lights in the public rooms at eleven p.m. – it was that kind of hotel. For the millionth time he wondered what he was doing in this godforsaken country, in this tired town, in this sleazy hotel. Unconcernedly naked, he walked down towards the bathroom. In his philosophy if a woman had seen a naked man before then it didn’t matter – if she hadn’t, it was time she did. Anyway, it was dark.
He showered quickly, washing away the night sweat, and returned to his room and switched on the bedside lamp wondering if it would work. It was always a fifty per cent chance that it wouldn’t – the town’s electricity supply was very erratic. The filament glowed faintly and in the dim light he dressed – long woollen underwear, jeans, a thick shirt and a leather jacket. By the time he had finished he was sweating again in the warm tropical night. But it would be cold over the mountains.
From the dressing-table he took a metal flask and shook it tentatively. It was only half full and he frowned. He could wake Ramón and get a refill but that was not politic; for one thing Ramón did not like being wakened at night, and for another he would ask cutting questions about when his bill was going to be paid. Perhaps he could get something at the airport.
O’Hara was just leaving when he paused at the door and turned back to look at the sprawling figure in the bed. The sheet had slipped revealing dark breasts tipped a darker colour. He looked at her critically. Her olive skin had an underlying coppery sheen and he thought there was a sizeable admixture of Indian in this one. With a rueful grimace he took a thin wallet from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, extracted two notes and tossed them on the bedside table. Then he went out, closing the door quietly behind him.
II
When he pulled his battered car into the parking bay he looked with interest at the unaccustomed bright lights of the airport. The field was low-grade, classed as an emergency strip by the big operators, although to Filson it was a main base. A Samair Boeing 727 lay sleekly in front of the control tower and O’Hara looked at it enviously for a while, then switched his attention to the hangar beyond.
A Dakota was being loaded and, even at that distance, the lights were bright enough for O’Hara to see the emblem on the tail – two intertwined ‘A’s, painted artistically to look like mountain peaks. He smiled gently to himself. It was appropriate that he should fly a plane decorated with the Double-A; alcoholics of the world unite – it was a pity Filson didn’t see the joke. But Filson was very proud of his Andes Airlift and never joked about it. A humourless man, altogether.
He got out of the car and walked around to the main building to find it was full of people, tired people rudely awakened and set down in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. He pushed his way through the crowd towards Filson’s office. An American voice with a Western twang complained loudly and bitterly, ‘This is a damned disgrace – I’m going to speak to Mr Coulson about it when I get back to Rio.’
O’Hara grinned as he pushed open the door of the office. Filson was sitting at his desk in his shirt-sleeves, his face shiny with sweat. He always sweated, particularly in an emergency and since his life was in a continual state of crisis it was a wonder he didn’t melt away altogether. He looked up.
‘So you got here at last.’
‘I’m always pleased at the welcome I get,’ observed O’Hara.
Filson ignored that. ‘All right; this is the dope,’ he said. ‘I’ve contracted with Samair to take ten of their passengers to Santillana – they’re the ones who have to make connections with a ship. You’ll take number one – she’s being serviced now.’ His voice was briskly businesslike and O’Hara could tell by the way he sonorously rolled out the words ‘contracted with Samair’ that he saw himself as a big-time air operator doing business with his peers instead of what he really was – an ageing ex-pilot making a precarious living off two twenty-five-year-old rattling ex-army surplus planes.
O’Hara merely said, ‘Who’s coming with me?’
‘Grivas.’
‘That cocky little bastard.’
‘He volunteered – which is more than you did,’ snapped Filson.
‘Oh?’
‘He was here when the 727 touched down,’ said Filson. He smiled thinly at O’Hara. ‘It was his idea to put it to Samair that we take some of their more urgent passengers, so he phoned me right away. That’s the kind of quick thinking we need in this organization.’
‘I don’t like him in a plane,’ said O’Hara.
‘So you’re a better pilot,’ said Filson reluctantly. ‘That’s why you’re skipper and he’s going as co-pilot.’ He looked at the ceiling reflectively. ‘When this deal with Samair comes off maybe I’ll promote Grivas to the office. He’s too good to be a pilot.’
Filson had delusions of grandeur. O’Hara said deliberately, ‘If you think that South American Air is going to give you a feeder contract, you’re crazy. You’ll get paid for taking their passengers and you’ll get their thanks – for what they’re worth – and they’ll kiss you off fast.’
Filson pointed a pen at O’Hara. ‘You’re paid to jockey a plane – leave the heavy thinking to me.’
O’Hara gave up. ‘What happened to the 727?’
‘Something wrong with the fuel feed – they’re looking at it now.’ Filson picked up a sheaf of papers. ‘There’s a crate of machinery to go for servicing. Here’s the manifest.’
‘Christ!’ said O’Hara. ‘This is an unscheduled flight. Do you have to do this?’
‘Unscheduled or not, you’re going with a full load. Damned if I send a half empty plane when I can send a full one.’
O’Hara was mournful. ‘It’s just that I thought I’d have an easy trip for a change. You know you always overload and it’s a hell of a job going through the passes. The old bitch wallows like a hippo.’
‘You’re going at the best time,’ said Filson. ‘It’ll be worse later in the day when the sun has warmed things up. Now get the hell out of here and stop bothering me.’
O’Hara left the office. The main hall was emptying, a stream of disgruntled Samair passengers leaving for the antiquated airport bus. A few people still stood about – those would be the passengers for Santillana. O’Hara ignored them; passengers or freight, it was all one to him. He took them over the Andes and dumped them on the other side and there was no point in getting involved with them. A bus driver doesn’t mix with his passengers, he thought; and that’s all I am – a bloody vertical bus driver.
He glanced at the manifest. Filson had done it again – there were two crates and he was aghast at their weight. One of these days, he thought savagely, I’ll get an I.A.T.A. inspector up here at the right time and Filson will go for a loop. He crushed the manifest in his fist and went to inspect the Dakota.
Grivas was by the plane, lounging gracefully against the undercarriage. He straightened when he saw O’Hara and flicked his cigarette across the tarmac but did not step forward to meet him. O’Hara crossed over and said, ‘Is the cargo aboard?’
Grivas smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you check it? Is it secure?’
‘Of course, Señor O’Hara. I saw to it myself.’
O’Hara grunted. He did not like Grivas, neither as a man nor as a pilot. He distrusted his smoothness, the slick patina of pseudo good breeding that covered him like a sheen from his patent leather hair and trim toothbrush moustache to his highly polished shoes. Grivas was a slim wiry man, not very tall, who always wore a smile. O’Hara distrusted the smile most of all.
‘What’s the weather?’ he asked.
Grivas looked at the sky. ‘It seems all right.’
O’Hara let acid creep into his voice. ‘A met. report would be a good thing, don’t you think?’
Grivas grinned. ‘I’ll get it,’ he said.
O’Hara watched him go, then turned to the Dakota and walked round to the cargo doors. The Dakota had been one of the most successful planes ever designed, the work-horse of the Allied forces during the war. Over ten thousand of them had fought a good war, flying countless millions of ton-miles of precious freight about the world. It was a good plane in its time, but that was long ago.
This Dakota was twenty-five years old, battered by too many air hours with too little servicing. O’Hara knew the exact amount of play in the rudder cables; he knew how to nurse the worn-out engines so as to get the best out of them – and a poor best it was; he knew the delicate technique of landing so as not to put too much strain on the weakened undercarriage. And he knew that one day the whole sorry fabric would play a murderous trick on him high over the white spears of the Andes.
He climbed into the plane and looked about the cavernous interior. There were ten seats up front, not the luxurious reclining couches of Samair but uncomfortable hard leather chairs each fitted with the safety-belt that even Filson could not skip, although he had grumbled at the added cost. The rest of the fuselage was devoted to cargo space and was at present occupied by two large crates.
O’Hara went round them testing the anchoring straps with his hand. He had a horror that one day the cargo would slide forward if he made a bad landing or hit very bad turbulence. That would be the end of any passengers who had the ill-luck to be flying Andes Airlift. He cursed as he found a loose strap. Grivas and his slipshod ways would be the end of him one day.
Having seen the cargo was secured he went forward into the cockpit and did a routine check of the instruments. A mechanic was working on the port engine so O’Hara leaned out of the side window and asked in Spanish if it was all right. The mechanic spat, then drew his finger across his throat and made a bloodcurdling sound. ‘De un momento a otro.’
He finished the instrument check and went into the hangar to find Fernandez, the chief mechanic, who usually had a bottle or two stored away, strictly against Filson’s orders. O’Hara liked Fernandez and he knew that Fernandez liked him; they got on well together and O’Hara made a point of keeping it that way – to be at loggerheads with the chief mechanic would be a passport to eternity in this job.
He chatted for a while with Fernandez, then filled his flask and took a hasty gulp from the bottle before he passed it back. Dawn was breaking as he strode back to the Dakota, and Grivas was in the cockpit fussing with the disposal of his briefcase. It’s a funny thing, thought O’Hara, that the briefcase is just as much a part of an airline pilot as it is of any city gent. His own was under his seat; all it contained was a packet of sandwiches which he had picked up at an all-night café.
‘Got the met. report?’ he asked Grivas.
Grivas passed over the sheet of paper and O’Hara said, ‘You can taxi her down to the apron.’
He studied the report. It wasn’t too bad – it wasn’t bad at all. No storms, no anomalies, no trouble – just good weather over the mountains. But O’Hara had known the meteorologists to be wrong before and there was no release of the tension within him. It was that tension, never relaxed in the air, that had kept him alive when a lot of better men had died.
As the Dakota came to a halt on the apron outside the main building, he saw Filson leading the small group of passengers. ‘See they have their seat-belts properly fastened,’ he said to Grivas.
‘I’m not a hostess,’ said Grivas sulkily.
‘When you’re sitting on this side of the cockpit you can give orders,’ said O’Hara coldly. ‘Right now you take them. And I’d like you to do a better job of securing the passengers than you did of the cargo.’
The smile left Grivas’s face, but he turned and went into the main cabin. Presently Filson came forward and thrust a form at O’Hara. ‘Sign this.’
It was the I.A.T.A. certificate of weights and fuel. O’Hara saw that Filson had cheated on the weights as usual, but made no comment and scribbled his signature. Filson said, ‘As soon as you land give me a ring. There might be return cargo.’
O’Hara nodded and Filson withdrew. There was the double slam as the door closed and O’Hara said, ‘Take her to the end of the strip.’ He switched on the radio, warming it up.
Grivas was still sulky and would not talk. He made no answer as he revved the engines and the Dakota waddled away from the main building into the darkness, ungainly and heavy on the ground. At the end of the runway O’Hara thought for a moment. Filson had not given him a flight number. To hell with it, he thought; control ought to know what’s going on. He clicked on the microphone and said, ‘A.A. special flight, destination Santillana – A.A. to San Croce control – ready to take off.’
A voice crackled tinnily in his ear. ‘San Croce control to Andes Airlift special. Permission given – time 2.33 G.M.T.’
‘Roger and out.’ He put his hand to the throttles and waggled the stick. There was a stickiness about it. Without looking at Grivas he said, ‘Take your hands off the controls.’ Then he pushed on the throttle levers and the engines roared. Four minutes later the Dakota was airborne after an excessively long run.
He stayed at the controls for an hour, personally supervising the long climb to the roof of the world. He liked to find out if the old bitch was going to spring a new surprise. Cautiously he carried out gentle, almost imperceptible evolutions, his senses attuned to the feel of the plane. Occasionally he glanced at Grivas who was sitting frozen-faced in the other seat, staring blankly through the windscreen.
At last he was satisfied and engaged the automatic pilot but spent another quarter-hour keeping a wary eye on it. It had behaved badly on the last flight but Fernandez had assured him that it was now all right. He trusted Fernandez, but not that much – it was always better to do the final check personally.
Then he relaxed and looked ahead. It was much lighter in the high air and, although the dawn was behind, the sky ahead was curiously light. O’Hara knew why; it was the snow blink as the first light of the sun caught the high white peaks of the Andes. The mountains themselves were as yet invisible, lost in the early haze rising from the jungle below.
He began to think about his passengers and he wondered if they knew what they had got themselves into. This was no pressurized jet aircraft and they were going to fly pretty high – it would be cold and the air would be thin and he hoped none of the passengers had heart trouble. Presumably Filson had warned them, although he wouldn’t put it past that bastard to keep his mouth shut. He was even too stingy to provide decent oxygen masks – there were only mouth tubes in the oxygen bottles to port and starboard.
He scratched his cheek thoughtfully. These weren’t the ordinary passengers he was used to carrying – the American mining engineers flying to San Croce and the poorer type of local businessman proud to be flying even by Andes Airlift. These were the Samair type of passengers – wealthy and not over fond of hardship. They were in a hurry, too, or they would have had more sense than to fly Andes Airlift. Perhaps he had better break his rule and go back to talk to them. When they found they weren’t going to fly over the Andes but through them they might get scared. It would be better to warn them first.
He pushed his uniform cap to the back of his head and said, ‘Take over, Grivas. I’m going to talk to the passengers.’
Grivas lifted his eyebrows – so surprised that he forgot to be sulky. He shrugged. ‘Why? What is so important about the passengers? Is this Samair?’ He laughed noiselessly. ‘But, yes, of course – you have seen the girl; you want to see her again, eh?’
‘What girl?’
‘Just a girl, a woman; very beautiful. I think I will get to know her and take her out when we arrive in – er – Santillana,’ said Grivas thoughtfully. He looked at O’Hara out of the corner of his eye.
O’Hara grunted and took the passenger manifest from his breast pocket. As he suspected, the majority were American. He went through the list rapidly. Mr and Mrs Coughlin of Challis, Idaho – tourists; Dr James Armstrong, London, England – no profession stated; Raymond Forester of New York – businessman; Señor and Señorita Montes – Argentinian and no profession stated; Miss Jennifer Ponsky of South Bridge, Connecticut – tourist; Dr Willis of California; Miguel Rohde – no stated nationality, profession – importer; Joseph Peabody of Chicago, Illinois – businessman.
He flicked his finger on the manifest and grinned at Grivas. ‘Jennifer’s a nice name – but Ponsky? I can’t see you going around with anyone called Ponsky.’
Grivas looked startled, then laughed convulsively. ‘Ah, my friend, you can have the fair Ponsky – I’ll stick to my girl.’
O’Hara looked at the list again. ‘Then it must be Señorita Montes – unless it’s Mrs Coughlin.’
Grivas chuckled, his good spirits recovered. ‘You find out for yourself.’
‘I’ll do that,’ said O’Hara. ‘Take over.’
He went back into the main cabin and was confronted by ten uplifted heads. He smiled genially, modelling himself on the Samair pilots to whom public relations was as important as flying ability. Lifting his voice above the roar of the engines, he said, ‘I suppose I ought to tell you that we’ll be reaching the mountains in about an hour. It will get cold, so I suggest you wear your overcoats. Mr Filson will have told you that this aircraft isn’t pressurized, but we don’t fly at any great height for more than an hour, so you’ll be quite all right.’
A burly man with a whisky complexion interjected, ‘No one told me that.’
O’Hara cursed Filson under his breath and broadened his smile. ‘Well, not to worry, Mr – er …’
‘Peabody – Joe Peabody.’
‘Mr Peabody. It will be quite all right. There is an oxygen mouthpiece next to every seat which I advise you to use if you feel breathing difficult. Now, it gets a bit wearying shouting like this above the engine noise, so I’ll come round and talk to you individually.’ He smiled at Peabody, who glowered back at him.
He bent to the first pair of seats on the port side. ‘Could I have your names, please?’
The first man said, ‘I’m Forester.’ The other contributed, ‘Willis.’
‘Glad to have you aboard, Dr Willis, Mr Forester.’
Forester said, ‘I didn’t bargain for this, you know. I didn’t think kites like this were still flying.’
O’Hara smiled deprecatingly. ‘Well, this is an emergency flight and it was laid on in the devil of a hurry. I’m sure it was an oversight that Mr Filson forgot to tell you that this isn’t a pressurized plane.’ Privately he was not sure of anything of the kind.
Willis said with a smile. ‘I came here to study high altitude conditions. I’m certainly starting with a bang. How high do we fly, Captain?’
‘Not more than seventeen thousand feet,’ said O’Hara. ‘We fly through the passes – we don’t go over the top. You’ll find the oxygen mouthpieces easy to use – all you do is suck.’ He smiled and turned away and found himself held. Peabody was clutching his sleeve, leaning forward over the seat behind. ‘Hey, Skipper …’
‘I’ll be with you in a moment, Mr Peabody,’ said O’Hara, and held Peabody with his eye. Peabody blinked rapidly, released his grip and subsided into his seat, and O’Hara turned to starboard.
The man was elderly, with an aquiline nose and a short grey beard. With him was a young girl of startling beauty, judging by what O’Hara could see of her face, which was not much because she was huddled deep into a fur coat. He said, ‘Señor Montes?’
The man inclined his head. ‘Don’t worry, Captain, we know what to expect.’ He waved a gloved hand. ‘You see we are well prepared. I know the Andes, señor, and I know these aircraft. I know the Andes well; I have been over them on foot and by mule – in my youth I climbed some of the high peaks – didn’t I, Benedetta?’
‘Si, tío,’ she said in a colourless voice. ‘But that was long ago. I don’t know if your heart …’
He patted her on the leg. ‘I will be all right if I relax; is that not so, Captain?’
‘Do you understand the use of this oxygen tube?’ asked O’Hara.
Montes nodded confidently, and O’Hara said, ‘Your uncle will be quite all right, Señorita Montes.’ He waited for her to reply but she made no answer, so he passed on to the seats behind.
These couldn’t be the Coughlins; they were too ill-assorted a pair to be American tourists, although the woman was undoubtedly American. O’Hara said inquiringly, ‘Miss Ponsky?’
She lifted a sharp nose and said, ‘I declare this is all wrong, Captain. You must turn back at once.’
The fixed smile on O’Hara’s face nearly slipped. ‘I fly this route regularly, Miss Ponsky,’ he said. ‘There is nothing to fear.’
But there was naked fear on her face – air fear. Sealed in the air-conditioned quietness of a modern jet-liner she could subdue it, but the primitiveness of the Dakota brought it to the surface. There was no clever decor to deceive her into thinking that she was in a drawing-room, just the stark functionalism of unpainted aluminium, battered and scratched, and with the plumbing showing like a dissected body.
O’Hara said quietly, ‘What is your profession, Miss Ponsky?’
‘I’m a school teacher back in South Bridge,’ she said. ‘I’ve been teaching there for thirty years.’
He judged she was naturally garrulous and perhaps this could be a way of conquering her fear. He glanced at the man, who said, ‘Miguel Rohde.’
He was a racial anomaly – a Spanish-German name and Spanish-German features – straw-coloured hair and beady black eyes. There had been German immigration into South America for many years and this was one of the results.
O’Hara said, ‘Do you know the Andes, Señor Rohde?’
‘Very well,’ he replied in a grating voice. He nodded ahead. ‘I lived up there for many years – now I am going back.’
O’Hara switched back to Miss Ponsky. ‘Do you teach geography, Miss Ponsky?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, I do. That’s one of the reasons I came to South America on my vacation. It makes such a difference if you can describe things first-hand.’
‘Then here you have a marvellous opportunity,’ said O’Hara with enthusiasm. ‘You’ll see the Andes as you never would if you’d flown Samair. And I’m sure that Señor Rohde will point out the interesting sights.’
Rohde nodded understandingly. ‘Si, very interesting; I know it well, the mountain country.’
O’Hara smiled reassuringly at Miss Ponsky, who offered him a glimmering, tremulous smile in return. He caught a twinkle in Rohde’s black eyes as he turned to the port side again.
The man sitting next to Peabody was undoubtedly British, so O’Hara said, ‘Glad to have you with us, Dr Armstrong – Mr Peabody.’
Armstrong said, ‘Nice to hear an English accent, Captain, after all this Spa – ’
Peabody broke in. ‘I’m damned if I’m glad to be here, Skipper. What in hell kind of an airline is this, for god-sake?’
‘One run by an American, Mr Peabody,’ said O’Hara calmly. ‘As you were saying, Dr Armstrong?’
‘Never expected to see an English captain out here,’ said Armstrong.
‘Well, I’m Irish, and we tend to get about,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’d put on some warm clothing if I were you. You, too, Mr Peabody.’
Peabody laughed and suddenly burst into song. ‘“I’ve got my love to keep me warm”.’ He produced a hip flask and waved it. ‘This is as good as any top-coat.’
For a moment O’Hara saw himself in Peabody and was shocked and afraid. ‘As you wish,’ he said bleakly, and passed on to the last pair of seats opposite the luggage racks.
The Coughlins were an elderly couple, very Darby and Joanish. He must have been pushing seventy and she was not far behind, but there was a suggestion of youth about their eyes, good-humoured and with a zest for life. O’Hara said, ‘Are you all right, Mrs Coughlin?’
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Aren’t we, Harry?’
‘Sure,’ said Coughlin, and looked up at O’Hara. ‘Will we be flying through the Puerto de las Aguilas?’
‘That’s right,’ said O’Hara. ‘Do you know these parts?’
Coughlin laughed. ‘Last time I was round here was in 1912. I’ve just come down to show my wife where I spent my misspent youth.’ He turned to her. ‘That means Eagle Pass, you know; it took me two weeks to get across back in 1910, and here we are doing it in an hour or two. Isn’t it wonderful?’
‘It sure is,’ Mrs Coughlin replied comfortably.
There was nothing wrong with the Coughlins, decided O’Hara, so after a few more words he went back to the cockpit. Grivas still had the plane on automatic pilot and was sitting relaxed, gazing forward at the mountains. O’Hara sat down and looked intently at the oncoming mountain wall. He checked the course and said, ‘Keep taking a bearing on Chimitaxl and let me know when it’s two hundred and ten degrees true bearing. You know the drill.’
He stared down at the ground looking for landmarks and nodded with satisfaction as he saw the sinuous, twisting course of the Rio Sangre and the railway bridge that crossed it. Flying this route by day and for so long he knew the ground by heart and knew immediately whether he was on time. He judged that the north-west wind predicted by the meteorologists was a little stronger than they had prophesied and altered course accordingly, then he jacked in the auto pilot again and relaxed. All would be quiet until Grivas came up with the required bearing on Chimitaxl. He sat in repose and watched the ground slide away behind – the dun and olive foothills, craggy bare rock, and then the shining snow-covered peaks. Presently he munched on the sandwiches he took from his briefcase. He thought of washing them down with a drink from his flask but then he thought of Peabody’s whisky-sodden face. Something inside him seemed to burst and he found that he didn’t need a drink after all.
Grivas suddenly put down the bearing compass. ‘Thirty seconds,’ he said.
O’Hara looked at the wilderness of high peaks before him, a familiar wilderness. Some of these mountains were his friends, like Chimitaxl; they pointed out his route. Others were his deadly enemies – devils and demons lurked among them compounded of down draughts, driving snow and mists. But he was not afraid because it was all familiar and he knew and understood the dangers and how to escape them.
Grivas said, ‘Now,’ and O’Hara swung the control column gently, experience telling him the correct turn. His feet automatically moved in conjunction with his hands and the Dakota swept to port in a wide, easy curve, heading for a gap in the towering wall ahead.
Grivas said softly, ‘Señor O’Hara.’
‘Don’t bother me now.’
‘But I must,’ said Grivas, and there was a tiny metallic click.
O’Hara glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and stiffened as he saw that Grivas was pointing a gun at him – a compact automatic pistol.
He jerked his head, his eyes widening in disbelief. ‘Have you gone crazy?’
Grivas’s smiled widened. ‘Does it matter?’ he said indifferently. ‘We do not go through the Puerto de las Aguilas this trip, Señor O’Hara, that is all that matters.’ His voice hardened. ‘Now steer course one-eight-four on a true bearing.’
O’Hara took a deep breath and held his course. ‘You must have gone out of your mind,’ he said. ‘Put down that gun, Grivas, and maybe we’ll forget this. I suppose I have been bearing down on you a bit too much, but that’s no reason to pull a gun. Put it away and we’ll straighten things out when we get to Santillana.’
Grivas’s teeth flashed. ‘You’re a stupid man, O’Hara; do you think I do this for personal reasons? But since you mention it, you said not long ago that sitting in the captain’s seat gave you authority.’ He lifted the gun slightly. ‘You were wrong – this gives authority; all the authority there is. Now change course or I’ll blow your head off. I can fly this aircraft too, remember.’
‘They’d hear you inside,’ said O’Hara.
‘I’ve locked the door, and what could they do? They wouldn’t take the controls from the only pilot. But that would be of no consequence to you, O’Hara – you’d be dead.’
O’Hara saw his finger tighten on the trigger and bit his lip before swinging the control column. The Dakota turned to fly south, parallel to the main backbone of the Andes. Grivas was right, damn him; there was no point in getting himself killed. But what the hell was he up to?
He settled on the bearing given by Grivas and reached forward to the auto pilot control. Grivas jerked the gun. ‘No, Señor O’Hara; you fly this aircraft – it will give you something to do.’
O’Hara drew back his hand slowly and grasped the wheel. He looked out to starboard past Grivas at the high peaks drifting by. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked grimly.
‘That is of no consequence,’ said Grivas. ‘But it is not very far. We land at an airstrip in five minutes.’
O’Hara thought about that. There was no airstrip that he knew of on this course. There were no airstrips at all this high in the mountains except for the military strips, and those were on the Pacific side of the Andes chain. He would have to wait and see.
His eyes flickered to the microphone set on its hook close to his left hand. He looked at Grivas and saw he was not wearing his earphones. If the microphone was switched on then any loud conversation would go on the air and Grivas would be unaware of it. It was definitely worth trying.
He said to Grivas, ‘There are no airstrips on this course.’ His left hand strayed from the wheel.
‘You don’t know everything, O’Hara.’
His fingers touched the microphone and he leaned over to obstruct Grivas’s vision as much as possible, pretending to study the instruments. His fingers found the switch and he snapped it over and then he leaned back and relaxed. In a loud voice he said, ‘You’ll never get away with this, Grivas; you can’t steal a whole aeroplane so easily. When this Dakota is overdue at Santillana they’ll lay on a search – you know that as well as I do.’
Grivas laughed. ‘Oh, you’re clever, O’Hara – but I was cleverer. The radio is not working, you know. I took out the tubes when you were talking to the passengers.’
O’Hara felt a sudden emptiness in the pit of his stomach. He looked at the jumble of peaks ahead and felt frightened. This was country he did not know and there would be dangers he could not recognize. He felt frightened for himself and for his passengers.
III
It was cold in the passenger cabin, and the air was thin. Señor Montes had blue lips and his face had turned grey. He sucked on the oxygen tube and his niece fumbled in her bag and produced a small bottle of pills. He smiled painfully and put a pill in his mouth, letting it dissolve on his tongue. Slowly some colour came back into his face; not a lot, but he looked better than he had before taking the pill.
In the seat behind, Miss Ponsky’s teeth were chattering, not with cold but with conversation. Already Miguel Rohde had learned much of her life history, in which he had not the slightest interest although he did not show it. He let her talk, prompting her occasionally, and all the time he regarded the back of Montes’s head with lively black eyes. At a question from Miss Ponsky he looked out of the window and suddenly frowned.
The Coughlins were also looking out of the window. Mr Coughlin said, ‘I’d have sworn we were going to head that way – through that pass. But we suddenly changed course south.’
‘It all looks the same to me,’ said Mrs Coughlin. ‘Just a lot of mountains and snow.’
Coughlin said, ‘From what I remember, El Puerto de las Aguilas is back there.’
‘Oh, Harry, I’m sure you don’t really remember. It’s nearly fifty years since you were here – and you never saw it from an airplane.’
‘Maybe,’ he said, unconvinced. ‘But it sure is funny.’
‘Now, Harry, the pilot knows what he’s doing. He looked a nice efficient young man to me.’
Coughlin continued to look from the window. He said nothing more.
James Armstrong of London, England, was becoming very bored with Joe Peabody of Chicago, Illinois. The man was a positive menace. Already he had sunk half the contents of his flask, which seemed an extraordinarily large one, and he was getting combatively drunk. ‘Whadya think of the nerve of that goddam fly-boy, chokin’ me off like that?’ he demanded. ‘Actin’ high an’ mighty jus’ like the goddam limey he is.’
Armstrong smiled gently. ‘I’m a – er – goddam limey too, you know,’ he pointed out.
‘Well, jeez, presen’ comp’ny excepted,’ said Peabody. ‘That’s always the rule, ain’t it? I ain’t got anything against you limeys really, excep’ you keep draggin’ us into your wars.’
‘I take it you read the Chicago Tribune,’ said Armstrong solemnly.
Forester and Willis did not talk much – they had nothing in common. Willis had produced a large book as soon as they exhausted their small talk and to Forester it looked heavy in all senses of the word, being mainly mathematical.
Forester had nothing to do. In front of him was an aluminium bulkhead on which an axe and a first-aid box were mounted. There was no profit in looking at that and consequently his eyes frequently strayed across the aisle to Señor Montes. His lips tightened as he noted the bad colour of Montes’s face and he looked at the first-aid box reflectively.
IV
‘There it is,’ said Grivas. ‘You land there.’
O’Hara straightened up and looked over the nose of the Dakota. Dead ahead amid a jumble of rocks and snow was a short airstrip, a mere track cut on a ledge of a mountain. He had time for the merest glimpse before it was gone behind them.
Grivas waved the gun. ‘Circle it,’ he said.
O’Hara eased the plane into an orbit round the strip and looked down at it. There were buildings down there, rough cabins in a scattered group, and there was a road leading down the mountain, twisting and turning like a snake. Someone had thoughtfully cleared the airstrip of snow, but there was no sign of life.
He judged his distance from the ground and glanced at the altimeter. ‘You’re crazy, Grivas,’ he said. ‘We can’t land on that strip.’
‘You can, O’Hara,’ said Grivas.
‘I’m damned if I’m going to. This plane’s overloaded and that strip’s at an altitude of seventeen thousand feet. It would need to be three times as long for this crate to land safely. The air’s too thin to hold us up at a slow landing speed – we’ll hit the ground at a hell of a lick and we won’t be able to pull up. We’ll shoot off the other end of the strip and crash on the side of the mountain.’
‘You can do it.’
‘To hell with you,’ said O’Hara.
Grivas lifted his gun. ‘All right, I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘But I’ll have to kill you first.’
O’Hara looked at the black hole staring at him like an evil eye. He could see the rifling inside the muzzle and it looked as big as a howitzer. In spite of the cold, he was sweating and could feel rivulets of perspiration running down his back. He turned away from Grivas and studied the strip again. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked.
‘You would not know if I told you,’ said Grivas. ‘You would not understand – you are English.’
O’Hara sighed. It was going to be very dicey; he might be able to get the Dakota down in approximately one piece, but Grivas wouldn’t have a chance – he’d pile it up for sure. He said, ‘All right – warn the passengers; get them to the rear of the cabin.’
‘Never mind the passengers,’ said Grivas flatly. ‘You do not think that I am going to leave this cockpit?’
O’Hara said, ‘All right, you’re calling the shots, but I warn you – don’t touch the controls by as much as a finger. You’re not a pilot’s backside – and you know it. There can be only one man flying a plane.’
‘Get on with it,’ said Grivas shortly.
‘I’ll take my own time,’ said O’Hara. ‘I want a good look before I do a damn thing.’
He orbited the airstrip four more times, watching it as it spun crazily beneath the Dakota. The passengers should know there was something wrong by this time, he thought. No ordinary airliner stood on its wingtip and twitched about like this. Maybe they’d get alarmed and someone would try to do something about it – that might give him a chance to get at Grivas. But what the passengers could do was problematical.
The strip was all too short; it was also very narrow and made for a much smaller aircraft. He would have to land on the extreme edge, his wingtip brushing a rock wall. Then there was the question of wind direction. He looked down at the cabins, hoping to detect a wisp of smoke from the chimneys, but there was nothing.
‘I’m going to go in closer – over the strip,’ he said. ‘But I’m not landing this time.’
He pulled out of orbit and circled widely to come in for a landing approach. He lined up the nose of the Dakota on the strip like a gunsight and the plane came in, fast and level. To starboard there was a blur of rock and snow and O’Hara held his breath. If the wingtip touched the rock wall that would be the end. Ahead, the strip wound underneath, as though it was being swallowed by the Dakota. There was nothing as the strip ended – just a deep valley and the blue sky. He hauled on the stick and the plane shot skyward.
The passengers will know damn well there’s something wrong now, he thought. To Grivas he said, ‘We’re not going to get this aircraft down in one piece.’
‘Just get me down safely,’ said Grivas. ‘I’m the only one who matters.’
O’Hara grinned tightly. ‘You don’t matter a damn to me.’
‘Then think of your own neck,’ said Grivas. ‘That will take care of mine, too.’
But O’Hara was thinking of ten lives in the passenger cabin. He circled widely again to make another approach and debated with himself the best way of doing this. He could come in with the undercarriage up or down. A belly-landing would be rough at that speed, but the plane would slow down faster because of the increased friction. The question was: could he hold her straight? On the other hand if he came in with the undercarriage down he would lose airspeed before he hit the deck – that was an advantage too.
He smiled grimly and decided to do both. For the first time he blessed Filson and his lousy aeroplanes. He knew to a hair how much stress the undercarriage would take; hitherto his problem had been that of putting the Dakota down gently. This time he would come in with undercarriage down, losing speed, and slam her down hard – hard enough to break off the weakened struts like matchsticks. That would give him his belly-landing, too.
He sighted the nose of the Dakota on the strip again. ‘Well, here goes nothing,’ he said. ‘Flaps down; undercarriage down.’
As the plane lost airspeed the controls felt mushy under his hands. He set his teeth and concentrated as never before.
V
As the plane tipped wing down and started to orbit the airstrip Armstrong was thrown violently against Peabody. Peabody was in the act of taking another mouthful of whisky and the neck of the flask suddenly jammed against his teeth. He spluttered and yelled incoherently and thrust hard against Armstrong.
Rohde was thrown out of his seat and found himself sitting in the aisle, together with Coughlin and Montes. He struggled to his feet, shaking his head violently, then he bent to help Montes, speaking quick Spanish. Mrs Coughlin helped her husband back to his seat.
Willis had been making a note in the margin of his book and the point of his pencil snapped as Forester lurched against him. Forester made no attempt to regain his position but looked incredulously out of the window, ignoring Willis’s feeble protests at being squashed. Forester was a big man.
The whole cabin was a babel of sound in English and Spanish, dominated by the sharp and scratchy voice of Miss Ponsky as she querulously complained. ‘I knew it,’ she screamed. ‘I knew it was all wrong.’ She began to laugh hysterically and Rohde turned from Montes and slapped her with a heavy hand. She looked at him in surprise and suddenly burst into tears.
Peabody shouted, ‘What in goddam hell is that limey doing now?’ He stared out of the window at the airstrip. ‘The bastard’s going to land.’
Rohde spoke rapidly to Montes, who seemed so shaken he was apathetic. There was a quick exchange in Spanish between Rohde and the girl, and he pointed to the door leading to the cockpit. She nodded violently and he stood up.
Mrs Coughlin was leaning forward in her seat, comforting Miss Ponsky. ‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ she kept saying. ‘Nothing bad is going to happen.’
The aircraft straightened as O’Hara came in for his first approach run. Rohde leaned over Armstrong and looked through the window, but turned as Miss Ponsky screamed in fright, looking at the blur of rock streaming past the starboard window and seeing the wingtip brushing it so closely. Then Rohde lost his balance again as O’Hara pulled the Dakota into a climb.
It was Forester who made the first constructive move. He was nearest the door leading to the cockpit and he grabbed the door handle, turned and pushed. Nothing happened. He put his shoulder to the door but was thrown away as the plane turned rapidly. O’Hara was going into his final landing approach.
Forester grabbed the axe from its clips on the bulkhead and raised it to strike, but his arm was caught by Rohde. ‘This is quicker,’ said Rohde, and lifted a heavy pistol in his other hand. He stepped in front of Forester and fired three quick shots at the lock of the door.
VI
O’Hara heard the shots a fraction of a second before the Dakota touched down. He not only heard them but saw the altimeter and the turn-and-climb indicator shiver into fragments as the bullets smashed into the instrument panel. But he had not time to see what was happening behind him because just then the heavily overloaded Dakota settled soggily at the extreme end of the strip, moving at high speed.
There was a sickening crunch and the whole air frame shuddered as the undercarriage collapsed and the plane sank on to its belly and slid with a tearing, rending sound towards the far end of the strip. O’Hara fought frantically with the controls as they kicked against his hands and feet and tried to keep the aircraft sliding in a straight line.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Grivas turn to the door, his pistol raised. O’Hara took a chance, lifted one hand from the stick and struck out blindly at Grivas. He just had time for one blow and luckily it connected somewhere; he felt the edge of his hand strike home and then he was too busy to see if he had incapacitated Grivas.
The Dakota was still moving too fast. Already it was more than halfway down the strip and O’Hara could see the emptiness ahead where the strip stopped at the lip of the valley. In desperation he swung the rudder hard over and the Dakota swerved with a loud grating sound.
He braced himself for the crash.
The starboard wingtip hit the rock wall and the Dakota spun sharply to the right. O’Hara kept the rudder forced right over and saw the rock wall coming right at him. The nose of the plane hit rock and crumpled and the safety glass in the windscreens shivered into opacity. Then something hit him on the head and he lost consciousness.
VII
He came round because someone was slapping his face. His head rocked from side to side and he wanted them to stop because it was so good to be asleep. The slapping went on and on and he moaned and tried to tell them to stop. But the slapping did not stop so he opened his eyes.
It was Forester who was administering the punishment, and, as O’Hara opened his eyes, he turned to Rohde who was standing behind him and said, ‘Keep your gun on him.’
Rohde smiled. His gun was in his hand but hanging slackly and pointing to the floor. He made no attempt to bring it up. Forester said, ‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’
O’Hara painfully lifted his arm to his head. He had a bump on his skull the size of an egg. He said weakly, ‘Where’s Grivas?’
‘Who is Grivas?’
‘My co-pilot.’
‘He’s here – he’s in a bad way.’
‘I hope the bastard dies,’ said O’Hara bitterly. ‘He pulled a gun on me.’
‘You were at the controls,’ said Forester, giving him a hard look. ‘You put this plane down here – and I want to know why.’
‘It was Grivas – he forced me to do it.’
‘The señor capitan is right,’ said Rohde. ‘This man Grivas was going to shoot me and the señor capitan hit him.’ He bowed stiffly. ‘Muchas gracias.’
Forester swung round and looked at Rohde, then beyond him to Grivas. ‘Is he conscious?’
O’Hara looked across the cockpit. The side of the fuselage was caved in and a blunt spike of rock had hit Grivas in the chest, smashing his rib cage. It looked as though he wasn’t going to make it, after all. But he was conscious, all right; his eyes were open and he looked at them with hatred.
O’Hara could hear a woman screaming endlessly in the passenger cabin and someone else was moaning monotonously. ‘For Christ’s sake, what’s happened back there?’
No one answered because Grivas began to speak. He mumbled in a low whisper and blood frothed round his mouth. ‘They’ll get you,’ he said. ‘They’ll be here any minute now.’ His lips parted in a ghastly smile. ‘I’ll be all right; they’ll take me to hospital. But you – you’ll …’ He broke off in a fit of coughing and then continued: ‘… they’ll kill the lot of you.’ He lifted up his arm, the fingers curling into a fist. ‘Vivaca …’
The arm dropped flaccidly and the look of hate in his eyes deepened into surprise – surprise that he was dead.
Rohde grabbed him by the wrist and held it for a moment. ‘He’s gone,’ he said.
‘He was a lunatic,’ said O’Hara. ‘Stark, staring mad.’
The woman was still screaming and Forester said, ‘For God’s sake, let’s get everybody out of here.’
Just then the Dakota lurched sickeningly and the whole cockpit rose in the air. There was a ripping sound as the spike of rock that had killed Grivas tore at the aluminium sheathing of the fuselage. O’Hara had a sudden and horrible intuition of what was happening. ‘Nobody move,’ he shouted. ‘Everyone keep still.’
He turned to Forester. ‘Bash in those windows.’
Forester looked in surprise at the axe he was still holding as though he had forgotten it, then he raised it and struck at the opaque windscreen. The plastic filling in the glass sandwich could not withstand his assault and he made a hole big enough for a man to climb through.
O’Hara said, ‘I’ll go through – I think I know what I’ll find. Don’t either of you go back there – not yet. And call through and tell anyone who can move to come up front.’
He squeezed through the narrow gap and was astonished to find that the nose of the Dakota was missing. He twisted and crawled out on to the top of the fuselage and looked aft. The tail and one wing were hanging in space over the valley where the runway ended. The whole aircraft was delicately balanced and even as he looked the tail tipped a little and there was a ripping sound from the cockpit.
He twisted on to his stomach and wriggled so that he could look into the cockpit, his head upside-down. ‘We’re in a jam,’ he said to Forester. ‘We’re hanging over a two-hundred-foot drop, and the only thing that’s keeping the whole bloody aeroplane from tipping over is that bit of rock there.’ He indicated the rock projection driven into the side of the cockpit.
He said, ‘If anyone goes back there the extra weight might send us over because we’re balanced just like a seesaw.’
Forester turned his head and bawled, ‘Anyone who can move, come up here.’
There was a movement and Willis staggered through the door, his head bloody. Forester shouted, ‘Anyone else?’
Señorita Montes called urgently, ‘Please help my uncle – oh, please.’
Rohde drew Willis out of the way and stepped through the door. Forester said sharply, ‘Don’t go in too far.’
Rohde did not even look at him, but bent to pick up Montes who was lying by the door. He half carried, half dragged him into the cockpit and Señorita Montes followed.
Forester looked up at O’Hara. ‘It’s getting crowded in here; I think we’d better start getting people outside.’
‘We’ll get them on top first,’ said O’Hara. ‘The more weight we have at this end, the better. Let the girl come first.’
She shook her head. ‘My uncle first.’
‘For God’s sake, he’s unconscious,’ said Forester. ‘You go out – I’ll look after him.’
She shook her head stubbornly and O’Hara broke in impatiently, ‘All right, Willis, come on up here; let’s not waste time.’ His head ached and he was panting in the thin air; he was not inclined to waste time over silly girls.
He helped Willis through the smashed windscreen and saw him settle on top of the fuselage. When he looked into the cockpit again it was evident that the girl had changed her mind. Rohde was talking quietly but emphatically to her and she crossed over and O’Hara helped her out.
Armstrong came next, having made his own way to the cockpit. He said, ‘It’s a bloody shambles back there. I think the old man in the back seat is dead and his wife is pretty badly hurt. I don’t think it’s safe to move her.’
‘What about Peabody?’
‘The luggage was thrown forward on to both of us. He’s half buried under it. I tried to get him free but I couldn’t.’
O’Hara passed this on to Forester. Rohde was kneeling by Montes, trying to bring him round. Forester hesitated, then said, ‘Now we’ve got some weight at this end it might be safe for me to go back.’
O’Hara said, ‘Tread lightly.’
Forester gave a mirthless grin and went back through the door. He looked at Miss Ponsky. She was sitting rigid, her arms clutched tightly about her, her eyes staring unblinkingly at nothing. He ignored her and began to heave suitcases from the top of Peabody, being careful to stow them in the front seats. Peabody stirred and Forester shook him into consciousness, and as soon as he seemed to be able to understand, said, ‘Go into the cockpit – the cockpit, you understand,’
Peabody nodded blearily and Forester stepped a little farther aft. ‘Christ Almighty!’ he whispered, shocked at what he saw.
Coughlin was a bloody pulp. The cargo had shifted in the smash and had come forward, crushing the two back seats. Mrs Coughlin was still alive but both her legs had been cut off just below the knee. It was only because she had been leaning forward to comfort Miss Ponsky that she hadn’t been killed like her husband.
Forester felt something touch his back and turned. It was Peabody moving aft. ‘I said the cockpit, you damned fool,’ shouted Forester.
‘I wanna get outa here,’ mumbled Peabody. ‘I wanna get out. The door’s back there.’
Forester wasted no time in argument. Abruptly he jabbed at Peabody’s stomach and then brought his clenched fists down at the nape of his neck as he bent over gasping, knocking him cold. He dragged him forward to the door and said to Rohde, ‘Take care of this fool. If he causes trouble, knock him on the head.’
He went back and took Miss Ponsky by the arm. ‘Come,’ he said gently.
She rose and followed him like a somnambulist and he led her right into the cockpit and delivered her to O’Hara. Montes was now conscious and would be ready to move soon.
As soon as O’Hara reappeared Forester said, ‘I don’t think the old lady back there will make it.’
‘Get her out,’ said O’Hara tightly. ‘For God’s sake, get her out.’
So Forester went back. He didn’t know whether Mrs Coughlin was alive or dead; her body was still warm, however, so he picked her up in his arms. Blood was still spurting from her shattered shins, and when he stepped into the cockpit Rohde drew in his breath with a hiss. ‘On the seat,’ he said. ‘She needs tourniquets now – immediately.’
He took off his jacket and then his shirt and began to rip the shirt into strips, saying to Forester curtly, ‘Get the old man out.’
Forester and O’Hara helped Montes through the windscreen and then Forester turned and regarded Rohde, noting the goose-pimples on his back. ‘Clothing,’ he said to O’Hara. ‘We’ll need warm clothing. It’ll be bad up here by nightfall.’
‘Hell!’ said O’Hara. ‘That’s adding to the risk. I don’t – ’
‘He is right,’ said Rohde without turning his head. ‘If we do not have clothing we will all be dead by morning.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara. ‘Are you willing to take the risk?’
‘I’ll chance it,’ said Forester.
‘I’ll get these people on the ground first,’ said O’Hara. ‘But while you’re at it get the maps. There are some air charts of the area in the pocket next to my seat.’
Rohde grunted. ‘I’ll get those.’
O’Hara got the people from the top of the fuselage to the ground and Forester began to bring suitcases into the cockpit. Unceremoniously he heaved Peabody through the windscreen and equally carelessly O’Hara dropped him to the ground, where he lay sprawling. Then Rohde handed through the unconscious Mrs Coughlin and O’Hara was surprised at her lightness. Rohde climbed out and, taking her in his arms, jumped to the ground, cushioning the shock for her.
Forester began to hand out suitcases and O’Hara tossed them indiscriminately. Some burst open, but most survived the fall intact.
The Dakota lurched.
‘Forester,’ yelled O’Hara. ‘Come out.’
‘There’s still some more.’
‘Get out, you idiot,’ O’Hara bawled. ‘She’s going.’
He grabbed Forester’s arms and hauled him out bodily and let him go thumping to the ground. Then he jumped himself and, as he did so, the nose rose straight into the air and the plane slid over the edge of the cliff with a grinding noise and in a cloud of dust. It crashed down two hundred feet and there was a long dying rumble and then silence.
O’Hara looked at the silent people about him, then turned his eyes to the harsh and savage mountains which surrounded them. He shivered with cold as he felt the keen wind which blew from the snowfields, and then shivered for a different reason as he locked eyes with Forester. They both knew that the odds against survival were heavy and that it was probable that the escape from the Dakota was merely the prelude to a more protracted death.
VIII
‘Now, let’s hear all this from the beginning,’ said Forester.
They had moved into the nearest of the cabins. It proved bare but weatherproof, and there was a fireplace in which Armstrong had made a fire, using wood which Willis had brought from another cabin. Montes was lying in a corner being looked after by his niece, and Peabody was nursing a hangover and looking daggers at Forester.
Miss Ponsky had recovered remarkably from the rigidity of fright. When she had been dropped to the ground she had collapsed, digging her fingers into the frozen gravel in an ecstasy of relief. O’Hara judged she would never have the guts to enter an aeroplane ever again in her life. But now she was showing remarkable aptitude for sick nursing, helping Rohde to care for Mrs Coughlin.
Now there was a character, thought O’Hara; Rohde was a man of unsuspected depths. Although he was not a medical man, he had a good working knowledge of practical medicine which was now invaluable. O’Hara had immediately turned to Willis for help with Mrs Coughlin, but Willis had said, ‘Sorry, I’m a physicist – not a physician.’
‘Dr Armstrong?’ O’Hara had appealed.
Regretfully Armstrong had also shaken his head. ‘I’m a historian.’
So Rohde had taken over – the non-doctor with the medical background – and the man with the gun.
O’Hara turned his attention to Forester. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘This is the way it was,’
He told everything that had happened, right back from the take-off in San Croce, dredging from his memory everything Grivas had said. ‘I think he went off his head,’ he concluded.
Forester frowned. ‘No, it was planned,’ he contradicted. ‘And lunacy isn’t planned. Grivas knew this airstrip and he knew the course to take. You say he was at San Croce airfield when the Samair plane was grounded?’
‘That’s right – I thought it was a bit odd at the time. I mean, it was out of character for Grivas to be haunting the field in the middle of the night – he wasn’t that keen on his job.’
‘It sounds as though he knew the Samair Boeing was going to have engine trouble,’ commented Willis.
Forester looked up quickly and Willis said, ‘It’s the only logical answer – he didn’t just steal a plane, he stole the contents; and the contents of the plane were people from the Boeing. O’Hara says those big crates contain ordinary mining machinery and I doubt if Grivas would want that.’
‘That implies sabotage of the Boeing,’ said Forester. ‘If Grivas was expecting the Boeing to land at San Croce, it also implies a sizeable organization behind him.’
‘We know that already,’ said O’Hara. ‘Grivas was expecting a reception committee here. He said, “They’ll be here any minute.” But where are they?’
‘And who are they?’ asked Forester.
O’Hara thought of something else Grivas had said: ‘… they’ll kill the lot of you.’ He kept quiet about that and asked instead, ‘Remember the last thing he said – “Vivaca”? It doesn’t make sense to me. It sounds vaguely Spanish, but it’s no word I know.’
‘My Spanish is good,’ said Forester deliberately. ‘There’s no such word.’ He slapped the side of his leg irritably. ‘I’d give a lot to know what’s been going on and who’s responsible for all this.’
A weak voice came from across the room. ‘I fear, gentlemen, that in a way I am responsible.’
Everyone in the room, with the exception of Mrs Coughlin, turned to look at Señor Montes.
TWO (#ulink_a1cb00d5-2973-57fe-bda0-0597529dc098)
Montes looked ill. He was worse than he had been in the air. His chest heaved violently as he sucked in the thin air and he had a ghastly pallor. As he opened his mouth to speak again the girl said, ‘Hush, tio, be quiet. I will tell them,’
She turned and looked across the cabin at O’Hara and Forester. ‘My uncle’s name is not Montes,’ she said levelly. ‘It is Aguillar.’ She said it as though it was an explanation, entire and complete in itself.
There was a moment of blank silence, then O’Hara snapped his fingers and said softly, ‘By God, the old eagle himself.’ He stared at the sick man.
‘Yes, Señor O’Hara,’ whispered Aguillar. ‘But a crippled eagle, I am afraid.’
‘Say, what the hell is this?’ grumbled Peabody. ‘What’s so special about him?’
Willis gave Peabody a look of dislike and got to his feet. ‘I wouldn’t have put it that way myself,’ he said. ‘But I could bear to know more.’
O’Hara said, ‘Señor Aguillar was possibly the best president this country ever had until the army took over five years ago. He got out of the country just one jump ahead of a firing squad.’
‘General Lopez always was a hasty man,’ agreed Aguillar with a weak smile.
‘You mean the government arranged all this – this jam we’re in now – just to get you?’ Willis’s voice was shrill with incredulity.
Aguillar shook his head and started to speak, but the girl said, ‘No, you must be quiet.’ She looked at O’Hara appealingly. ‘Do not question him now, señor. Can’t you see he is ill?’
‘Can you speak for your uncle?’ asked Forester gently.
She looked at the old man and he nodded. ‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked.
‘What is your uncle doing back in Cordillera?’
‘We have come to bring back good government to our country,’ she said. ‘We have come to throw out Lopez.’
O’Hara gave a short laugh. ‘To throw out Lopez,’ he said flatly. ‘Just like that. An old man and a girl are going to throw out a man with an army at his back.’ He shook his head disbelievingly.
The girl flared up. ‘What do you know about it; you are a foreigner – you know nothing. Lopez is finished – everyone in Cordillera knows it, even Lopez himself. He has been too greedy, too corrupt, and the country is sick of him.’
Forester rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘She could be right,’ he said. ‘It would take just a puff of wind to blow Lopez over right now. He’s run this country right into the ground in the last five years – just about milked it dry and salted enough money away in Swiss banks to last a couple of lifetimes. I don’t think he’d risk losing out now if it came to a showdown – if someone pushed hard enough he’d fold up and get out. I think he’d take wealth and comfort instead of power and the chance of being shot by some gun-happy student with a grievance.’
‘Lopez has bankrupted Cordillera,’ the girl said. She held up her head proudly. ‘But when my uncle appears in Santillana the people will rise, and that will be the end of Lopez.’
‘It could work,’ agreed Forester. ‘Your uncle was well liked. I suppose you’ve prepared the ground in advance.’
She nodded. ‘The Democratic Committee of Action has made all the arrangements. All that remains is for my uncle to appear in Santillana.’
‘He may not get there,’ said O’Hara. ‘Someone is trying to stop him, and if it isn’t Lopez, then who the hell is it?’
‘The comunistas,’ the girl spat out with loathing in her voice. ‘They cannot afford to let my uncle get into power again. They want Cordillera for their own.’
Forester said, ‘It figures. Lopez is a dead duck, come what may; so it’s Aguillar versus the communists with Cordillera as the stake.’
‘They are not quite ready,’ the girl said. ‘They do not have enough support among the people. During the last two years they have been infiltrating the government very cleverly and if they had their way the people would wake up one morning to find Lopez gone, leaving a communist government to take his place.’
‘Swapping one dictatorship for another,’ said Forester. ‘Very clever.’
‘But they are not yet ready to get rid of Lopez,’ she said. ‘My uncle would spoil their plans – he would get rid of Lopez and the government, too. He would hold elections for the first time in nine years. So the communists are trying to stop him.’
‘And you think Grivas was a communist?’ queried O’Hara.
Forester snapped his fingers. ‘Of course he was. That explains his last words. He was a communist, all right – Latin-American blend; when he said “vivaca” he was trying to say “Viva Castro”.’ His voice hardened. ‘And we can expect his buddies along any minute.’
‘We must leave here quickly,’ said the girl. ‘They must not find my uncle.’
O’Hara suddenly swung round and regarded Rohde, who had remained conspicuously silent. He said, ‘What do you import, Señor Rohde?’
‘It is all right, Señor O’Hara,’ said Aguillar weakly. ‘Miguel is my secretary.’
Forester looked at Rohde. ‘More like your bodyguard.’
Aguillar flapped his hand limply as though the distinction was of no consequence, and Forester said, ‘What put you on to him, O’Hara?’
‘I don’t like men who carry guns,’ said O’Hara shortly. ‘Especially men who could be communist.’ He looked around the cabin. ‘All right, are there any more jokers in the pack? What about you, Forester? You seem to know a hell of a lot about local politics for an American businessman.’
‘Don’t be a damn fool,’ said Forester. ‘If I didn’t take an interest in local politics my corporation would fire me. Having the right kind of government is important to us, and we sure as hell don’t want a commie set-up in Cordillera.’
He took out his wallet and extracted a business card which he handed to O’Hara. It informed him that Raymond Forester was the South American sales manager for the Fairfield Machine Tool Corporation.
O’Hara gave it back to him. ‘Was Grivas the only communist aboard?’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m getting at. When we were coming in to land, did any of the passengers take any special precautions for their safety?’
Forester thought about it, then shook his head. ‘Everyone seemed to be taken by surprise – I don’t think any of us knew just what was happening.’ He looked at O’Hara with respect. ‘In the circumstances that was a good question to ask.’
‘Well, I’m not a communist,’ said Miss Ponsky sharply. ‘The very idea!’
O’Hara smiled. ‘My apologies, Miss Ponsky,’ he said politely.
Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin; now he stood up. ‘This lady is dying,’ he said. ‘She has lost much blood and she is in shock. And she has the soroche – the mountain-sickness. If she does not get oxygen she will surely die.’ His black eyes switched to Aguillar, who seemed to have fallen asleep. ‘The Señor also must have oxygen – he’s in grave danger.’ He looked at them. ‘We must go down the mountain. To stay at this height is very dangerous.’
O’Hara was conscious of a vicious headache and the fact that his heart was thumping rapidly. He had been long enough in the country to have heard of soroche and its effects. The lower air pressure on the mountain heights meant less oxygen, the respiratory rate went up and so did the heart-beat rate, pumping the blood faster. It killed a weak constitution.
He said slowly, ‘There were oxygen cylinders in the plane – maybe they’re not busted.’
‘Good,’ said Rohde. ‘We will look, you and I. It would be better not to move this lady if possible. But if we do not find the oxygen, then we must go down the mountain.’
Forester said, ‘We must keep a fire going – the rest of us will look for wood.’ He paused. ‘Bring some petrol from the plane – we may need it.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara.
‘Come on,’ said Forester to Peabody. ‘Let’s move.’
Peabody lay where he was, gasping. ‘I’m beat,’ he said. ‘And my head’s killing me.’
‘It’s just a hangover,’ said Forester callously. ‘Get on your feet, man.’
Rohde put his hand on Forester’s arm. ‘Soroche,’ he said warningly. ‘He will not be able to do much. Come, señor.’
O’Hara followed Rohde from the cabin and shivered in the biting air. He looked around. The airstrip was built on the only piece of level ground in the vicinity; all else was steeply shelving mountainside, and all around were the pinnacles of the high Andes, clear-cut in the cold and crystal air. They soared skyward, blindingly white against the blue where the snows lay on their flanks, and where the slope was too steep for the snow to stay was the dark grey of the rock.
It was cold, desolate and utterly lifeless. There was no restful green of vegetation, or the flick of a bird’s wing – just black, white and the blue of the sky, a hard, dark metallic blue as alien as the landscape.
O’Hara pulled his jacket closer about him and looked at the other huts. ‘What is this place?’
‘It is a mine,’ said Rohde. ‘Copper and zinc – the tunnels are over there.’ He pointed to a cliff face at the end of the airstrip and O’Hara saw the dark mouths of several tunnels driven into the cliff face. Rohde shook his head. ‘But it is too high to work – they should never have tried. No man can work well at this height; not even our mountain indios.’
‘You know this place then?’
‘I know these mountains well,’ said Rohde. ‘I was born not far from here.’
They trudged along the airstrip and before they had gone a hundred yards O’Hara felt exhausted. His head ached and he felt nauseated. He sucked the thin air into his lungs and his chest heaved.
Rohde stopped and said, ‘You must not force your breathing.’
‘What else can I do?’ said O’Hara, panting. ‘I’ve got to get enough air.’
‘Breathe naturally, without effort,’ said Rohde. ‘You will get enough air. But if you force your breathing you will wash all the carbon dioxide from your lungs, and that will upset the acid base of your blood and you will get muscle cramps. And that is very bad.’
O’Hara moderated his breathing and said, ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’
‘I studied medicine once,’ said Rohde briefly.
They reached the far end of the strip and looked over the edge of the cliff. The Dakota was pretty well smashed up; the port wing had broken off, as had the entire tail section. Rohde studied the terrain. ‘We need not climb down the cliff; it will be easier to go round.’
It took them a long time to get to the plane and when they got there they found only one oxygen cylinder intact. It was difficult to get it free and out of the aircraft, but they managed it after chopping away a part of the fuselage with the axe that O’Hara found on the floor of the cockpit.
The gauge showed that the cylinder was only a third full and O’Hara cursed Filson and his cheese-paring, but Rohde seemed satisfied. ‘It will be enough,’ he said. ‘We can stay in the hut tonight.’
‘What happens if these communists turn up?’ asked O’Hara.
Rohde seemed unperturbed. ‘Then we will defend ourselves,’ he said equably. ‘One thing at a time, Señor O’Hara.’
‘Grivas seemed to think they were already here,’ said O’Hara. ‘I wonder what held them up?’
Rohde shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’
They could not manhandle the oxygen cylinder back to the huts without help, so Rohde went back, taking with him some mouthpieces and a bottle of petrol tapped from a wing tank. O’Hara searched the fuselage, looking for anything that might be of value, particularly food. That, he thought, might turn out to be a major problem. All he found was half a slab of milk chocolate in Grivas’s seat pocket.
Rohde came back with Forester, Willis and Armstrong and they took it in turns carrying the oxygen cylinder, two by two. It was very hard work and they could only manage to move it twenty yards at a time. O’Hara estimated that back in San Croce he could have picked it up and carried it a mile, but the altitude seemed to have sucked all the strength from their muscles and they could work only a few minutes at a time before they collapsed in exhaustion.
When they got it to the hut they found that Miss Ponsky was feeding the fire with wood from a door of one of the other huts that Willis and Armstrong had torn down and smashed up laboriously with rocks. Willis was particularly glad to see the axe. ‘It’ll be easier now,’ he said.
Rohde administered oxygen to Mrs Coughlin and Aguillar. She remained unconscious, but it made a startling difference to the old man. As the colour came back to his cheeks his niece smiled for the first time since the crash.
O’Hara sat before the fire, feeling the warmth soak into him, and produced his air charts. He spread the relevant chart on the floor and pin-pointed a position with a pencilled cross. ‘That’s where we were when we changed course,’ he said. ‘We flew on a true course of one-eighty-four for a shade over five minutes.’ He drew a line on the chart. ‘We were flying at a little over two hundred knots – say, two hundred and forty miles an hour. That’s about twenty miles – so that puts us about – here.’ He made another cross.
Forester looked over his shoulder. ‘The airstrip isn’t marked on the map,’ he said.
‘Rohde said it was abandoned,’ said O’Hara.
Rohde came over and looked at the map and nodded. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘That is where we are. The road down the mountain leads to the refinery. That also is abandoned, but I think some indios live there still.’
‘How far is that?’ asked Forester.
‘About forty kilometres,’ said Rohde.
‘Twenty-five miles,’ translated Forester. ‘That’s a hell of a long way in these conditions.’
‘It will not be very bad,’ said Rohde. He put his finger on the map. ‘When we get to this valley where the river runs we will be nearly five thousand feet lower and we will breathe more easily. That is about sixteen kilometres by the road.’
‘We’ll start early tomorrow,’ said O’Hara.
Rohde agreed. ‘If we had no oxygen I would have said go now. But it would be better to stay in the shelter of this hut tonight.’
‘What about Mrs Coughlin?’ said O’Hara quietly. ‘Can we move her?’
‘We will have to move her,’ said Rohde positively. ‘She cannot live at this altitude.’
‘We’ll rig together some kind of stretcher,’ said Forester. ‘We can make a sling out of clothing and poles – or maybe use a door.’
O’Hara looked across to where Mrs Coughlin was breathing stertorously, closely watched by Miss Ponsky. His voice was harsh. ‘I’d rather that bastard Grivas was still alive if that would give her back her legs,’ he said.
II
Mrs Coughlin died during the night without regaining consciousness. They found her in the morning cold and stiff. Miss Ponsky was in tears. ‘I should have stayed awake,’ she sniffled. ‘I couldn’t sleep most of the night, and then I had to drop off.’
Rohde shook his head gravely. ‘She would have died,’ he said. ‘We could not do anything for her – none of us.’
Forester, O’Hara and Peabody scratched out a shallow grave. Peabody seemed better and O’Hara thought that maybe Forester had been right when he said that Peabody was only suffering from a hangover. However, he had to be prodded into helping to dig the grave.
It seemed that everyone had had a bad night, no one sleeping very well. Rohde said that it was another symptom of soroche and the sooner they got to a lower altitude the better. O’Hara still had a splitting headache and heartily concurred.
The oxygen cylinder was empty.
O’Hara tapped the gauge with his finger but the needle stubbornly remained at zero. He opened the cock and bent his head to listen but there was no sound from the valve. He had heard the gentle hiss of oxygen several times during the night and had assumed that Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin or Aguillar.
He beckoned to Rohde. ‘Did you use all the oxygen last night?’
Rohde looked incredulously at the gauge. ‘I was saving some for today,’ he said. ‘Señor Aguillar needs it.’
O’Hara bit his lip and looked across to where Peabody sat. ‘I thought he looked pretty chipper this morning.’
Rohde growled something under his breath and took a step forward, but O’Hara caught his arm. ‘It can’t be proved,’ he said. ‘I could be wrong. And anyway, we don’t want any rows right here. Let’s get down this mountain.’ He kicked the cylinder and it clanged emptily. ‘At least we won’t have to carry this.’
He remembered the chocolate and brought it out. There were eight small squares to be divided between ten of them, so he, Rohde and Forester did without and Aguillar had two pieces. O’Hara thought that he must have had three because the girl did not appear to eat her ration.
Armstrong and Willis appeared to work well as a team. Using the axe, they had ripped some timber from one of the huts and made a rough stretcher by pushing lengths of wood through the sleeves of two overcoats. That was for Aguillar, who could not walk.
They put on all the clothes they could and left the rest in suitcases. Forester gave O’Hara a bulky overcoat. ‘Don’t mess it about if you can help it,’ he said. ‘That’s vicuna – it cost a lot of dough.’ He grinned. ‘The boss’s wife asked me to get it this trip; it’s the old man’s birthday soon.’
Peabody grumbled when he had to leave his luggage and grumbled more when O’Hara assigned him to a stretcher-carrying stint. O’Hara resisted taking a poke at him; for one thing he did not want open trouble, and for another he did not know whether he had the strength to do any damage. At the moment it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.
So they left the huts and went down the road, turning their backs on the high peaks. The road was merely a rough track cut out of the mountainside. It wound down in a series of hairpin bends and Willis pointed out where blasting had been done on the corners. It was just wide enough to take a single vehicle but, from time to time, they came across a wide part where two trucks could pass.
O’Hara asked Rohde, ‘Did they intend to truck all the ore from the mine?’
‘They would have built a telfer,’ said Rohde. ‘An endless rope with buckets. But they were still proving the mine. Petrol engines do not work well up here – they need superchargers.’ He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground.
In a patch of snow was the track of a tyre.
‘Someone’s been up here lately,’ observed O’Hara. ‘Supercharged or not. But I knew that.’
‘How?’ Rohde demanded.
‘The airstrip had been cleared of snow.’
Rohde patted his breast and moved away without saying anything. O’Hara remembered the pistol and wondered what would happen if they came up against opposition.
Although the path was downhill and the going comparatively good, it was only possible to carry the stretcher a hundred yards at a time. Forester organized relays, and as one set of carriers collapsed exhaustedly another took over. Aguillar was in a comatose condition and the girl walked next to the stretcher, anxiously watching him. After a mile they stopped for a rest and O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘I’ve got a flask of spirits. ‘I’ve been saving it for when things really get tough. Do you think it would help the old man?’
‘Let me have it,’ said Rohde.
O’Hara took the flask from his hip and gave it to Rohde, who took off the cap and sniffed the contents. ‘Aguardiente,’ he said. ‘Not the best drink but it will do.’ He looked at O’Hara curiously. ‘Do you drink this?’
‘I’m a poor man,’ said O’Hara defensively.
Rohde smiled. ‘When I was a student I also was poor. I also drank aguardiente. But I do not recommend too much,’ He looked across at Aguillar. ‘I think we save this for later.’ He recapped the flask and handed it back to O’Hara. As O’Hara was replacing it in his pocket he saw Peabody staring at him. He smiled back pleasantly.
After a rest of half an hour they started off again. O’Hara, in the lead, looked back and thought they looked like a bunch of war refugees. Willis and Armstrong were stumbling along with the stretcher, the girl keeping pace alongside; Miss Ponsky was sticking close to Rohde, chatting as though on a Sunday afternoon walk, despite her shortness of breath, and Forester was in the rear with Peabody shambling beside him.
After the third stop O’Hara found that things were going better. His step felt lighter and his breathing eased, although the headache stayed with him. The stretcher-bearers found that they could carry for longer periods, and Aguillar had come round and was taking notice.
O’Hara mentioned this to Rohde, who pointed at the steep slopes about them. ‘We are losing a lot of height,’ he said. ‘It will get better now.’
After the fourth halt O’Hara and Forester were carrying the stretcher. Aguillar apologized in a weak voice for the inconvenience he was causing, but O’Hara forbore to answer – he needed all his breath for the job. Things weren’t that much better.
Forester suddenly stopped and O’Hara thankfully laid down the stretcher. His legs felt rubbery and the breath rasped in his throat. He grinned at Forester, who was beating his hands against his chest. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘It should be warmer down in the valley.’
Forester blew on his fingers. ‘I hope so.’ He looked up at O’Hara. ‘You’re a pretty good pilot,’ he said. ‘I’ve done some flying in my time, but I don’t think I could do what you did yesterday.’
‘You might if you had a pistol at your head,’ said O’Hara with a grimace. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t leave it to Grivas – he’d have killed the lot of us, starting with me first.’
He looked past Forester and saw Rohde coming back up the road at a stumbling run, his gun in his hand. ‘Something’s happening.’
He went forward to meet Rohde, who gasped, his chest heaving. ‘There are huts here – I had forgotten them.’
O’Hara looked at the gun. ‘Do you need that?’
Rohde gave a stark smile. ‘It is possible, señor.’ He waved casually down the road with the pistol. ‘I think we should be careful. I think we should look first before doing anything. You, me, and Señor Forester.’
‘I think so too,’ said Forester. ‘Grivas said his pals would be around and this seems a likely place to meet them.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara, and looked about. There was no cover on the road but there was a jumble of rocks a little way back. ‘I think everyone else had better stick behind that lot,’ he said. ‘If anything does break, there’s no point in being caught in the open.’
They went back to shelter behind the rocks and O’Hara told everyone what was happening. He ended by saying, ‘If there’s shooting you don’t do a damned thing – you freeze and stay put. Now I know we’re not an army but we’re likely to come under fire all the same – so I’m naming Doctor Willis as second-in-command. If anything happens to us you take your orders from him.’ Willis nodded.
Aguillar’s niece was talking to Rohde, and as O’Hara went to join Forester she touched him on the arm. ‘Señor.’
He looked down at her. ‘Yes, señorita.’
‘Please be careful, you and Señor Forester. I would not want anything to happen to you because of us.’
‘I’ll be careful,’ said O’Hara. ‘Tell me, is your name the same as your uncle’s?’
‘I am Benedetta Aguillar,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘I’m Tim O’Hara. I’ll be careful.’
He joined the other two and they walked down the road to the bend. Rohde said, ‘These huts were where the miners lived. This is just about as high as a man can live permanently – a man who is acclimatized such as our mountain indios. I think we should leave the road here and approach from the side. If Grivas did have friends, here is where we will find them.’
They took to the mountainside and came upon the camp from the top. A level place had been roughly bulldozed out of the side of the mountain and there were about a dozen timber-built huts, very much like the huts by the airstrip.
‘This is no good,’ said Forester. ‘We’ll have to go over this miniature cliff before we can get at them.’
‘There’s no smoke,’ O’Hara pointed out.
‘Maybe that means something – maybe it doesn’t,’ said Forester. ‘I think that Rohde and I will go round and come up from the bottom. If anything happens, maybe you can cause a diversion from up here.’
‘What do I do?’ asked O’Hara. ‘Throw stones?’
Forester shook with silent laughter. He pointed down the slope to beyond the camp. ‘We’ll come out about there. You can see us from here but we’ll be out of sight of anyone in the camp. If all’s clear you can give us the signal to come up.’ He looked at Rohde, who nodded.
Forester and Rohde left quietly and O’Hara lay on his belly, looking down at the camp. He did not think there was anyone there. It was less than five miles up to the airstrip by the road and there was nothing to stop anybody going up there. If Grivas’s confederates were anywhere, it was not likely that they would be at this camp – but it was as well to make sure. He scanned the huts but saw no sign of movement.
Presently he saw Forester wave from the side of the rock he had indicated and he waved back. Rohde went up first, in a wide arc to come upon the camp at an angle. Then Forester moved forward in the peculiar scuttling, zigzagging run of the experienced soldier who expects to be shot at. O’Hara wondered about Forester; the man had said he could fly an aeroplane and now he was behaving like a trained infantryman. He had an eye for ground, too, and was obviously accustomed to command.
Forester disappeared behind one of the huts and then Rohde came into sight at the far end of the camp, moving warily with his gun in his hand. He too disappeared, and O’Hara felt tension. He waited for what seemed a very long time, then Forester walked out from behind the nearest hut, moving quite unconcernedly. ‘You can come down,’ he called. ‘There’s no one here.’
O’Hara let out his breath with a rush and stood up. ‘I’ll go back and get the rest of the people down here,’ he shouted, and Forester waved in assent.
O’Hara went back up the road, collected the party and took them down to the camp. Forester and Rohde were waiting in the main ‘street’ and Forester called out, ‘We’ve struck it lucky; there’s a lot of food here.’
Suddenly O’Hara realized that he hadn’t eaten for a day and a half. He did not feel particularly hungry, but he knew that if he did not eat he could not last out much longer – and neither could any of the others. To have food would make a lot of difference on the next leg of the journey.
Forester said, ‘Most of the huts are empty, but three of them are fitted out as living quarters complete with kerosene heaters.’
O’Hara looked down at the ground which was crisscrossed with tyre tracks. ‘There’s something funny going on,’ he said. ‘Rohde told me that the mine has been abandoned for a long time, yet there’s all these signs of life and no one around. What the hell’s going on?’
Forester shrugged. ‘Maybe the commie organization is slipping,’ he said. ‘The Latins have never been noted for good planning. Maybe someone’s put a spoke in their wheel.’
‘Maybe,’ said O’Hara. ‘We might as well take advantage of it. What do you think we should do now – how long should we stay here?’
Forester looked at the group entering one of the huts, then up at the sky. ‘We’re pretty beat,’ he said. ‘Maybe we ought to stay here until tomorrow. It’ll take us a while to get fed and it’ll be late before we can move out. We ought to stay here tonight and keep warm.’
‘We’ll consult Rohde,’ said O’Hara. ‘He’s the expert on mountains and altitude.’
The huts were well fitted. There were paraffin stoves, bunks, plenty of blankets and a large assortment of canned foods. On the table in one of the huts there were the remnants of a meal, the plates dirty and unwashed and frozen dregs of coffee in the bottom of tin mugs. O’Hara felt the thickness of the ice and it cracked beneath the pressure of his finger.
‘They haven’t been gone long,’ he said. ‘If the hut was unheated this stuff would have frozen to the bottom.’ He passed the mug to Rohde. ‘What do you think?’
Rohde looked at the ice closely. ‘If they turned off the heaters when they left, the hut would stay warm for a while,’ he said. He tested the ice and thought deeply. ‘I would say two days,’ he said finally.
‘Say yesterday morning,’ suggested O’Hara. ‘That would be about the time we took off from San Croce.’
Forester groaned in exasperation. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why did they go to all this trouble, make all these preparations, and then clear out? One thing’s sure: Grivas expected a reception committee – and where the hell is it?’
O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘We are thinking of staying here tonight. What do you think?’
‘It is better here than at the mine,’ said Rohde. ‘We have lost a lot of height. I would say that we are at an altitude of about four thousand metres here – or maybe a little more. That will not harm us for one night; it will be better to stay here in shelter than to stay in the open tonight, even if it is lower down the mountain.’ He contracted his brows. ‘But I suggest we keep a watch.’
Forester nodded. ‘We’ll take it in turns.’
Miss Ponsky and Benedetta were busy on the pressure stoves making hot soup. Armstrong had already got the heater going and Willis was sorting out cans of food. He called O’Hara over. ‘I thought we’d better take something with us when we leave,’ he said. ‘It might come in useful.’
‘A good idea,’ said O’Hara.
Willis grinned. ‘That’s all very well, but I can’t read Spanish. I have to go by the pictures on the labels. Someone had better check on these when I’ve got them sorted out.’
Forester and Rohde went on down the road to pick a good spot for a sentry, and when Forester came back he said, ‘Rohde’s taking the first watch. We’ve got a good place where we can see bits of road a good two miles away. And if they come up at night they’re sure to have their lights on.’
He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got six able-bodied men, so if we leave here early tomorrow, that means two-hour watches. That’s not too bad – it gives us all enough sleep.’
After they had eaten Benedetta took some food down to Rohde and O’Hara found himself next to Armstrong. ‘You said you were a historian. I suppose you’re over here to check up on the Incas,’ he said.
‘Oh, no,’ said Armstrong. ‘They’re not my line of country at all. My line is medieval history.’
‘Oh,’ said O’Hara blankly.
‘I don’t know anything about the Incas and I don’t particularly want to,’ said Armstrong frankly. He smiled gently. ‘For the past ten years I’ve never had a real holiday. I’d go on holiday like a normal man – perhaps to France or Italy – and then I’d see something interesting. I’d do a bit of investigating – and before I’d know it I’d be hard at work.’
He produced a pipe and peered dubiously into his tobacco pouch. ‘This year I decided to come to South America for a holiday. All there is here is pre-European and modern history – no medieval history at all. Clever of me, wasn’t it?’
O’Hara smiled, suspecting that Armstrong was indulging in a bit of gentle leg-pulling. ‘And what’s your line, Doctor Willis?’ he asked.
‘I’m a physicist,’ said Willis. ‘I’m interested in cosmic rays at high altitudes. I’m not getting very far with it, though.’
They were certainly a mixed lot, thought O’Hara, looking across at Miss Ponsky as she talked animatedly to Aguillar. Now there was a sight – a New England spinster schoolmarm lecturing a statesman. She would certainly have plenty to tell her pupils when she arrived back at the little schoolhouse.
‘What was this place, anyway?’ asked Willis.
‘Living quarters for the mine up on top,’ said O’Hara. ‘That’s what Rohde tells me.’
Willis nodded. ‘They had their workshops down here, too,’ he said. ‘All the machinery has gone, of course, but there are still a few bits and pieces left.’ He shivered. ‘I can’t say I’d like to work in a place like this.’
O’Hara looked about the hut. ‘Neither would I.’ He caught sight of an electric conduit tube running down a wall. ‘Where did their electricity supply come from, I wonder?’
‘They had their own plant; there’s the remains of it out back. The generator has gone – they must have salvaged it when the mine closed down. They scavenged most everything, I guess; there’s precious little left.’
Armstrong drew the last of the smoke from his failing pipe with a disconsolate gurgle. ‘Well, that’s the last of the tobacco until we get back to civilization,’ he said as he knocked out the dottle. ‘Tell me, Captain; what are you doing in this part of the world?’
‘Oh, I fly aeroplanes from anywhere to anywhere,’ said O’Hara. Not any more I don’t, he thought. As far as Filson was concerned, he was finished. Filson would never forgive a pilot who wrote off one of his aircraft, no matter what the reason. I’ve lost my job, he thought. It was a lousy job but it had kept him going, and now he’d lost it.
The girl came back and he crossed over to her. ‘Anything doing down the road?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Miguel says everything is quiet.’
‘He’s quite a character,’ said O’Hara. ‘He certainly knows a lot about these mountains – and he knows a bit about medicine too.’
‘He was born near here,’ Benedetta said. ‘And he was a medical student until – ’ She stopped.
‘Until what?’ prompted O’Hara.
‘Until the revolution.’ She looked at her hands. ‘All his family were killed – that is why he hates Lopez. That is why he works with my uncle – he knows that my uncle will ruin Lopez.’
‘I thought he had a chip on his shoulder,’ said O’Hara.
She sighed. ‘It is a great pity about Miguel; he was going to do so much. He was very interested in the soroche, you know; he intended to study it as soon as he had taken his degree. But when the revolution came he had to leave the country and he had no money so he could not continue his studies. He worked in the Argentine for a while, and then he met my uncle. He saved my uncle’s life.’
‘Oh?’ O’Hara raised his eyebrows.
‘In the beginning Lopez knew that he was not safe while my uncle was alive. He knew that my uncle would organize an opposition – underground, you know. So wherever my uncle went he was in danger from the murderers hired by Lopez – even in the Argentine. There were several attempts to kill him, and it was one of these times that Miguel saved his life.’
O’Hara said, ‘Your uncle must have felt like another Trotsky. Joe Stalin had him bumped off in Mexico.’
‘That is right,’ she said with a grimace of distaste. ‘But they were communists, both of them. Anyway, Miguel stayed with us after that. He said that all he wanted was food to eat and a bed to sleep in, and he would help my uncle come back to Cordillera. And here we are.’
Yes, thought O’Hara; marooned up a bloody mountain with God knows what waiting at the bottom.
Presently Armstrong went out to relieve Rohde. Miss Ponsky came across to talk to O’Hara. ‘I’m sorry I behaved so stupidly in the airplane,’ she said crossly. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
O’Hara thought there was no need to apologize for being half frightened to death; he had been bloody scared himself. But he couldn’t say that – he couldn’t even mention the word fear to her. That would be unforgivable; no one likes to be reminded of a lapse of that nature – not even a maiden lady getting on in years. He smiled and said diplomatically, ‘Not everyone would have come through an experience like that as well as you have, Miss Ponsky.’
She was mollified and he knew that she had been in fear of a rebuff. She was the kind of person who would bite on a sore tooth, not letting it alone. She smiled and said, ‘Well now, Captain O’Hara – what do you think of all this talk about communists?’
‘I think they’re capable of anything,’ said O’Hara grimly.
‘I’m going to put in a report to the State Department when I get back,’ she said. ‘You ought to hear what Señor Aguillar has been telling me about General Lopez. I think the State Department should help Señor Aguillar against General Lopez and the communists.’
‘I’m inclined to agree with you,’ said O’Hara. ‘But perhaps your State Department doesn’t believe in interfering in Cordilleran affairs.’
‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Miss Ponsky with acerbity. ‘We’re supposed to be fighting the communists, aren’t we? Besides, Señor Aguillar assures me that he’ll hold elections as soon as General Lopez is kicked out. He’s a real democrat just like you and me.’
O’Hara wondered what would happen if another South American state did go communist. Cuban agents were filtering all through Latin America like woodworms in a piece of furniture. He tried to think of the strategic importance of Cordillera – it was on the Pacific coast and it straddled the Andes, a gun pointing to the heart of the continent. He thought the Americans would be very upset if Cordillera went communist.
Rohde came back and talked for a few minutes with Aguillar, then he crossed to O’Hara and said in a low voice, ‘Señor Aguillar would like to speak to you.’ He gestured to Forester and the three of them went to where Aguillar was resting in a bunk.
He had brightened considerably and was looking quite spry. His eyes were lively and no longer filmed with weariness, and there was a strength and authority in his voice that O’Hara had not heard before. He realized that this was a strong man; maybe not too strong in the body because he was becoming old and his body was wearing out, but he had a strong mind. O’Hara suspected that if the old man had not had a strong will, the body would have crumpled under the strain it had undergone.
Aguillar said, ‘First I must thank you gentlemen for all you have done, and I am truly sorry that I have brought this calamity upon you.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It is the innocent bystander who always suffers in the clash of our Latin politics. I am sorry that this should have happened and that you should see my country in this sad light.’
‘What else could we do?’ asked Forester. ‘We’re all in the same boat.’
‘I’m glad you see it that way,’ said Aguillar. ‘Because of what may come next. What happens if we meet up with the communists who should be here and are not?’
‘Before we come to that there’s something I’d like to query,’ said O’Hara. Aguillar raised his eyebrows and motioned him to continue, so O’Hara said deliberately, ‘How do we know they are communists? Señorita Aguillar tells me that Lopez has tried to liquidate you several times. How do you know he hasn’t got wind of your return and is having another crack at you?’
Aguillar shook his head. ‘Lopez has – in your English idiom – shot his bolt. I know. Do not forget that I am a practical politician and give me credit for knowing my own work. Lopez forgot about me several years ago and is only interested in how he can safely relinquish the reins of power and retire. As for the communists – for years I have watched them work in my country, undermining the government and wooing the people. They have not got far with the people, or they would have disposed of Lopez by now. I am their only danger and I am sure that our situation is their work.’
Forester said casually, ‘Grivas was trying to make a clenched fist salute when he died.’
‘All right,’ said O’Hara. ‘But why all this rigmarole of Grivas in the first place? Why not just put a time bomb in the Dakota – that would have done the job very easily.’
Aguillar smiled. ‘Señor O’Hara, in my life as a politician I have had four bombs thrown at me and every one was defective. Our politics out here are emotional and emotion does not make for careful workmanship, even of bombs. And I am sure that even communism cannot make any difference to the native characteristics of my people. They wanted to make very sure of me and so they chose the unfortunate Grivas as their instrument. Would you have called Grivas an emotional man?’
‘I should think he was,’ said O’Hara, thinking of Grivas’s exultation even in death. ‘And he was pretty slipshod too.’
Aguillar spread his hands, certain he had made his point. But he drove it home. ‘Grivas would be happy to be given such work; it would appeal to his sense of drama – and my people have a great sense of drama. As for being – er – slipshod, Grivas bungled the first part of the operation by stupidly killing himself, and the others have bungled the rest of it by not being here to meet us.’
O’Hara rubbed his chin. As Aguillar drew the picture it made a weird kind of sense.
Aguillar said, ‘Now, my friends, we come to the next point. Supposing, on the way down this mountain, we meet these men – these communists? What happens then?’ He regarded O’Hara and Forester with bright eyes. ‘It is not your fight – you are not Cordillerans – and I am interested to know what you would do. Would you give this dago politician into the hands of his enemies or …’
‘Would we fight?’ finished Forester.
‘It is my fight,’ said O’Hara bluntly. ‘I’m not a Cordilleran, but Grivas pulled a gun on me and made me crash my plane. I didn’t like that, and I didn’t like the sight of the Coughlins. Anyway, I don’t like the sight of communists, and I think that, all in all, this is my fight.’
‘I concur,’ said Forester.
Aguillar raised his hand. ‘But it is not as easy as that, is it? There are others to take into account. Would it be fair on Miss – er – Ponsky, for instance? Now what I propose is this. Miguel, my niece and I will withdraw into another cabin while you talk it over – and I will abide by your joint decision.’
Forester looked speculatively at Peabody, who was just leaving the hut. He glanced at O’Hara, then said, ‘I think we should leave the question of fighting until there’s something to fight. It’s possible that we might just walk out of here.’
Aguillar had seen Forester’s look at Peabody. He smiled sardonically. ‘I see that you are a politician yourself, Señor Forester.’ He made a gesture of resignation. ‘Very well, we will leave the problem for the moment – but I think we will have to return to it.’
‘It’s a pity we had to come down the mountain,’ said Forester. ‘There’s sure to be an air search, and it might have been better to stay by the Dakota.’
‘We could not have lived up there,’ said Rohde.
‘I know, but it’s a pity all the same.’
‘I don’t think it makes much difference,’ said O’Hara. ‘The wreck will be difficult to spot from the air – it’s right at the foot of a cliff.’ He hesitated. ‘And I don’t know about an air search – not yet, anyway.’
Forester jerked his head. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’
‘Andes Airlift isn’t noted for its efficiency and Filson, my boss, isn’t good at paperwork. This flight didn’t even have a number – I remember wondering about it just before we took off. It’s on the cards that San Croce control haven’t bothered to notify Santillana to expect us.’ As he saw Forester’s expression he added, The whole set-up is shoestring and sealing-wax – it’s only a small field.’
‘But surely your boss will get worried when he doesn’t hear from you?’
‘He’ll worry,’ agreed O’Hara. ‘He told me to phone him from Santillana – but he won’t worry too much at first. There have been times when I haven’t phoned through on his say-so and had a rocket for losing cargo. But I don’t think he’ll worry about losing the plane for a couple of days at least.’
Forester blew out his cheeks. ‘Wow – what a Rube Goldberg organization. Now I really feel lost.’
Rohde said, ‘We must depend on our own efforts. I think we can be sure of that.’
‘We flew off course too,’ said O’Hara. ‘They’ll start the search north of here – when they start.’
Rohde looked at Aguillar whose eyes were closed. ‘There is nothing we can do now,’ he said. ‘But we must sleep. It will be a hard day tomorrow.’
III
Again O’Hara did not sleep very well, but at least he was resting on a mattress instead of a hard floor, with a full belly. Peabody was on watch and O’Hara was due to relieve him at two o’clock; he was glad when the time came.
He donned his leather jacket and took the vicuna coat that Forester had given him. He suspected that he would be glad of it during the next two hours. Forester was awake and waved lazily as he went out, although he did not speak.
The night air was thin and cold and O’Hara shivered as he set off down the road. As Rohde had said, the conditions for survival were better here than up by the airstrip, but it was still pretty dicey. He was aware that his heart was thumping and that his respiration rate was up. It would be much better when they got down to the quebrada, as Rohde called the lateral valley to which they were heading.
He reached the corner where he had to leave the road and headed towards the looming outcrop of rock which Rohde had picked as a vantage point. Peabody should have been perched on top of the rock and should have heard him coming, but there was no sign of his presence.
O’Hara called softly, ‘Peabody!’
There was silence.
Cautiously he circled the outcrop to get it silhouetted against the night sky. There was a lump on top of the rock which he could not quite make out. He began to climb the rock and as he reached the top he heard a muffled snore. He shook Peabody and his foot clinked on a bottle – Peabody was drunk.
‘You bloody fool,’ he said and started to slap Peabody’s face, but without appreciable result. Peabody muttered in his drunken stupor but did not recover consciousness. ‘I ought to let you die of exposure,’ whispered O’Hara viciously, but he knew he could not do that. He also knew that he could not hope to carry Peabody back to the camp by himself. He would have to get help.
He stared down the mountainside but all was quiet, so he climbed down the rock and headed back up the road. Forester was still awake and looked up inquiringly as O’Hara entered the hut. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, suddenly alert.
‘Peabody’s passed out,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ll need help to bring him up.’
‘Damn this altitude,’ said Forester, putting on his shoes.
‘It wasn’t the altitude,’ O’Hara said coldly. ‘The bastard’s dead drunk.’
Forester muffled an imprecation. ‘Where did he get the stuff?’
‘I suppose he found it in one of the huts,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ve still got my flask – I was saving it for Aguillar.’
‘All right,’ said Forester. ‘Let’s lug the damn fool up here.’
It wasn’t an easy thing to do. Peabody was a big, flabby man and his body lolled uncooperatively, but they managed it at last and dumped him unceremoniously in a bunk. Forester gasped and said, ‘This idiot will be the death of us all if we don’t watch him.’ He paused. ‘I’ll come down with you – it might be better to have two pairs of eyes down there right now.’
They went back and climbed up on to the rock, lying side by side and scanning the dark mountainside. For fifteen minutes they were silent, but saw and heard nothing. ‘I think it’s okay,’ said Forester at last. He shifted his position to ease his bones. ‘What do you think of the old man?’
‘He seems all right to me,’ said O’Hara.
‘He’s a good joe – a good liberal politician. If he lasts long enough he might end up by being a good liberal statesman – but liberals don’t last long in this part of the world, and I think he’s a shade too soft.’ Forester chuckled. ‘Even when it’s a matter of life and death – his life and death, not to mention his niece’s – he still sticks to democratic procedure. He wants us to vote on whether we shall hand him over to the commies. Imagine that!’
‘I wouldn’t hand anyone over to the communists,’ said O’Hara. He glanced sideways at the dark bulk of Forester. ‘You said you could fly a plane – I suppose you do it as a matter of business; company plane and all that.’
‘Hell, no,’ said Forester. ‘My outfit’s not big enough or advanced enough for that. I was in the Air Force – I flew in Korea.’
‘So did I,’ said O’Hara. ‘I was in the R.A.F.’
‘Well, what do you know.’ Forester was delighted. ‘Where were you based?’
O’Hara told him and he said, ‘Then you were flying Sabres like I was. We went on joint operations – hell, we must have flown together.’
‘Probably.’
They lay in companionable silence for a while, then Forester said, ‘Did you knock down any of those Migs? I got four, then they pulled me out. I was mad about that – I wanted to be a war hero; an ace, you know.’
‘You’ve got to get five in the American Air Force, haven’t you?’
‘That’s right,’ said Forester. ‘Did you get any?’
‘A couple,’ said O’Hara. He had shot down eight Migs but it was a part of his life he preferred to forget, so he didn’t elaborate. Forester sensed his reserve and was quiet. After a few minutes he said, ‘I think I’ll go back and get some sleep – if I can. We’ll be on our way early.’
When he had gone O’Hara stared into the darkness and thought about Korea. That had been the turning point of his life: before Korea he had been on his way up; after Korea there was just the endless slide, down to Filson and now beyond. He wondered where he would end up.
Thinking of Korea brought back Margaret and the letter. He had read the letter while on ready call on a frozen airfield. The Americans had a name for that kind of letter – they called them ‘Dear Johns’. She was quite matter-of-fact about it and said that they were adult and must be sensible about this thing – all the usual rationalizations which covered plain infidelity. Looking back on it afterwards O’Hara could see a little humour in it – not much, but some. He was one of the inglorious ten per cent of any army fighting away from home, and he had lost his wife to a civilian. But it wasn’t funny at all reading that letter on the cold airfield in Korea.
Five minutes later there was a scramble and he was in the air and thirty minutes later he was fighting. He went into battle with cold ferocity and a total lack of judgment. In three minutes he shot down two Migs, surprising them by sheer recklessness. Then a Chinese pilot with a cooler mind shot him down and he spent the rest of the war in a prison cage.
He did not like to think of that period and what had happened to him. He had come out of it with honour, but the psychiatrists had a field day with him when he got back to England. They did what they could but they could not break down the shell he had built about himself – and neither, by that time, could he break out.
And so it went – invalided out of the Air Force with a pension which he promptly commuted; the good jobs – at first – and then the poorer jobs, until he got down to Filson. And always the drink – more and more booze which had less and less effect as he tried to fill and smother the aching emptiness inside him.
He moved restlessly on the rock and heard the bottle clink. He put out his hand, picked it up and held it to the sky. It was a quarter full. He smiled. He could not get drunk on that but it would be very welcome. Yet as the fiery fluid spread and warmed his gut he felt guilty.
IV
Peabody was blearily belligerent when he woke up and found O’Hara looking at him. At first he looked defensive, then his instinct for attack took over. ‘I’m not gonna take anything from you,’ he said shakily. ‘Not from any goddam limey.’
O’Hara just looked at him. He had no wish to tax Peabody with anything. Weren’t they members of the same club? he thought sardonically. Fellow drunks. Why, we even drink from the same bottle. He felt miserable.
Rohde took a step forward and Peabody screamed, ‘And I’m not gonna take anything from a dago either.’
‘Then perhaps you’ll take it from me,’ snapped Forester. He took one stride and slapped Peabody hard on the side of the face. Peabody sagged back on the bed and looked into Forester’s cold eyes with an expression of fear and bewilderment on his face. His hand came up to touch the red blotch on his cheek. He was just going to speak when Forester pushed a finger at him. ‘Shut up! One cheep out of you and I’ll mash you into a pulp. Now get your big fat butt off that bed and get to work – and if you step out of line again I swear to God I’ll kill you.’
The ferocity in Forester’s voice had a chilling effect on Peabody. All the belligerence drained out of him. ‘I didn’t mean to –’ he began.
‘Shut up!’ said Forester and turned his back on him. ‘Let’s get this show on the road,’ he announced generally.
They took food and a pressure stove and fuel, carrying it in awkwardly contrived packs cobbled from their overcoats. O’Hara did not think that Forester’s boss would thank him for the vicuna coat, already showing signs of hard use.
Aguillar said he could walk, provided he was not asked to go too fast, so Forester took the stretcher poles and lashed them together in what he called a travois. ‘The Plains Indians used this for transport,’ he said. ‘They got along without wheels – so can we.’ He grinned. ‘They pulled with horses and we have only manpower, but it’s downhill all the way.’
The travois held a lot, much more than a man could carry, and Forester and O’Hara took first turn at pulling the triangular contraption, the apex bumping and bouncing on the stony ground. The others fell into line behind them and once more they wound their way down the mountain.
O’Hara looked at his watch – it was six a.m. He began to calculate – they had not come very far the previous day, not more than four or five miles, but they had been rested, warmed and fed, and that was all to the good. He doubted if they could make more than ten miles a day, so that meant another two days to the refinery, but they had enough food for at least four days, so they would be all right even if Aguillar slowed them down. Things seemed immeasurably brighter.
The terrain around them began to change. There were tufts of grass scattered sparsely and an occasional wild flower, and as they went on these signs of life became more frequent. They were able to move faster, too, and O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘The low altitude seems to be doing us good.’
‘That – and acclimatization,’ said Rohde. He smiled grimly. ‘If it does not kill you, you can get used to it – eventually.’
They came to one of the inevitable curves in the road and Rohde stopped and pointed to a silvery thread. ‘That is the quebrada – where the river is. We cross the river and turn north. The refinery is about twenty-four kilometres from the bridge.’
‘What’s the height above sea-level?’ asked O’Hara. He was beginning to take a great interest in the air he breathed – more interest than he had ever taken in his life.
‘About three thousand five hundred metres,’ said Rohde.
Twelve thousand feet, O’Hara thought. That’s much better.
They made good time and decided they would be able to have their midday rest and some hot food on the other side of the bridge. ‘A little over five miles in half a day,’ said Forester, chewing on a piece of jerked beef. ‘That won’t be bad going. But I hope to God that Rohde is right when he says that the refinery is still inhabited.’
‘We will be all right,’ said Rohde. ‘There is a village ten miles the other side of the refinery. Some of us can go on and bring back help if necessary.’
They pushed on and found that suddenly they were in the valley. There was no more snow and the ground was rocky, with more clumps of tough grass. The road ceased to twist and they went past many small ponds. It was appreciably warmer too, and O’Hara found that he could stride out without losing his breath.
We’ve got it made, he thought exultantly.
Soon they heard the roar of the river which carried the meltwater from the snowfields behind them and suddenly they were all gay. Miss Ponsky chattered unceasingly, exclaiming once in her high-pitched voice as she saw a bird, the first living, moving thing they had seen in two days. O’Hara heard Aguillar’s deep chuckle and even Peabody cheered up, recovering from Forester’s tonguelashing.
O’Hara found himself next to Benedetta. She smiled at him and said, ‘Who has the pressure stove? We are going to need it soon.’
He pointed back to where Willis and Armstrong were pulling the travois. ‘I packed it in there,’ he said.
They were very near the river now and he estimated that the road would have one last turn before they came to the bridge. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what’s round the corner.’
They stepped out and round the curve and O’Hara suddenly stopped. There were men and vehicles on the other side of the swollen river and the bridge was down.
A faint babble of voices arose above the river’s roar as they were seen and some of the men on the other side started to run. O’Hara saw a man reach into the back of a truck and lift out a rifle and there was a popping noise as others opened up with pistols.
He lurched violently into Benedetta, sending her flying just as the rifle cracked, and she stumbled into cover, dropping some cans in the middle of the road. As O’Hara fell after her one of the cans suddenly leaped into the air as a bullet hit it, and leaked a tomato bloodiness.
THREE (#ulink_69a2cd69-6880-5a7b-9496-aa613b9a45b5)
O’Hara, Forester and Rohde looked down on the bridge from the cover of a group of large boulders near the edge of the river gorge. Below, the river rumbled, a green torrent of ice-water smoothly slipping past the walls it had cut over the aeons. The gorge was about fifty yards wide.
O’Hara was still shaking from the shock of being unexpectedly fired upon. He had thrown himself into the side of the road, winding himself by falling on to a can in the pocket of his overcoat. When he recovered his breath he had looked with stupefaction at the punctured can in the middle of the road, bleeding a red tomato and meat gravy. That could have been me, he thought – or Benedetta.
It was then that he started to shake.
They had crept back round the corner, keeping in cover, while rifle bullets flicked chips of granite from the road surface. Rohde was waiting for them, his gun drawn and his face anxious. He looked at Benedetta’s face and his lips drew back over his teeth in a snarl as he took a step forward.
‘Hold it,’ said Forester quietly from behind him. ‘Let’s not be too hasty.’ He put his hand on O’Hara’s arm. ‘What’s happening back there?’
O’Hara took a grip on himself. ‘I didn’t have time to see much. I think the bridge is down; there are some trucks on the other side and there seemed to be a hell of a lot of men.’
Forester scanned the ground with a practised eye. ‘There’s plenty of cover by the river – we should be able to get a good view from among those rocks without being spotted. Let’s go.’
So here they were, looking at the ant-like activity on the other side of the river. There seemed to be about twenty men; some were busy unloading thick planks from a truck, others were cutting rope into lengths. Three men had apparently been detailed off as sentries; they were standing with rifles in their hands, scanning the bank of the gorge. As they watched, one of the men must have thought he saw something move, because he raised his rifle and fired a shot.
Forester said, ‘Nervous, aren’t they? They’re firing at shadows.’
O’Hara studied the gorge. The river was deep and ran fast – it was obviously impossible to swim. One would be swept away helplessly in the grip of that rush of water and be frozen to death in ten minutes. Apart from that, there were the problems of climbing down the edge of the gorge to the water’s edge and getting up the other side, not to mention the likelihood of being shot.
He crossed the river off his mental list of possibilities and turned his attention to the bridge. It was a primitive suspension contraption with two rope catenaries strung from massive stone buttresses on each side of the gorge. From the catenaries other ropes, graded in length, supported the main roadway of the bridge which was made of planks. But there was a gap in the middle where a lot of planks were missing and the ropes dangled in the breeze.
Forester said softly, ‘That’s why they didn’t meet us at the airstrip. See the truck in the river – downstream, slapped up against the side of the gorge?’
O’Hara looked and saw the truck in the water, almost totally submerged, with a standing wave of water swirling over the top of the cab. He looked back at the bridge. ‘It seems as though it was crossing from this side when it went over.’
‘That figures,’ said Forester. ‘I reckon they’d have a couple of men to make the preliminary arrangements – stocking up the camp and so on – in readiness for the main party. When the main party was due they came down to the bridge to cross – God knows for what reason. But they didn’t make it – and they buggered the bridge, with the main party still on the other side.’
‘They’re repairing it now,’ said O’Hara. ‘Look.’
Two men crawled on to the swaying bridge pushing a plank before them. They lashed it into place with the aid of a barrage of shouted advice from terra firma and then retreated. O’Hara looked at his watch; it had taken them half an hour.
‘How many planks to go?’ he asked.
Rohde grunted. ‘About thirty.’
‘That gives us fifteen hours before they’re across,’ said O’Hara.
‘More than that,’ said Forester. ‘They’re not likely to do that trapeze act in the dark.’
Rohde took out his pistol and carefully sighted on the bridge, using his forearm as a rest. Forester said, ‘That’s no damned use – you won’t hit anything at fifty yards with a pistol.’
‘I can try,’ said Rohde.
Forester sighed. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘But just one shot to see how it goes. How many slugs have you got?’
‘I had two magazines with seven bullets in each,’ said Rohde. ‘I have fired three shots.’
‘You pop off another and that leaves ten. That’s not too many.’
Rohde tightened his lips stubbornly and kept the pistol where it was. Forester winked at O’Hara and said, ‘If you don’t mind I’m going to retire now. As soon as you start shooting they’re going to shoot right back.’
He withdrew slowly, then turned and lay on his back and looked at the sky, gesturing for O’Hara to join him. ‘It looks as though the time is ripe to hold our council of war,’ he said. ‘Surrender or fight. But there may be a way out of it – have you got that air chart of yours?’
O’Hara produced it. ‘We can’t cross the river – not here, at least,’ he said.
Forester spread out the chart and studied it. He put his finger down. ‘Here’s the river – and this is where we are. This bridge isn’t shown. What’s this shading by the river?’
‘That’s the gorge.’
Forester whistled. ‘Hell, it starts pretty high in the mountains, so we can’t get around it upstream. What about the other way?’
O’Hara measured off the distance roughly. ‘The gorge stretches for about eighty miles down stream, but there’s a bridge marked here – fifty miles away, as near as dammit.’
‘That’s a hell of a long way,’ commented Forester. ‘I doubt if the old man could make it – not over mountain country.’
O’Hara said, ‘And if that crowd over there have any sense they’ll have another truckload of men waiting for us if we do try it. They have the advantage of being able to travel fast on the lower roads.’
‘The bastards have got us boxed in,’ said Forester. ‘So it’s surrender or fight.’
‘I surrender to no communists,’ said O’Hara.
There was a flat report as Rohde fired his pistol and, almost immediately, an answering fusillade of rifle shots, the sound redoubled by echoes from the high ground behind. A bullet ricocheted from close by and whined over O’Hara’s head.
Rohde came slithering down. ‘I missed,’ he said.
Forester refrained from saying, ‘I told you so,’ but his expression showed it. Rohde grinned. ‘But it stopped them working on the bridge – they went back fast and the plank dropped in the river.’
‘That’s something,’ said O’Hara. ‘Maybe we can hold them off that way.’
‘For how long?’ asked Forester. ‘We can’t hold them off for ever – not with ten slugs. We’d better hold our council of war. You stay here, Miguel; but choose a different observation point – they might have spotted this one.’
O’Hara and Forester went back to the group on the road. As they approached O’Hara said in a low voice, ‘We’d better do something to ginger this lot up; they look too bloody nervous.’
There was a feeling of tension in the air. Peabody was muttering in a low voice to Miss Ponsky, who for once was silent herself. Willis was sitting on a rock, nervously tapping his foot on the ground, and Aguillar was speaking rapidly to Benedetta some little way removed from the group. The only one at ease seemed to be Armstrong, who was placidly sucking on an empty pipe, idly engaged in drawing patterns on the ground with a stick.
O’Hara crossed to Aguillar. ‘We’re going to decide what to do,’ he said. ‘As you suggested.’
Aguillar nodded gravely. ‘I said that it must happen.’
O’Hara said, ‘You’re going to be all right.’ He looked at Benedetta; her face was pale and her eyes were dark smudges in her head. He said, ‘I don’t know how long this is going to take, but why don’t you begin preparing a meal for us. We’ll all feel better when we’ve eaten.’
‘Yes, child,’ said Aguillar. ‘I will help you. I am a good cook, Señor O’Hara.’
O’Hara smiled at Benedetta. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’
He walked over to where Forester was giving a pep talk. ‘And that’s the position,’ he was saying. ‘We’re boxed in and there doesn’t seem to be any way out of it – but there is always a way out of anything, using brains and determination. Anyway, it’s a case of surrender or fight. I’m going to fight – and so is Tim O’Hara here; aren’t you, Tim?’
‘I am,’ said O’Hara grimly.
‘I’m going to go round and ask your views, and you must each make your own decision,’ continued Forester. ‘What about you, Doctor Willis?’
Willis looked up and his face was strained. ‘It’s difficult, isn’t it? You see, I’m not much of a fighter. Then again, it’s a question of the odds – can we win? I don’t see much reason in putting up a fight if we’re certain of losing – and I don’t see any chance at all of our winning out.’ He paused, then said hesitantly, ‘But I’ll go with the majority vote.’
Willis, you bastard, you’re a fine example of a fencesitter, thought O’Hara.
‘Peabody?’ Forester’s voice cut like a lash.
‘What the hell has this got to do with us?’ exploded Peabody. ‘I’m damned if I’m going to risk my life for any wop politician. I say hand the bastard over and let’s get the hell out of here.’
‘What do you say, Miss Ponsky?’
She gave Peabody a look of scorn, then hesitated. All the talk seemed to be knocked out of her, leaving her curiously deflated. At last she said in a small voice, ‘I know I’m only a woman and I can’t do much in the way of fighting, and I’m scared to death – but I think we ought to fight.’ She ended in a rush and looked defiantly at Peabody. ‘And that’s my vote.’
Good for you, Miss Ponsky, cheered O’Hara silently. That’s three to fight. It’s now up to Armstrong – he can tip it for fighting or make a deadlock, depending on his vote.
‘Doctor Armstrong, what do you have to say?’ queried Forester.
Armstrong sucked on his pipe and it made an obscene noise. ‘I suppose I’m more an authority on this kind of situation than anyone present,’ he observed. ‘With the possible exception of Señor Aguillar, who at present is cooking our lunch, I see. Give me a couple of hours and I could quote a hundred parallel examples drawn from history.’
Peabody muttered in exasperation, ‘What the hell!’
‘The question at issue is whether to hand Señor Aguillar to the gentlemen on the other side of the river. The important point, as I see it affecting us, is what would they do with him? And I can’t really see that there is anything they can do with him other than kill him. Keeping high-standing politicians as prisoners went out of fashion a long time ago. Now, if they kill him they will automatically be forced to kill us. They would not dare take the risk of letting this story loose upon the world. They would be most painfully criticized, perhaps to the point of losing what they have set out to gain. In short, the people of Cordillera would not stand for it. So you see, we are not fighting for the life of Señor Aguillar; we are fighting for our own lives.’
He put his pipe back into his mouth and made another rude noise.
‘Does that mean that you are in favour of fighting?’ asked Forester.
‘Of course,’ said Armstrong in surprise. ‘Haven’t you been listening to what I’ve been saying?’
Peabody looked at him in horror. ‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘What have I got myself into?’ He buried his head in his hands.
Forester grinned at O’Hara, and said, ‘Well, Doctor Willis?’
‘I fight,’ said Willis briefly.
O’Hara chuckled. One academic man had convinced another.
Forester said, ‘Ready to change your mind, Peabody?’
Peabody looked up. ‘You really think they’re going to rub us all out?’
‘If they kill Aguillar I don’t see what else they can do,’ said Armstrong reasonably. ‘And they will kill Aguillar, you know.’
‘Oh, hell,’ said Peabody in an anguish of indecision.
‘Come on,’ Forester ordered harshly. ‘Put up or shut up.’
‘I guess I’ll have to throw in with you,’ Peabody said morosely.
‘That’s it, then,’ said Forester. ‘A unanimous vote. I’ll tell Aguillar and we’ll discuss how to fight over some food.’ Miss Ponsky went to help the Aguillars with their cooking and O’Hara went back to the river to see what Rohde was doing. He looked back and saw that Armstrong was talking to Willis and again drawing on the ground with a stick. Willis looked interested.
Rohde had chosen a better place for observation and at first O’Hara could not find him. At last he saw the sole of a boot protruding from behind a rock and joined Rohde, who seemed pleased. ‘They have not yet come out of their holes,’ he said. ‘It has been an hour. One bullet that missed has held them up for an hour.’
‘That’s great,’ said O’Hara sardonically. ‘Ten bullets – ten hours.’
‘It is better than that,’ protested Rohde. ‘They have thirty planks to put in – that would take them fifteen hours without my bullets. With the shooting it will take them twenty-five hours. They will not work at night – so that is two full days.’
O’Hara nodded. ‘It gives us time to decide what to do next,’ he admitted. But when the bullets were finished and the bridge completed a score of armed and ruthless men would come boiling over the river. It would be a slaughter.
‘I will stay here,’ said Rohde. ‘Send some food when it is ready.’ He nodded towards the bridge. ‘It takes a brave man to walk on that, knowing that someone will shoot at him. I do not think these men are very brave – maybe it will be more than one hour to a bullet.’
O’Hara went back and told Forester what was happening and Forester grimaced. ‘Two days – maybe – two days to come up with something. But with what?’
O’Hara said, ‘I think a Committee of Ways and Means is indicated.’
They all sat in a circle on the sparse grass and Benedetta and Miss Ponsky served the food on the aluminium plates they had found at the camp. Forester said, ‘This is a war council, so please stick to the point and let’s have no idle chit-chat – we’ve no time to waste. Any sensible suggestions will be welcome.’
There was a dead silence, then Miss Ponsky said, ‘I suppose the main problem is to stop them repairing the bridge. Well, couldn’t we do something at this end – cut the ropes or something?’
‘That’s good in principle,’ said Forester. ‘Any objections to it?’ He glanced at O’Hara, knowing what he would say.
O’Hara looked at Forester sourly; it seemed as though he was being cast as the cold-water expert and he did not fancy the role. He said deliberately, ‘The approaches to the bridge from this side are wide open; there’s no cover for at least a hundred yards – you saw what happened to Benedetta and me this morning. Anyone who tried to get to the bridge along the road would be cut down before he’d got halfway. It’s point blank range, you know – they don’t have to be crack shots.’ He paused. ‘Now I know it’s the only way we can get at the bridge, but it seems impossible to me.’
‘What about a night attack?’ asked Willis.
‘That sounds good,’ said Forester.
O’Hara hated to do it, but he spoke up. ‘I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I don’t think those chaps over there are entirely stupid. They’ve got two trucks and four jeeps, maybe more, and those vehicles have at least two headlights apiece. They’ll keep the bridge well lit during the dark hours.’
There was silence again.
Armstrong cleared his throat. ‘Willis and I have been doing a little thinking and maybe we have something that will help. Again I find myself in the position of being something of an expert. You know that my work is the study of medieval history, but it so happens that I’m a specialist, and my speciality is medieval warfare. The position as I see it is that we are in a castle with a moat and a drawbridge. The drawbridge is fortuitously pulled up, but our enemies are trying to rectify that state of affairs. Our job is to stop them.’
‘With what?’ asked O’Hara. ‘A push of a pike?’
‘I wouldn’t despise medieval weapons too much, O’Hara,’ said Armstrong mildly. ‘I admit that the people of those days weren’t as adept in the art of slaughter as we are, but still, they managed to kill each other off at a satisfactory rate. Now, Rohde’s pistol is highly inaccurate at the range he is forced to use. What we want is a more efficient missile weapon than Rohde’s pistol.’
‘So we all make like Robin Hood,’ said Peabody derisively. ‘With the jolly old longbow, what? For Christ’s sake, Professor!’
‘Oh, no,’ said Armstrong. ‘A longbow is very chancy in the hands of a novice. It takes five years at least to train a good bowman.’
‘I can use the bow,’ said Miss Ponsky unexpectedly. Everyone looked at her and she coloured. ‘I’m president of the South Bridge Ladies’ Greenwood Club. Last year I won our own little championship in the Hereford Round.’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Armstrong.
O’Hara said, ‘Can you use a longbow lying down, Miss Ponsky?’
‘It would be difficult,’ she said. ‘Perhaps impossible.’
O’Hara jerked his head at the gorge. ‘You stand up there with a longbow and you’ll get filled full of holes.’
She bridled. ‘I think you’d do better helping than pouring cold water on all our ideas, Mr O’Hara.’
‘I’ve got to do it,’ said O’Hara evenly. ‘I don’t want anyone killed uselessly.’
‘For God’s sake,’ exclaimed Willis. ‘How did a longbow come into this? That’s out – we can’t make one; we haven’t the material. Now, will you listen to Armstrong; he has a point to make.’ His voice was unexpectedly firm.
The flat crack of Rohde’s pistol echoed on the afternoon air and there was the answering fire of shots from the other side of the gorge. Peabody ducked and O’Hara looked at his watch. It had been an hour and twenty minutes – and they had nine bullets left.
Forester said, ‘That’s one good thing – we’re safe here. Their rifles won’t shoot round corners. Make your point, Doctor Armstrong.’
‘I was thinking of something more on the lines of a prodd or crossbow,’ said Armstrong. ‘Anyone who can use a rifle can use a crossbow and it has an effective range of over a hundred yards.’ He smiled at O’Hara. ‘You can shoot it lying down, too.’
O’Hara’s mind jumped at it. They could cover the bridge and also the road on the other side where it turned north and followed the edge of the gorge and where the enemy trucks were. He said, ‘Does it have any penetrative power?’
‘A bolt will go through mail if it hits squarely,’ said Armstrong.
‘What about a petrol tank?’
‘Oh, it would penetrate a petrol tank quite easily.’
‘Now, take it easy,’ said Forester. ‘How in hell can we make a crossbow?’
‘You must understand that I’m merely a theoretician where this is concerned,’ explained Armstrong. ‘I’m no mechanic or engineer. But I described what I want to Willis and he thinks we can make it.’
‘Armstrong and I were rooting round up at the camp,’ said Willis. ‘One of the huts had been a workshop and there was a lot of junk lying about – you know, the usual bits and pieces that you find in a metal-working shop. I reckon they didn’t think it worthwhile carting the stuff away when they abandoned the place. There are some flat springs and odd bits of metal rod; and there’s some of that concrete reinforcing steel that we can cut up to make arrows.’
‘Bolts,’ Armstrong corrected mildly. ‘Or quarrels, if you prefer. I thought first of making a prodd, you know; that’s a type of crossbow which fires bullets, but Willis has convinced me that we can manufacture bolts more easily.’
‘What about tools?’ asked O’Hara. ‘Have you anything that will cut metal?’
‘There are some old hacksaw blades,’ Willis said. ‘And I saw a couple of worn-out files. And there’s a hand-powered grindstone that looks as though it came out of the Ark. I’ll make out; I’m good with my hands and I can adapt Armstrong’s designs with the material available.’
O’Hara looked at Forester, who said slowly, ‘A weapon accurate to a hundred yards built out of junk seems too good to be true. Are you certain about this, Doctor Armstrong?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Armstrong cheerfully. ‘The crossbow has killed thousands of men in its time – I see no reason why it shouldn’t kill a few more. And Willis seems to think he can make it.’ He smiled. ‘I’ve drawn the blueprints there.’ He pointed to a few lines scratched in the dust.
‘If we’re going to do this, we’d better do it quickly,’ said O’Hara.
‘Right.’ Forester looked up at the sun. ‘You’ve got time to make it up to the camp by nightfall. It’s uphill, but you’ll be travelling light. You go too, Peabody; Willis can use another pair of hands.’
Peabody nodded quickly. He had no taste for staying too near the bridge.
‘One moment,’ said Aguillar, speaking for the first time. ‘The bridge is made of rope and wood – very combustible materials. Have you considered the use of fire? Señor O’Hara gave me the idea when he spoke of petrol tanks.’
‘Um,’ said O’Hara. ‘But how to get the fire to the bridge?’
‘Everyone think of that,’ said Forester. ‘Now let’s get things moving.’
Armstrong, Willis and Peabody left immediately on the long trudge up to the camp. Forester said, ‘I didn’t know what to make of Willis – he’s not very forthcoming – but I’ve got him tagged now. He’s the practical type; give him something to do and he’ll get it done, come hell or high water. He’ll do.’
Aguillar smiled. ‘Armstrong is surprising, too.’
‘My God!’ said Forester. ‘Crossbows in this day and age!’
O’Hara said, ‘We’ve got to think about making camp. There’s no water here, and besides, our main force is too close to the enemy. There’s a pond about half a mile back – I think that’s a good spot.’
‘Benedetta, you see to that,’ Aguillar commanded. ‘Miss Ponsky will help you.’ He watched the two women go, then turned with a grave face. ‘There is something we must discuss, together with Miguel. Let us go over there.’
Rohde was happy. ‘They have not put a plank in the bridge yet. They ran again like the rabbits they are.’
Aguillar told him what was happening and he said uncertainly, ‘A crossbow?’
‘I think it’s crazy, too,’ said Forester. ‘But Armstrong reckons it’ll work.’
‘Armstrong is a good man,’ said Aguillar. ‘He is thinking of immediate necessities – but I think of the future. Suppose we hold off these men; suppose we destroy the bridge – what then?’
‘We’re not really any better off,’ said O’Hara reflectively. ‘They’ve got us pinned down anyway.’
‘Exactly,’ said Aguillar. ‘True, we have plenty of food, but that means nothing. Time is very valuable to these men, just as it is to me. They gain everything by keeping me inactive.’
‘By keeping you here they’ve removed you from the game,’ agreed Forester. ‘How long do you think it will be before they make their coup d’état?’
Aguillar shrugged. ‘One month – maybe two. Certainly not longer. We advanced our own preparations because the communists showed signs of moving. It is a race between us with the destiny of Cordillera as the prize – maybe the destiny of the whole of Latin America is at stake. And the time is short.’
‘Your map, Señor O’Hara,’ said Rohde suddenly.
O’Hara took out the chart and spread it on a rock, and Rohde traced the course of the river north and south, shaking his head. ‘This river – this gorge – is a trap, pinning us against the mountains,’ he said.
‘We’ve agreed it’s no use going for the bridge downstream,’ said Forester. ‘It’s a hell of a long way and it’s sure to be guarded.’
‘What’s to stop them crossing that bridge and pushing up on this side of the river to outflank us?’ asked O’Hara.
‘As long as they think they can repair this bridge they won’t do that,’ Aguillar said. ‘Communists are not supermen; they are as lazy as other people and they would not relish crossing eighty kilometres of mountain country – that would take at least four days. I think they will be content to stop the bolt hole.’
Rohde’s fingers swept across the map to the west. ‘That leaves the mountains.’
Forester turned and looked at the mountain wall, at the icy peaks. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t think Señor Aguillar could make it.’
‘I know,’ said Rohde. ‘He must stay here. But someone must cross the mountains for help.’
‘Let’s see if it’s practicable,’ said O’Hara. ‘I was going to fly through the Puerto de las Aguilas. That means that anyone going back would have to go twenty miles north before striking west through the pass. And he’d have to go pretty high to get round this bloody gorge. The pass isn’t so bad – it’s only about fourteen thousand feet.’
‘A total of about thirty miles before he got into the Santos Valley,’ said Forester. ‘That’s on straight line courses. It would probably be fifty over the ground.’
There is another way,’ said Rohde quietly. He pointed to the mountains. ‘This range is high, but not very wide. On the other side lies the Santos Valley. If you draw a line on the map from here to Altemiros in the Santos Valley you will find that it is not more than twenty-five kilometres.’
O’Hara bent over the map and measured the distance. ‘You’re right; about fifteen miles – but it’s all peaks.’
‘There is a pass about two miles north-west of the mine,’ said Rohde. ‘It has no name because no one is so foolish as to use it. It is about five thousand eight hundred metres.’
Forester rapidly translated. ‘Wow! Nineteen thousand feet.’
‘What about lack of oxygen?’ asked O’Hara. ‘We’ve had enough trouble with that already. Could a man go over that pass without oxygen?’
‘I have done so,’ said Rohde. ‘Under more favourable conditions. It is a matter of acclimatization. Mountaineers know this; they stay for days at one level and then move up the mountain to another camp and stay a few days there also before moving to a higher level. It is to attune their bodies to the changing conditions.’ He looked up at the mountains. ‘If I went up to the camp tomorrow and spent a day there then went to the mine and stayed a day there – I think I could cross that pass.’
Forester said, ‘You couldn’t go alone.’
‘I’ll go with you,’ said O’Hara promptly.
‘Hold on there,’ said Forester. ‘Are you a mountaineer?’
‘No,’ said O’Hara.
‘Well, I am. I mean, I’ve scrambled about in the Rockies – that should count for something.’ He appealed to Rohde. ‘Shouldn’t it?’
Aguillar said, ‘You should not go alone, Miguel.’
‘Very well,’ said Rohde. ‘I will take one man – you.’ He nodded to Forester and smiled grimly. ‘But I promise you – you will be sorry.’
Forester grinned cheerfully and said, ‘Well, Tim, that leaves you as garrison commander. You’ll have your hands full.’
‘Si,’ said Rohde. ‘You must hold them off.’
A new sound was added to the noise of the river and Rohde immediately wriggled up to his observation post, then beckoned to O’Hara. ‘They are starting their engines,’ he said. ‘I think they are going away.’
But the vehicles did not move. ‘What are they doing?’ asked Rohde in perplexity.
‘They’re charging their batteries,’ said O’Hara. ‘They’re making sure that they’ll have plenty of light tonight.’
II
O’Hara and Aguillar went back to help the women make camp, leaving Rohde and Forester watching the bridge. There was no immediate danger of the enemy forcing the crossing and any unusual move could soon be reported. Forester’s attitude had changed as soon as the decision to cross the mountains had been made. He no longer drove hard for action, seemingly being content to leave it to O’Hara. It was as though he had tacitly decided that there could be only one commander and the man was O’Hara.
O’Hara’s lips quirked as he mentally reviewed his garrison: An old man and a young girl; two sedentary academic types; a drunk and someone’s maiden aunt; and himself – a broken-down pilot. On the other side of the river were at least twenty ruthless men – with God knows how many more to back them up. His muscles tensed at the thought that they were communists; sloppy South American communists, no doubt – but still communists.
Whatever happens, they’re not going to get me again, he thought.
Benedetta was very quiet and O’Hara knew why. To be shot at for the first time took the pith out of a person – one came to the abrupt realization that one was a soft bag of wind and liquids, vulnerable and defenceless against steel-jacketed bullets which could rend and tear. He remembered the first time he had been in action, and felt very sorry for Benedetta; at least he had been prepared, however inadequately, for the bullets – the bullets and the cannon shells.
He looked across at the scattered rocks on the bleak hillside. ‘I wonder if there’s a cave over there?’ he suggested. ‘That would come in handy right now.’ He glanced at Benedetta. ‘Let’s explore a little.’
She looked at her uncle who was helping Miss Ponsky check the cans of food. ‘All right,’ she said.
They crossed the road and struck off at right angles, making their way diagonally up the slope. The ground was covered with boulders and small pebbles and the going was difficult, their feet slipping as the stones shifted. O’Hara thought that one could break an ankle quite easily and a faint idea stirred at the back of his mind.
After a while they separated, O’Hara to the left and the girl to the right. For an hour they toiled among the rocks, searching for something that would give shelter against the night wind, however small. O’Hara found nothing, but he heard a faint shout from Benedetta and crossed the hillside to see what she had found.
It was not a cave, merely a fortuitous tumbling of the rocks. A large boulder had rolled from above and wedged itself between two others, forming a roof. It reminded O’Hara of a dolmen he had seen on Dartmoor, although the whole thing was very much bigger. He regarded it appreciatively. At least it would be shelter from snow and rain and it gave a little protection from the wind.
He went inside and found a hollow at the back. ‘This is good,’ he said. ‘This will hold a lot of water – maybe twenty gallons.’
He turned and looked at Benedetta. The exercise had brought some colour into her cheeks and she looked better. He produced his cigarettes. ‘Smoke?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t.’
‘Good!’ he said with satisfaction. ‘I was hoping you didn’t.’ He looked into the packet – there were eleven left. ‘I’m a selfish type, you know; I want these for myself.’
He sat down on a rock and lit his cigarette, voluptuously inhaling the smoke. Benedetta sat beside him and said, ‘I’m glad you decided to help my uncle.’
O’Hara grinned. ‘Some of us weren’t too sure. It needed a little tough reasoning to bring them round. But it was finally unanimous.’
She said in a low voice, ‘Do you think there’s any chance of our coming out of this?’
O’Hara bit his lip and was silent for a time. Then he said, ‘There’s no point in hiding the truth – I don’t think we’ve got a cat in hell’s chance. If they bust across the bridge and we’re as defenceless as we are now, we won’t have a hope.’ He waved his hand at the terrain. ‘There’s just one chance – if we split up, every man for himself heading in a different direction, then they’ll have to split up, too. This is rough country and one of us might get away to tell what happened to the rest. But that’s pretty poor consolation.’
‘Then why did you decide to fight?’ she said in wonder.
O’Hara chuckled. ‘Armstrong put up some pretty cogent arguments,’ he said, and told her about it. Then he added, ‘But I’d have fought anyway. I don’t like those boys across the river; I don’t like what they do to people. It makes no difference if their skins are yellow, white or brown – they’re all of the same stripe.’
‘Señor Forester was telling me that you fought together in Korea,’ Benedetta said.
‘We might have – we probably did. He was in an American squadron which we flew with sometimes. But I never met him.’
‘It must have been terrible,’ she said. ‘All that fighting.’
‘It wasn’t too bad,’ said O’Hara. ‘The fighting part of it.’ He smiled. ‘You do get used to being shot at, you know. I think that people can get used to anything if it goes on long enough – most things, anyway. That’s the only way wars can be fought – because people can adapt and treat the craziest things as normal. Otherwise they couldn’t go through with it.’
She nodded. ‘I know. Look at us here. Those men shoot at us and Miguel shoots back – he regards it as the normal thing to do.’
‘It is the normal thing to do,’ said O’Hara harshly. ‘The human being is a fighting animal; it’s that quality which has put him where he is – the king of this planet.’ His lips twisted. ‘It’s also the thing that’s maybe holding him back from bigger things.’ He laughed abruptly. ‘Christ, this is no time for the philosophy of war – I’d better leave that to Armstrong.’
‘You said something strange,’ said Benedetta. ‘You said that Korea wasn’t too bad – the fighting part of it. What was bad, if it wasn’t the fighting?’
O’Hara looked into the distance. ‘It was when the fighting stopped – when I stopped fighting – when I couldn’t fight any more. Then it was bad.’
‘You were a prisoner? In the hands of the Chinese? Forester said something of that.’
O’Hara said slowly, ‘I’ve killed men in combat – in hot blood – and I’ll probably do it again, and soon, at that. But what those communist bastards can do intellectually and with cold purpose is beyond …’ He shook his head irritably. ‘I prefer not to talk about it.’
He had a sudden vision of the bland, expressionless features of the Chinese lieutenant, Feng. It was something that had haunted his dreams and woken him screaming ever since Korea. It was the reason he preferred to go to sleep in a sodden, dreamless and mindless coma. He said, ‘Let’s talk about you. You speak good English – where did you learn it?’
She was aware that she had trodden on forbidden and shaky ground. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Señor O’Hara,’ she said contritely.
‘That’s all right. But less of the Señor O’Hara; my name is Tim.’
She smiled quickly. ‘I was educated in the United States, Tim. My uncle sent me there after Lopez made the revolution.’ She laughed. ‘I was taught English by a teacher very like Miss Ponsky.’
‘Now there’s a game old trout,’ said O’Hara. ‘Your uncle sent you? What about your parents?’
‘My mother died when I was a child. My father – Lopez had him shot.’
O’Hara sighed. ‘We both seem to be scraping on raw nerves, Benedetta. I’m sorry.’
She said sadly, ‘It’s the way the world is, Tim.’
He agreed sombrely. ‘Anyone who expects fair play in this world is a damn fool. That’s why we’re in this jam. Come on, let’s get back; this isn’t getting us anywhere.’ He pinched off his cigarette and carefully put the stub back in the packet.
As Benedetta rose she said, ‘Do you think that Señor Armstrong’s idea of a crossbow will work?’
‘I don’t,’ said O’Hara flatly. ‘I think that Armstrong is a romantic. He’s specialized as a theoretician in wars a thousand years gone, and I can’t think of anything more futile than that. He’s an ivory-tower man – an academician – bloodthirsty in a theoretical way, but the sight of blood will turn his stomach. And I think he’s a little bit nuts.’
III
Armstrong’s pipe gurgled as he watched Willis rooting about in the rubbish of the workshop. His heart was beating rapidly and he felt breathless, although the altitude did not seem to affect him as much as the previous time he had been at the hutted camp. His mind was turning over the minutiae of his profession – the science of killing without gunpowder. He thought coldly and clearly about the ranges, trajectories and penetrations that could be obtained from pieces of bent steel and twisted gut, and he sought to adapt the ingenious mechanisms so clearly diagrammed in his mind to the materials and needs of the moment. He looked up at the roof beams of the hut and a new idea dawned on him. But he put it aside – the crossbow came first.
Willis straightened, holding a flat spring. ‘This came from an auto – will it do for the bow?’
Armstrong tried to flex it and found it very stiff. ‘It’s very strong,’ he said. ‘Probably stronger than anything they had in the Middle Ages. This will be a very powerful weapon. Perhaps this is too strong – we must be able to bend it.’
‘Let’s go over that problem again,’ Willis said.
Armstrong drew on the back of an envelope. ‘For the light sporting bows they had a goat’s-foot lever, but that is not strong enough for the weapon we are considering. For the heavier military bows they had two methods of bending – the cranequin, a ratchet arranged like this, which was demounted for firing, and the other was a windlass built into the bow which worked a series of pulleys.’
Willis looked at the rough sketches and nodded. ‘The windlass is our best bet,’ he said. ‘That ratchet thing would be difficult to make. And if necessary we can weaken the spring by grinding it down.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Peabody?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Armstrong. ‘Let’s get on with this.’
‘You’d better find him,’ Willis said. ‘We’ll put him on to making arrows – that should be an easy job.’
‘Bolts or quarrels,’ said Armstrong patiently.
‘Whatever they’re called, let’s get on with it,’ Willis said.
They found Peabody taking it easy in one of the huts, heating a can of beans. Reluctantly he went along to the workshop and they got to work. Armstrong marvelled at the dexterity of Willis’s fingers as he contrived effective parts from impossible materials and worse tools. They found the old grindstone to be their most efficient cutting tool, although it tended to waste material. Armstrong sweated in turning the crank and could not keep it up for long, so they took it in turns, he and Willis silently, Peabody with much cursing.
They ripped out electric wiring from a hut and tore down conduit tubing. They cut up reinforcing steel into lengths and slotted the ends to take flights. It was cold and their hands were numb and the blood oozed from the cuts made when their makeshift tools slipped.
They worked all night and dawn was brightening the sky as Armstrong took the completed weapon in his hands and looked at it dubiously. ‘It’s a bit different from how I imagined it, but I think it will do.’ He rubbed his eyes wearily. I’ll take it down now – they might need it.’
Willis slumped against the side of the hut. ‘I’ve got an idea for a better one,’ he said. ‘That thing will be a bastard to cock. But I must get some sleep first – and food.’ His voice trailed to a mumble and he blinked his eyes rapidly.
All that night the bridge had been illuminated by the headlamps of the enemy vehicles and it was obviously hopeless to make a sortie in an attempt to cut the cables. The enemy did not work on the bridge at night, not relishing being in a spotlight when a shot could come out of the darkness.
Forester was contemptuous of them. ‘The goddam fools,’ he said. ‘If we can’t hit them in daylight then it’s sure we can’t at night – but if they’d any sense they’d see that they could spot our shooting at night and they’d send a man on to the bridge to draw our fire – then they’d fill our man full of holes.’
But during the daylight hours the enemy had worked on the bridge, and had been less frightened of the shots fired at them. No one had been hit and it had become obvious that there was little danger other than that from a freakishly lucky shot. By morning there were but six bullets left for Rohde’s pistol and there were nine more planks in the bridge.
By nine o’clock Rohde had expended two more bullets and it was then that Armstrong stumbled down the road carrying a contraption. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Here’s your crossbow.’ He rubbed his eyes which were red-rimmed and tired. ‘Professionally speaking, I’d call it an arbalest.’
‘My God, that was quick,’ said O’Hara.
‘We worked all night,’ Armstrong said tiredly. ‘We thought you’d need it in a hurry.’
‘How does it work?’ asked O’Hara, eyeing it curiously.
‘The metal loop on the business end is a stirrup,’ said Armstrong. ‘You put it on the ground and put your foot in it. Then you take this cord and clip the hook on to the bowstring and start winding on this handle. That draws back the bowstring until it engages on this sear. You drop a bolt in this trough and you’re ready to shoot. Press the trigger and the sear drops to release the bowstring.’
The crossbow was heavy in O’Hara’s hands. The bow itself was made from a car spring and the bowstring was a length of electric wire woven into a six-strand cord to give it strength. The cord which drew it back was also electric wire woven from three strands. The sear and trigger were carved from wood, and the trough where the bolt went was made from a piece of electric conduit piping.
It was a triumph of improvisation.
‘We had to weaken the spring,’ said Armstrong. ‘But it’s still got a lot of bounce. Here’s a bolt – we made a dozen.’
The bolt was merely a length of round steel, three-eighths of an inch in diameter and fifteen inches long. It was very rusty. One end was slotted to hold metal flights cut from a dried-milk can and the other end was sharpened to a point. O’Hara hefted it thoughtfully; it was quite heavy. ‘If this thing doesn’t kill immediately, anyone hit will surely die of blood-poisoning. Does it give the range you expected?’
‘A little more,’ said Armstrong. ‘These bolts are heavier than the medieval originals because they’re steel throughout instead of having a wooden shaft – but the bow is very powerful and that makes up for it. Why don’t you try it out?’
O’Hara put his foot in the stirrup and cranked the windlass handle. He found it more difficult than he had anticipated – the bow was very strong. As he slipped a bolt into the trough he said, ‘What should I shoot at?’
‘What about the earth bank over there?’
The bank was about sixty yards away. He raised the crossbow and Armstrong said quickly, ‘Try it lying down, the way we’ll use it in action. The trajectory is very flat so you won’t have much trouble with sighting. I thought we’d wait until we got down here before sighting in.’ He produced a couple of gadgets made of wire. ‘We’ll use a ring-and-pin sight.’
O’Hara lay down and fitted the rough wooden butt awkwardly into his shoulder. He peered along the trough and sighted as best he could upon a brown patch of earth on the bank. Then he squeezed the trigger and the crossbow bucked hard against his shoulder as the string was released.
There was a puff of dust from the extreme right of the target at which he had aimed. He got up and rubbed his shoulder. ‘My God!’ he said with astonishment. ‘She’s got a hell of a kick.’
Armstrong smiled faintly. ‘Let’s retrieve the bolt.’
They walked over to the bank but O’Hara could not see it. ‘It went in about here,’ he said. ‘I saw the dust distinctly – but where is it?’
Armstrong grinned. ‘I told you this weapon was powerful. There’s the bolt.’
O’Hara grunted with amazement as he saw what Armstrong meant. The bolt had penetrated more than its own length into the earth and had buried itself completely. As Armstrong dug it out, O’Hara said, ‘We’d better all practise with this thing and find out who’s the best shot.’ He looked at Armstrong. ‘You’d better get some sleep; you look pooped.’
‘I’ll wait until I see the bow in action,’ said Armstrong. ‘Maybe it’ll need some modification. Willis is making another – he has some ideas for improvements – and we put Peabody to making more bolts.’ He stood upright with the bolt in his hands. ‘And I’ve got to fix the sights.’
All of them, excepting Aguillar and Rohde, practised with the crossbow, and – perhaps not surprisingly – Miss Ponsky turned out to be the best shot, with Forester coming next and O’Hara third. Shooting the bow was rough on Miss Ponsky’s shoulder, but she made a soft shoulder-pad and eight times out of ten she put a bolt into a twelve-inch circle, clucking deprecatingly when she missed.
‘She’s not got the strength to crank it,’ said Forester. ‘But she’s damned good with the trigger.’
‘That settles it,’ said O’Hara. ‘She gets first crack at the enemy – if she’ll do it.’ He crossed over to her and said with a smile, ‘It looks as though you’re elected to go into action first. Will you give it a go?’
Her face paled and her nose seemed even sharper. ‘Oh, my!’ she said, flustered. ‘Do you think I can do it?’
‘They’ve put in another four planks,’ said O’Hara quietly. ‘And Rohde’s saving his last four bullets until he’s reasonably certain of making a hit. This is the only other chance we’ve got – and you’re the best shot.’
Visibly she pulled herself together and her chin rose in determination. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Good! You’d better come and have a look at the bridge to get your range right – and maybe you’d better take a few practice shots at the same range.’
He took her up to where Rohde was lying. ‘Miss Ponsky’s going to have a go with the crossbow,’ he said.
Rohde looked at it with interest. ‘Does it work?’
‘It’s got the range and velocity,’ O’Hara told him. ‘It should work all right.’ He turned his attention to the bridge. Two men had just put in another plank and were retreating. The gap in the bridge was getting very small – soon it would be narrow enough for a determined man to leap. ‘You’d better take the nearest man the next time they come out,’ he said. ‘What would you say the range is?’
Miss Ponsky considered. ‘A little less than the range I’ve been practising at,’ she said. ‘I don’t think I need to practise any more.’ There was a tremor in her voice.
O’Hara regarded her. ‘This has got to be done, Miss Ponsky. Remember what they did to Mrs Coughlin – and what they’ll do to us if they get across the bridge.’
‘I’ll be all right,’ she said in a low voice.
O’Hara nodded in satisfaction. ‘You take Rohde’s place. I’ll be a little way along. Take your time – you needn’t hurry. Regard it as the target practice you’ve just been doing.’
Forester had already cocked the bow and handed it up to Miss Ponsky. She put a bolt in the trough and slid forward on her stomach until she got a good view of the bridge. O’Hara waited until she was settled, then moved a little way farther along the edge of the gorge. He looked back and saw Forester talking to Armstrong, who was lying full-length on the ground, his eyes closed.
He found a good observation post and lay waiting. Presently the same two men appeared again, carrying a plank. They crawled the length of the bridge, pushing the plank before them until they reached the gap – even though none of them had been hit, they weren’t taking unnecessary chances. Once at the gap they got busy, lashing the plank to the two main ropes.
O’Hara found his heart thumping and the wait seemed intolerably long. The nearest man was wearing a leather jacket similar to his own and O’Hara could see quite clearly the flicker of his eyes as he gazed apprehensively at the opposite bank from time to time. O’Hara clenched his fist. ‘Now!’ he whispered. ‘For God’s sake – now!’
He did not hear the twang as the crossbow fired, but he saw the spurt of dust from the man’s jacket as the bolt hit him, and suddenly a shaft of steel sprouted from the man’s back just between the shoulder blades. There was a faint cry above the roar of the river and the man jerked his legs convulsively. He thrust his arms forward, almost in an imploring gesture, then he toppled sideways and rolled off the edge of the bridge, to fall in a spinning tangle of arms and legs into the raging river.
The other man paused uncertainly, then ran back across the bridge to the other side of the gorge. The bridge swayed under his pounding feet and as he ran he looked back fearfully. He joined the group at the end of the bridge and O’Hara saw him indicate his own back and another man shaking his head in disbelief.
Gently he withdrew and ran back to the place from which Miss Ponsky had fired the shot. She was lying on the ground, her body racked with sobs, and Forester was bending over her. ‘It’s all right, Miss Ponsky,’ he was saying. ‘It had to be done.’
‘But I’ve killed a man,’ she wailed. ‘I’ve taken a life.’
Forester got her to her feet and led her away, talking softly to her all the time. O’Hara bent and picked up the crossbow. ‘What a secret weapon!’ he said in admiration. ‘No noise, no flash – just zing.’ He laughed. ‘They still don’t know what happened – not for certain. Armstrong, you’re a bloody genius.’
But Armstrong was asleep.
IV
The enemy made no further attempts to repair the bridge that morning. Instead, they kept up a steady, if slow, light barrage of rifle fire, probing the tumble of rocks at the edge of the gorge in the hope of making hits. O’Hara withdrew everyone to safety, including Rohde. Then he borrowed a small mirror from Benedetta and contrived a makeshift periscope, being careful to keep the glass in the shadow of a rock so that it would not reflect direct sunlight. He fixed it so that an observer could lie on his back in perfect cover, but could still keep an eye on the bridge. Forester took first watch.
O’Hara said, ‘If they come on the bridge again use the gun – just one shot. We’ve got them off-balance now and a bit nervous. They don’t know if that chap fell off the bridge by accident, whether he was shot and they didn’t hear the report, or whether it was something else. We know it was something else and so does the other man who was on the bridge, but I don’t think they believe him. There was a hell of an argument going on the last I saw of it. At any rate, I think they’ll be leery of coming out now, and a shot ought to put them off.’
Forester checked the pistol and looked glumly at the four remaining bullets. ‘I feel a hell of a soldier – firing off twenty-five per cent of the available ammunition at one bang.’
‘It’s best this way,’ said O’Hara. ‘They don’t know the state of our ammunition, the crossbow is our secret weapon, and by God we must make the best use of it. I have ideas about that, but I want to wait for the second crossbow.’ He paused. ‘Have you any idea how many of the bastards are across there?’
‘I tried a rough count,’ said Forester. ‘I made it twenty-three. The leader seems to be a big guy with a Castro beard. He’s wearing some kind of uniform – jungle-green pants and a bush-jacket.’ He rubbed his chin and said thoughtfully, ‘It’s my guess that he’s a Cuban specialist.’
‘I’ll look out for him,’ said O’Hara. ‘Maybe if we can nail him the rest will pack up.’
‘Maybe,’ said Forester non-committally.
O’Hara trudged back to the camp which had now been transferred to the rock shelter on the hillside. That was a better defensive position and could not be so easily rushed, the attackers having to move over broken ground. But O’Hara had no great faith in it; if the enemy crossed the bridge they could move up the road fast, outflanking the rock shelter to move in behind and surround them. He had cudgelled his brain to find a way of blocking the road but had not come up with anything.
But there it was – a better place than the camp by the pond and the roadside. The trouble was water, but the rock hollow at the rear of the shelter had been filled with twenty-five gallons of water, transported laboriously a canful at a time, much of it spilling on the way. And it was a good place to sleep, too.
Miss Ponsky had recovered from her hysteria but not from her remorse. She was unaccustomedly quiet and withdrawn, speaking to no one. She had helped to transport the water and the food but had done so mechanically, as if she did not care. Aguillar was grave. ‘It is not right that this should be,’ he said. ‘It is not right that a lady like Miss Ponsky should have to do these things.’
O’Hara felt exasperated. ‘Dammit, we didn’t start this fight,’ he said. ‘The Coughlins are dead, and Benedetta was nearly killed – not to mention me. I’ll try not to let it happen again, but she is the best shot and we are fighting for our lives.’
‘You are a soldier,’ said Aguillar. ‘Almost I seem to hear you say, with Napoleon, that one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.’ His voice was gently sardonic.
O’Hara disregarded that. ‘We must all practise with the bow – we must learn to use it while we have time.’
Aguillar tapped him on the arm. ‘Señor O’Hara, perhaps if I gave myself to these people they would be satisfied.’
O’Hara stared at him. ‘You know they wouldn’t; they can’t let us go – knowing what we know.’
Aguillar nodded. ‘I know that; I was wondering if you did.’ He shrugged half-humorously. ‘I wanted you to convince me there is nothing to gain by it – and you have. I am sorry to have brought this upon all these innocent people.’
O’Hara made an impatient noise and Aguillar continued, ‘There comes a time when the soldier takes affairs out of the hands of the politician – all ways seem to lead to violence. So I must cease to be a politician and become a soldier. I will learn how to shoot this bow well, señor.’
‘I wouldn’t do too much, Señor Aguillar,’ said O’Hara. ‘You must conserve your strength in case we must move suddenly and quickly. You’re not in good physical shape, you know.’
Aguillar’s voice was sharp. ‘Señor, I will do what I must.’
O’Hara said no more, guessing he had touched on Spanish-American pride. He went to talk to Miss Ponsky.
She was kneeling in front of the pressure stove, apparently intent on watching a can of water boil, but her eyes were unfocused and staring far beyond. He knew what she was looking at – the steel bolt that had sprouted like a monstrous growth in the middle of a man’s back.
He said, ‘Killing another human being is a terrible thing, Miss Ponsky. I know – I’ve done it, and I was sickened for days afterwards. The first time I shot down an enemy fighter in Korea I followed him down – it was a dangerous thing to do, but I was young and inexperienced then. The Mig went down in flames, and his ejector seat didn’t work, so he opened the canopy manually and jumped out against the slipstream.
‘It was brave or desperate of that man to do that. But he had the Chinese sort of courage – or maybe the Russian courage, for all I know. You see, I didn’t know the nationality or even the colour of the man I had killed. He fell to earth, a spinning black speck. His parachute didn’t open. I knew he was a dead man.’
O’Hara moistened his lips. ‘I felt bad about that, Miss Ponsky; it sickened me. But then I thought that the same man had been trying to kill me – he nearly succeeded, too. He had pumped my plane full of holes before I got him and I crash-landed on the airstrip. I was lucky to get away with it – I spent three weeks in hospital. I finally worked it out that it was a case of him or me, and I was the lucky one. I don’t know if he would have had regrets if he had killed me – I think probably not. Those people aren’t trained to have much respect for life.’
He regarded her closely. ‘These people across the river are the same that I fought in Korea, no matter that their skins are a different colour. We have no fight with them if they will let us go in peace – but they won’t do that, Miss Ponsky. So it’s back to basics; kill or be killed and the devil take the loser. You did all right, Miss Ponsky; what you did may have saved all our lives and maybe the lives of a lot of people in this country. Who knows?’
As he lapsed into silence she turned to him and said in a husky, broken voice, ‘I’m a silly old woman, Mr O’Hara. For years I’ve been talking big, like everyone else in America, about fighting the communists; but I didn’t have to do it myself, and when it comes to doing it yourself it’s a different matter. Oh, we women cheered our American boys when they went to fight – there’s no one more bloodthirsty than one who doesn’t have to do the fighting. But when you do your own killing, it’s a dreadful thing, Mr O’Hara.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘The only thing that makes it bearable is that if you don’t kill, then you are killed. It reduces to a simple choice in the end.’
‘I realize that now, Mr O’Hara,’ she said. ‘I’ll be all right now.’
‘My name is Tim,’ he said. ‘The English are pretty stuffy about getting on to first-name terms, but not we Irish.’
She gave him a tremulous smile. ‘I’m Jennifer.’
‘All right, Jenny,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ll try not to put you in a spot like that again.’
She turned her head away and said in a muffled voice, ‘I think I’m going to cry.’ Hastily she scrambled to her feet and ran out of the shelter.
Benedetta said from behind O’Hara, ‘That was well done, Tim.’
He turned and looked at her stonily. ‘Was it? It was something that had to be done.’ He got up and stretched his legs. ‘Let’s practise with that crossbow.’
V
For the rest of the day they practised, learning to allow for wind and the effect of a change of range. Miss Ponsky tightened still further her wire-drawn nerves and became instructress, and the general level of performance improved enormously.
O’Hara went down to the gorge and, by triangulation, carefully measured the distance to the enemy vehicles and was satisfied that he had the range measured to a foot. Then he went back and measured the same distance on the ground and told everyone to practise with the bow at that range. It was one hundred and eight yards.
He said to Benedetta, ‘I’m making you my chief-of-staff – that’s a sort of glorified secretary that a general has. Have you got pencil and paper?’
She smiled and nodded, whereupon he reeled off a dozen things that had to be done. ‘You pass on that stuff to the right people in case I forget – I’ve got a hell of a lot of things on my mind right now and I might slip up on something important when the action starts.’
He set Aguillar to tying bunches of rags around half a dozen bolts, then shot them at the target to see if the rags made any difference to the accuracy of the flight. There was no appreciable difference, so he soaked one of them in paraffin and lit it before firing, but the flame was extinguished before it reached the target.
He swore and experimented further, letting the paraffin burn fiercely before he pulled the trigger. At the expense of a scorched face he finally landed three fiercely burning bolts squarely in the target and observed happily that they continued to burn.
‘We’ll have to do this in the day-time,’ he said. ‘It’ll be bloody dangerous in the dark – they’d spot the flame before we shot.’ He looked up at the sun. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to drag this thing out as long as we can.’
It was late afternoon before the enemy ventured on to the bridge again and they scattered at a shot from Rohde who, after a long sleep, had taken over again from Forester. Rohde fired another shot before sunset and then stopped on instructions from O’Hara. ‘Keep the last two bullets,’ he said. ‘We’ll need them.’
So the enemy put in three more planks and stepped up their illumination that night, although they dared not move on the bridge.
FOUR (#ulink_84ea8bc1-6dee-5542-87af-a5597d4b2fd1)
Forester awoke at dawn. He felt refreshed after having had a night’s unbroken sleep. O’Hara had insisted that he and Rohde should not stand night watches but should get as much sleep as they could. This was the day that he and Rohde were to go up to the hutted camp to get acclimatized and the next day to go on up to the mine.
He looked up at the white mountains and felt a sudden chill in his bones. He had lied to O’Hara when he said he had mountaineered in the Rockies – the highest he had climbed was to the top of the Empire State Building in an elevator. The high peaks were blindingly bright as the sun touched them and he wrinkled his eyes to see the pass that Rohde had pointed out. Rohde had said he would be sorry and Forester judged he was right; Rohde was a tough cookie and not given to exaggeration.
After cleaning up he went down to the bridge. Armstrong was on watch, lying on his back beneath the mirror. He was busy sketching on a scrap of paper with a pencil stub, glancing up at the mirror every few minutes. He waved as he saw Forester crawling up and said, ‘All quiet. They’ve just switched off the lights.’
Forester looked at the piece of paper. Armstrong had drawn what looked like a chemist’s balance. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘The scales of justice?’
Armstrong looked startled and then pleased. ‘Why, sir, you have identified it correctly,’ he said.
Forester did not press it further. He thought Armstrong was a nut – clever, but still a nut. That crossbow of his had turned out to be some weapon – but it took a nut to think it up. He smiled at Armstrong and crawled away to where he could get a good look at the bridge.
His mouth tightened when he saw how narrow the gap was. Maybe he wouldn’t have to climb the pass after all; maybe he’d have to fight and die right where he was. He judged that by the afternoon the gap would be narrow enough for a man to jump and that O’Hara had better prepare himself for a shock. But O’Hara had seemed untroubled and talked of a plan, and Forester hoped to God that he knew what he was doing.
When he got back to the rock shelter he found that Willis had come down from the hutted camp. He had hauled a travois the whole way and it was now being unpacked. He had brought more food, some blankets and another crossbow which he was demonstrating to O’Hara.
‘This will be faster loading,’ he said. ‘I found some small gears, so I built them into the windlass – they make the cranking a lot easier. How did the other bow work?’
‘Bloody good,’ said O’Hara. ‘It killed a man.’
Willis paled a little and the unshaven bristles stood out against his white skin. Forester smiled grimly. The backroom boys always felt squeamish when they heard the results of their tinkering.
O’Hara turned to Forester. ‘As soon as they start work on the bridge we’ll give them a surprise,’ he said. ‘It’s time we put a bloody crimp in their style. We’ll have breakfast and then go down to the bridge – you’d better stick around and see the fun; you can leave immediately afterwards.’
He swung around. ‘Jenny, don’t bother about helping with the breakfast. You’re our star turn. Take a crossbow and have a few practice shots at the same range as yesterday.’ As she paled, he smiled and said gently, ‘We’ll be going down to the bridge and you’ll be firing at a stationary, inanimate target.’
Forester said to Willis, ‘Where’s Peabody?’
‘Back at the camp – making more arrows.’
‘Have any trouble with him?’
Willis grinned briefly. ‘He’s a lazy swine but a couple of kicks up the butt soon cured that,’ he said, unexpectedly coarsely. ‘Where’s Armstrong?’
‘On watch down by the bridge.’
Willis rubbed his chin with a rasping noise. ‘That man’s got ideas,’ he said. ‘He’s a whole Manhattan Project by himself. I want to talk to him.’
He headed down the hill and Forester turned to Rohde, who had been talking to Aguillar and Benedetta in Spanish. ‘What do we take with us?’
‘Nothing from here,’ Rohde said. ‘We can get what we want at the camp; but we must take little from there – we travel light.’
O’Hara looked up from the can of stew he was opening. ‘You’d better take warm clothing – you can have my leather jacket,’ he offered.
‘Thanks,’ Forester said.
O’Hara grinned. ‘And you’d better take your boss’s vicuna coat – he may need it. I hear it gets cold in New York.’
Forester smiled and took the can of hot stew. ‘I doubt if he’ll appreciate it,’ he said drily.
They had just finished breakfast when Willis came running back. ‘They’ve started work on the bridge,’ he shouted. ‘Armstrong wants to know if he should shoot.’
‘Hell no,’ said O’Hara. ‘We’ve only got two bullets.’ He swung on Rohde. ‘Go down there, get the gun from Armstrong and find yourself a good spot for shooting – but don’t shoot until I tell you.’
Rohde plunged down the hill and O’Hara turned to the others. ‘Everyone gather round,’ he ordered. ‘Where’s Jenny?’
‘I’m here,’ called Miss Ponsky from inside the shelter.
‘Come to the front, Jenny; you’ll play a big part in all this.’ O’Hara squatted down and drew two parallel lines in the dust with a sharp stone. ‘That’s the gorge and this is the bridge. Here is the road; it crosses the bridge, turns sharply on the other side and runs on the edge of the gorge, parallel to the river.’
He placed a small stone on his rough diagram. ‘Just by the bridge there’s a jeep, and behind it another jeep. Both are turned so that their lights illuminate the bridge. Behind the second jeep there’s a big truck half full of timber.’ O’Hara placed a larger stone. ‘Behind the truck there’s another jeep. There are some other vehicles farther down, but we’re not concerned with those now.’
He shifted his position. ‘Now for our side of the gorge. Miguel will be here, upstream of the bridge. He’ll take one shot at the men on the bridge. He won’t hit anyone – he hasn’t yet, anyway – but that doesn’t matter. It’ll scare them and divert their attention, which is what I want.
‘Jenny will be here, downstream of the bridge and immediately opposite the truck. The range is one hundred and eight yards, and we know the crossbow will do it because Jenny was shooting consistently well at that range all yesterday afternoon. As soon as she hears the shot she lets fly at the petrol tank of the truck.’
He looked up at Forester. ‘You’ll be right behind Jenny. As soon as she has fired she’ll hand you the bow and tell you if she’s hit the tank. If she hasn’t, you crank the bow, reload it and hand it back to her for another shot. If she has hit it, then you crank it, run up to where Benedetta will be waiting and give it to her cocked but unloaded.’
He placed another small stone. ‘I’ll be there with Benedetta right behind me. She’ll have the other crossbow ready cocked and with a fire-bolt in it.’ He looked up at her. ‘When I give you the signal you’ll light the paraffin rags on the bolt and hand the crossbow to me, and I’ll take a crack at the truck. We might need a bit of rapid fire at this point, so crank up the bows. You stick to seeing that the bolts are properly ignited before the bows are handed to me, just like we did yesterday in practice.’
He stood up and stretched. ‘Is that clear to everyone?’
Willis said, ‘What do I do?’
‘Anyone not directly concerned with this operation will keep his head down and stay out of the way.’ O’Hara paused. ‘But stand by in case anything goes wrong with the bows.’
‘I’ve got some spare bowstrings,’ said Willis. ‘I’ll have a look at that first bow to see if it’s okay.’
‘Do that,’ said O’Hara. ‘Any more questions?’
There were no questions. Miss Ponsky held up her chin in a grimly determined manner; Benedetta turned immediately to collect the fire-bolts which were her care; Forester merely said, ‘Okay with me.’
As they were going down the hill, though, he said to O’Hara, ‘It’s a good plan, but your part is goddam risky. They’ll see those fire-bolts before you shoot. You stand a good chance of being knocked off.’
‘You can’t fight a war without risk,’ said O’Hara. ‘And that’s what this is, you know; it’s as much a war as any bigger conflict.’
‘Yeah,’ said Forester thoughtfully. He glanced at O’Hara sideways. ‘What about me doing this fire-bolt bit?’
O’Hara laughed. ‘You’re going with Rohde – you picked it, you do it. You said I was garrison commander, so while you’re here you’ll bloody well obey orders.’
Forester laughed too. ‘It was worth a try,’ he said.
Close to the gorge they met Armstrong. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked plaintively.
‘Willis will tell you all about it,’ said O’Hara. ‘Where’s Rohde?’
Armstrong pointed. ‘Over there.’
O’Hara said to Forester, ‘See that Jenny has a good seat for the performance,’ and went to find Rohde.
As always, Rohde had picked a good spot. O’Hara wormed his way next to him and asked, ‘How much longer do you think they’ll be fixing that plank?’
‘About five minutes.’ Rohde lifted the pistol, obviously itching to take a shot.
‘Hold it,’ O’Hara said sharply. ‘When they come with the next plank give them five minutes and then take a crack. We’ve got a surprise cooking for them.’
Rohde raised his eyebrows but said nothing. O’Hara looked at the massive stone buttresses which carried the cables of the bridge. ‘It’s a pity those abutments aren’t made of timber – they’d have burnt nicely. What the hell did they want to build them so big for?’
‘The Incas always built well,’ said Rohde.
‘You mean this is Inca work?’ said O’Hara, astonished.
Rohde nodded. ‘It was here before the Spaniards came. The bridge needs constant renewal, but the buttresses will last for ever.’
‘Well, I’m damned,’ said O’Hara. ‘I wonder why the Incas wanted a bridge here – in the middle of nowhere.’
‘The Incas did many strange things.’ Rohde paused. ‘I seem to remember that the ore deposit of this mine was found by tracing the surface workings of the Incas. They would need the bridge if they worked metals up here.’
O’Hara watched the men on the other side of the gorge. He spotted the big man with the beard whom Forester thought was the leader, wearing a quasi-uniform and with a pistol at his waist. He walked about bellowing orders and when he shouted men certainly jumped to it. O’Hara smiled grimly as he saw that they did not bother to take cover at all. No one had been shot at while on the other side – only when on the bridge – and that policy was now going to pay off.
He said to Rohde, ‘You know what to do. I’m going to see to the rest of it.’ He slid back cautiously until it was safe to stand, then ran to where the rest were waiting, skirting the dangerous open ground at the approach to the bridge.
He said to Benedetta, ‘I’ll be posted there; you’d better get your stuff ready. Have you got matches?’
‘I have Señor Forester’s cigarette lighter.’
‘Good. You’d better keep it burning all the time, once the action starts. I’m just going along to see Jenny, then I’ll be back.’
Miss Ponsky was waiting with Forester a little farther along. She was bright-eyed and a little excited and O’Hara knew that she’d be all right if she didn’t have to kill anyone. Well, that was all right, too; she would prepare the way and he’d do the killing. He said, ‘Have you had a look?’
She nodded quickly. ‘The gas tank is that big cylinder fastened under the truck.’
‘That’s right; it’s a big target. But try to hit it squarely – a bolt might glance off unless you hit it in the middle.’
‘I’ll hit it,’ she said confidently.
He said, ‘They’ve just about finished putting a plank in. When they start to fasten the next one Rohde is going to give them five minutes and then pop off. That’s your signal.’
She smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry, Tim, I’ll do it.’
Forester said, ‘I’ll keep watch. When they bring up the plank Jenny can take over.’
‘Right,’ said O’Hara and went back to Benedetta. Armstrong was cocking the crossbow and Benedetta had arranged the fire-bolts in an arc, their points stuck in the earth. She lifted a can. ‘This is the last of the kerosene; we’ll need more for cooking.’
O’Hara smiled at this incongruous domestic note, and Willis said, ‘There’s plenty up at the camp; we found two forty-gallon drums.’
‘Did you, by God?’ said O’Hara. ‘That opens up possibilities.’ He climbed up among the rocks to the place he had chosen and tried to figure what could be done with a forty-gallon drum of paraffin. But then two men walked on to the bridge carrying a plank and he froze in concentration. One thing at a time, Tim, my boy, he thought.
He turned his head and said to Benedetta who was standing below, ‘Five minutes.’
He heard the click as she tested the cigarette lighter and turned his attention to the other side of the gorge. The minutes ticked by and he found the palms of his hands sweating. He wiped them on his shirt and cursed suddenly. A man had walked by the truck and was standing negligently in front of it – dead in front of the petrol tank.
‘For Christ’s sake, move on,’ muttered O’Hara. He knew that Miss Ponsky must have the man in her sights – but would she have the nerve to pull the trigger? He doubted it.
Hell’s teeth, I should have told Rohde what was going on, he thought. Rohde wouldn’t know about the crossbow and would fire his shot on time, regardless of the man covering the petrol tank. O’Hara ground his teeth as the man, a short, thick-set Indian type, produced a cigarette and carelessly struck a match on the side of the truck.
Rohde fired his shot and there was a yell from the bridge. The man by the truck stood frozen for a long moment and then started to run. O’Hara ignored him from then on – the man disappeared, that was all he knew – and his attention was riveted on the petrol tank. He heard a dull thunk even at that distance, and saw a dark shadow suddenly appear in the side of the tank, and saw the tank itself shiver abruptly.
Miss Ponsky had done it!
O’Hara wiped the sweat from his eyes and wished he had binoculars. Was that petrol dropping on to the road? Was that dark patch in the dust beneath the truck the spreading stain of leaking petrol, or was it just imagination? The trigger-happy bandits on the other side were letting go with all they had in their usual futile barrage, but he ignored the racket and strained his aching eyes.
The Indian came back and looked with an air of puzzlement at the truck. He sniffed the air suspiciously and then bent down to look underneath the vehicle. Then he let out a yell and waved violently.
By God, thought O’Hara exultantly, it is petrol!
He turned and snapped his fingers at Benedetta who immediately lit the fire-bolt waiting ready in the crossbow. O’Hara thumped the rock impatiently with his fist while she waited until it got well alight. But he knew this was the right way – if the rags were not burning well the flame would be extinguished in flight.
She thrust the bow at him suddenly and he twisted with it in his hands, the flame scorching his face. Another man had run up and was looking incredulously under the truck. O’Hara peered through the crude wire sight and through the flames of the burning bolt and willed himself to take his time. Gently he squeezed the trigger.
The butt lurched against his shoulder and he quickly twisted over to pass the bow back into Benedetta’s waiting hands, but he had time to see the flaming bolt arch well over the truck to bury itself in the earth on the other side of the road.
This new bow was shooting too high.
He grabbed the second bow and tried again, burning his fingers as he incautiously put his hand in the flame. He could feel his eyebrows shrivelling as he aimed and again the butt slammed his shoulder as he pulled the trigger. The shot went too far to the right and the bolt skidded on the road surface, sending up a shower of sparks.
The two men by the truck had looked up in alarm when the first bolt had gone over their heads. At the sight of the second bolt they both shouted and pointed across the gorge.
Let this one be it, prayed O’Hara, as he seized the bow from Benedetta. This is the one that shoots high, he thought, as he deliberately aimed for the lip of the gorge. As he squeezed the trigger a bullet clipped the rock by his head and a granite splinter scored a bloody line across his forehead. But the bolt went true, a flaming line drawn across the gorge which passed between the two men and beneath the truck.
With a soft thud the dripping petrol caught alight and the truck was suddenly enveloped in flames. The Indian staggered out of the inferno, his clothing on fire, and ran screaming down the road, his hands clawing at his eyes. O’Hara did not see the other man; he had turned and was grabbing for the second bow.
But he didn’t get off another shot. He had barely lined up the sights on one of the jeeps when the bow slammed into him before he touched the trigger. He was thrown back violently and the bow must have sprung of its own volition, for he saw a fire-bolt arch into the sky. Then his head struck a rock and he was knocked unconscious.
II
He came round to find Benedetta bathing his head, looking worried. Beyond, he saw Forester talking animatedly to Willis and beyond them the sky, disfigured by a coil of black, greasy smoke. He put his hand to his head and winced. ‘What the hell hit me?’
‘Hush,’ said Benedetta. ‘Don’t move.’
He grinned weakly and lifted himself up on his elbow. Forester saw that he was moving. ‘Are you all right, Tim?’
‘I don’t know,’ said O’Hara. ‘I don’t think so.’ His head ached abominably. ‘What happened?’
Willis lifted the crossbow. ‘A rifle bullet hit this,’ he said. ‘It smashed the stirrup – you were lucky it didn’t hit you. You batted your head against a rock and passed out.’
O’Hara smiled painfully at Benedetta. ‘I’m all right,’ he said and sat up. ‘Did we do the job?’
Forester laughed delightedly. ‘Did we do the job? Oh, boy!’ He knelt down next to O’Hara. ‘To begin with, Rohde actually hit his man on the bridge when he shot – plugged him neatly through the shoulder. That caused all the commotion we needed. Jenny Ponsky had a goddam tricky time with that guy in front of the gas tank, but she did her job in the end. She was shaking like a leaf when she gave me the bow.’
‘What about the truck?’ asked O’Hara. ‘I saw it catch fire – that’s about the last thing I did see.’
‘The truck’s gone,’ said Forester. ‘It’s still burning – and the jeep next to it caught fire when the second gas tank on the other side of the truck blew up. Hell, they were running about like ants across there.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Both the men who were by the truck were killed. The Indian ran plumb over the edge of the gorge – I reckon he was blinded – and the other guy was burned to a crisp. Jenny didn’t see it and I didn’t tell her.’
O’Hara nodded; it would be a nasty thing for her to live with.
‘That’s about it,’ said Forester. ‘They’ve lost all their timber – it burned with the truck. They’ve lost the truck and a jeep and they’ve abandoned the jeep by the bridge – they couldn’t get it back past the burning truck. All the other vehicles they’ve withdrawn a hell of a long way down the road where it turns away from the gorge. I’d say it’s a good half-mile. They were hopping mad, judging by the way they opened up on us. They set up the damnedest barrage of rifle fire – they must have all the ammunition in the world.’
‘Anybody hurt?’ demanded O’Hara.
‘You’re our most serious casualty – no one else got a scratch.’
‘I must bandage your head, Tim,’ said Benedetta.
‘We’ll go up to the pond,’ said O’Hara.
As he got to his feet Aguillar approached. ‘You did well, Señor O’Hara,’ he said.
O’Hara swayed and leaned on Forester for support. ‘Well enough, but they won’t fall for that trick again. All we’ve bought is time.’ His voice was sober.
‘Time is what we need,’ said Forester. ‘Earlier this morning I wouldn’t have given two cents for our scheme to cross the mountains. But now Rohde and I can leave with an easy conscience.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’d better get on the road.’
Miss Ponsky came up. ‘Are you all right, Mr O’Hara – Tim?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘You did all right, Jenny.’
She blushed. ‘Why – thank you, Tim. But I had a dreadful moment. I really thought I’d have to shoot that man by the truck.’
O’Hara looked at Forester and grinned weakly and Forester suppressed a macabre laugh. ‘You did just what you were supposed to do,’ said O’Hara, ‘and you did it very well.’ He looked around. ‘Willis, you stay down here – get the gun from Rohde and if anything happens fire the last bullet. But I don’t think anything will happen – not yet a while. The rest of us will have a war council up by the pond. I’d like to do that before Ray goes off.’
‘Okay,’ said Forester.
They went up to the pond and O’Hara walked over to the water’s edge. Before he took a cupped handful of water he caught sight of his own reflection and grimaced distastefully. He was unshaven and very dirty, his face blackened by smoke and dried blood and his eyes red-rimmed and sore from the heat of the fire-bolts. My God, I look like a tramp, he thought.
He dashed cold water at his face and shivered violently, then turned to find Benedetta behind him, a strip of cloth in her hands. ‘Your head,’ she said. ‘The skin was broken.’
He put a hand to the back of his head and felt the stickiness of drying blood. ‘Hell, I must have hit hard,’ he said.
‘You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Let me see to it.’
Her fingers were cool on his temples as she washed the wound and bandaged his head. He rubbed his hand raspingly over his cheek; Armstrong is always clean-shaven, he thought; I must find out how he does it.
Benedetta tied a neat little knot and said, ‘You must take it easy today, Tim. I think you are concussed a little.’
He nodded, then winced as a sharp pain stabbed through his head. ‘I think you’re right. But as for taking it easy – that isn’t up to me; that’s up to the boys on the other side of the river. Let’s get back to the others.’
Forester rose up as they approached. ‘Miguel thinks we should get going,’ he said.
‘In a moment,’ said O’Hara. ‘There are a few things I want to find out.’ He turned to Rohde. ‘You’ll be spending a day at the camp and a day at the mine. That’s two days used up. Is this lost time necessary?’
‘It is necessary and barely enough,’ said Rohde. ‘It should be longer.’
‘You’re the expert on mountains,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ll take your word for it. How long to get across?’
‘Two days,’ said Rohde positively. ‘If we have to take longer we will not do it at all.’
‘That’s four days,’ said O’Hara. ‘Add another day to convince someone that we’re in trouble and another for that someone to do something about it. We’ve got to hold out for six days at least – maybe longer.’
Forester looked grave. ‘Can you do it?’
‘We’ve got to do it,’ said O’Hara. ‘I think we’ve gained one day. They’ve got to find some timber from somewhere, and that means going back at least fifty miles to a town. They might have to get another truck as well – and it all takes time. I don’t think we’ll be troubled until tomorrow – maybe not until the next day. But I’m thinking about your troubles – how are you going to handle things on the other side of the mountain?’
Miss Ponsky said, ‘I’ve been wondering about that, too. You can’t go to the government of this man Lopez. He would not help Señor Aguillar, would he?’
Forester smiled mirthlessly. ‘He wouldn’t lift a finger. Are there any of your people in Altemiros, Señor Aguillar?’
‘I will give you an address,’ said Aguillar. ‘And Miguel will know. But you may not have to go as far as Altemiros.’
Forester looked interested and Aguillar said to Rohde, ‘The airfield.’
‘Ah,’ said Rohde. ‘But we must be careful.’
‘What’s this about an airfield?’ Forester asked.
‘There is a high-level airfield in the mountains this side of Altemiros,’ said Aguillar. ‘It is a military installation which the fighter squadrons use in rotation. Cordillera has four squadrons of fighter aircraft – the eighth, the tenth, the fourteenth and the twenty-first squadrons. We – like the communists – have been infiltrating the armed forces. The fourteenth squadron is ours; the eighth is communist; and the other two still belong to Lopez.’
‘So the odds are three to one that any squadron at the airfield will be a rotten egg,’ commented Forester.
‘That is right,’ said Aguillar. ‘But the airfield is directly on your way to Altemiros. You must tread carefully and act discreetly, and perhaps you can save much time. The commandant of the fourteenth squadron, Colonel Rodriguez, is an old friend of mine – he is safe.’
‘If he’s there,’ said Forester. ‘But it’s worth the chance. We’ll make for this airfield as soon as we’ve crossed the mountains.’
‘That’s settled,’ said O’Hara with finality. ‘Doctor Armstrong, have you any more tricks up your medieval sleeve?’
Armstrong removed his pipe from his mouth. ‘I think I have. I had an idea and I’ve been talking to Willis about it and he thinks he can make it work.’ He nodded towards the gorge. ‘Those people are going to be more prepared when they come back with their timber. They’re not going to stand up and be shot at like tin ducks in a shooting gallery – they’re going to have their defences against our crossbows. So what we need now is a trench mortar.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ exploded O’Hara. ‘Where the devil are we going to get a trench mortar?’
‘Willis is going to make it,’ Armstrong said equably. ‘With the help of Señor Rohde, Mr Forester and myself – and Mr Peabody, of course, although he isn’t much help, really.’
‘So I’m going to make a trench mortar,’ said Forester helplessly. He looked baffled. ‘What do we use for explosives? Something cleverly cooked up out of match-heads?’
‘Oh, you misunderstand me,’ said Armstrong. ‘I mean the medieval equivalent of a trench mortar. We need a machine that will throw a missile in a high trajectory to lob behind the defences which our enemies will undoubtedly have when they make their next move. There are no really new principles in modern warfare, you know; merely new methods of applying the old principles. Medieval man knew all the principles.’
He looked glumly at his empty pipe. ‘They had a variety of weapons. The onager is no use for our purpose, of course. I did think of the mangonel and the ballista, but I discarded those too, and finally settled on the trebuchet. Powered by gravity, you know, and very effective.’
If the crossbows had not been such a great success O’Hara would have jeered at Armstrong, but now he held his peace, contenting himself with looking across at Forester ironically. Forester still looked baffled and shrugged his shoulders. ‘What sort of missile would the thing throw?’ he asked.
‘I was thinking of rocks,’ said Armstrong. ‘I explained the principle of the trebuchet to Willis and he has worked it all out. It’s merely the application of simple mechanics, you know, and Willis has got all that at his fingertips. We’ll probably make a better trebuchet than they could in the Middle Ages – we can apply the scientific principles with more understanding. Willis thinks we can throw a twenty-pound rock over a couple of hundred yards with no trouble at all.’
‘Wow!’ said O’Hara. He visualized a twenty-pound boulder arching in a high trajectory – it would come out of the sky almost vertically at that range. ‘We can do the bridge a bit of no good with a thing like that.’
‘How long will it take to make?’ asked Forester.
‘Not long,’ said Armstrong. ‘Not more than twelve hours, Willis thinks. It’s a very simple machine, really.’
O’Hara felt in his pocket and found his cigarette packet. He took one of his last cigarettes and gave it to Armstrong. ‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it. You deserve it.’
Armstrong smiled delightedly and began to shred the cigarette. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I can think much better when I smoke.’
O’Hara grinned. ‘I’ll give you all my cigarettes if you can come up with the medieval version of the atom bomb.’
‘That was gunpowder,’ said Armstrong seriously. ‘I think that’s beyond us at the moment.’
‘There’s just one thing wrong with your idea,’ O’Hara commented. ‘We can’t have too many people up at the camp. We must have somebody down at the bridge in case the enemy does anything unexpected. We’ve got to keep a fighting force down here.’
‘I’ll stay,’ said Armstrong, puffing at his pipe contentedly. ‘I’m not very good with my hands – my fingers are all thumbs. Willis knows what to do; he doesn’t need me.’
‘That’s it, then,’ said O’Hara to Forester. ‘You and Miguel go up to the camp, help Willis and Peabody build this contraption, then push on to the mine tomorrow. I’ll go down and relieve Willis at the bridge.’
III
Forester found the going hard as they climbed up to the camp. His breath wheezed in his throat and he developed slight chest pains. Rohde was not so much affected and Willis apparently not at all. During the fifteen-minute rest at the halfway point he commented on it. ‘That is acclimatization,’ Rohde explained. ‘Señor Willis has spent much time at the camp – to come down means nothing to him. For us going up it is different.’
‘That’s right,’ said Willis. ‘Going down to the bridge was like going down to sea-level, although the bridge must be about twelve thousand feet up.’
‘How high is the camp?’ asked Forester.
‘I’d say about fourteen and a half thousand feet,’ said Willis. ‘I’d put the mine at a couple of thousand feet higher.’
Forester looked up at the peaks. ‘And the pass is nineteen thousand. Too close to heaven for my liking, Miguel.’
Rohde’s lips twisted. ‘Not heaven – it is a cold hell.’
When they arrived at the camp Forester was feeling bad and said so. ‘You will be better tomorrow,’ said Rohde.
‘But tomorrow we’re going higher,’ said Forester morosely.
‘One day at each level is not enough to acclimatize,’ Rohde admitted. ‘But it is all the time we can afford.’
Willis looked around the camp. ‘Where the hell is Peabody? I’ll go and root him out.’
He wandered off and Rohde said, ‘I think we should search this camp thoroughly. There may be many things that would be of use to O’Hara.’
‘There’s the kerosene,’ said Forester. ‘Maybe Armstrong’s gadget can throw fire bombs. That would be one way of getting at the bridge to burn it.’
They began to search the huts. Most of them were empty and disused, but three of them had been fitted out for habitation and there was much equipment. In one of the huts they found Willis shaking a recumbent Peabody, who was stretched out on a bunk.
‘Five arrows,’ said Willis bitterly. ‘That’s all this bastard has done – made five arrows before he drank himself stupid.’
‘Where’s he getting the booze?’ asked Forester.
‘There’s a case of the stuff in one of the other huts.’
‘Lock it up if you can,’ said Forester. ‘If you can’t, pour it away – I ought to have warned you about this, but I forgot. We can’t do much about him now – he’s too far gone.’
Rohde who had been exploring the hut grunted suddenly as he took a small leather bag from a shelf. ‘This is good.’
Forester looked with interest at the pale green leaves which Rohde shook out into the palm of his hand. ‘What’s that?’
‘Coca leaves,’ said Rohde. ‘They will help us when we cross the mountain.’
‘Coca?’ said Forester blankly.
‘The curse of the Andes,’ said Rohde. ‘This is where cocaine comes from. It has been the ruin of the indios – this and aguardiente. Señor Aguillar intends to restrict the growing of coca when he comes into power.’ He smiled slowly. ‘It would be asking too much to stop it altogether.’
‘How is it going to help us?’ asked Forester.
‘Look around for another bag like this one containing a white powder,’ said Rohde. As they rummaged among the shelves, he continued, ‘In the great days of the Incas the use of coca was restricted to the nobles. Then the royal messengers were permitted to use it because it increased their running power and stamina. Now all the indios chew coca – it is cheaper than food.’
‘It isn’t a substitute for food, is it?’
‘It anaesthetises the stomach lining,’ said Rohde. ‘A starving man will do anything to avoid the pangs of hunger. It is also a narcotic, bringing calmness and tranquillity – at a price.’
‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ asked Forester. He opened a small bag he had found and tipped out some of the powder. ‘What is it?’
‘Lime,’ said Rohde. ‘Cocaine is an alkaloid and needs a base for it to precipitate. While we are waiting for Señor Willis to tell us what to do, I will prepare this for us.’
He poured the coca leaves into a saucer and began to grind them, using the back of a spoon as a pestle. The leaves were brittle and dry and broke up easily. When he had ground them to a powder he added lime and continued to grind until the two substances were thoroughly mixed. Then he put the mixture into an empty tin and added water, stirring until he had a light green paste. He took another tin and punched holes in the bottom, and, using it as a strainer, he forced the paste through.
He said, ‘In any of the villages round here you can see the old women doing this. Will you get me some small, smooth stones?’
Forester went out and got the stones and Rohde used them to roll and squeeze the paste like a pastrycook. Finally the paste was rolled out for the last time and Rohde cut it into rectangles with his pocket-knife. ‘These must dry in the sun,’ he said. ‘Then we put them back in the bags.’
Forester looked dubiously at the small green squares. ‘Is this stuff habit-forming?’
‘Indeed it is,’ said Rohde. ‘But do not worry; this amount will do us no harm. And it will give us the endurance to climb the mountains.’
Willis came back. ‘We can swing it,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the material to make this – what did Armstrong call it?’
‘A trebuchet,’ Forester said.
‘Well, we can do it,’ said Willis. He stopped and looked down at the table. ‘What’s that stuff?’
Forester grinned. ‘A substitute for prime steak; Miguel just cooked it up.’ He shook his head. ‘Medieval artillery and pep pills – what a hell of a mixture.’
‘Talking about steak reminds me that I’m hungry,’ said Willis. ‘We’ll eat before we get started.’
They opened some cans of stew and prepared a meal. As Forester took the first mouthful, he said, ‘Now tell me – what the hell is a trebuchet?’
Willis smiled and produced a stub of pencil. ‘Just an application of the lever,’ he said. ‘Imagine a thing like an out-of-balance seesaw – like this.’ Rapidly he sketched on the soft pine top of the table. ‘The pivot is here and one arm is, say, four times as long as the other. On the short arm you sling a weight, of, say, five hundred pounds, and on the other end you have your missile – a twenty-pound rock.’
He began to jot down calculations. ‘Those medieval fellows worked empirically – they didn’t have the concepts of energy that we have. We can do the whole thing precisely from scratch. Assuming your five-hundred-pound weight drops ten feet. The acceleration of gravity is such that, taking into account frictional losses at the pivot, it will take half a second to fall. That’s five thousand foot-pounds in a half-second, six hundred thousand foot-pounds to the minute, eighteen horse-power of energy applied instantaneously to a twenty-pound rock on the end of the long arm.’
‘That should make it move,’ said Forester.
‘I can tell you the speed,’ said Willis. ‘Assuming the ratio between the two arms is four to one, then the … the …’ He stopped, tapped on the table for a moment, then grinned. ‘Let’s call it the muzzle velocity, although this thing hasn’t a muzzle. The muzzle velocity will be eighty feet per second.’
‘Is there any way of altering the range?’
‘Sure,’ said Willis. ‘Heavy stones won’t go as far as light stones. You want to decrease the range, you use a heavier rock. I must tell O’Hara that – he’d better get busy collecting and grading ammunition.’
He began to sketch on the table in more detail. ‘For the pivot we have the back axle of a wrecked truck that’s back of the huts. The arms we make from the roof beams of a hut. There’ll have to be a cup of some kind to hold the missile – we’ll use a hub-cap bolted on to the end of the long arm. The whole thing will need a mounting but we’ll figure that out when we come to it.’
Forester looked at the sketch critically. ‘It’s going to be damned big and heavy. How are we going to get it down the mountain?’
Willis grinned. ‘I’ve figured that out too. The whole thing will pull apart and we’ll use the axle to carry the rest of it. We’ll wheel the damn thing down the mountain and assemble it again at the bridge.’
‘You’ve done well,’ said Forester.
‘It was Armstrong who thought it up,’ said Willis. ‘For a scholar, he has the most murderous tendencies. He knows more ways of killing people – say, have you ever heard of Greek fire?’
‘In a vague sort of way.’
‘Armstrong says it was as good as napalm, and that the ancients used to have flame-throwers mounted on the prows of their warships. We’ve done a bit of thinking along those lines and got nowhere.’ He looked broodingly at his sketch. ‘He says this thing is nothing to the siege weapons they had. They used to throw dead horses over city walls to start a plague. How heavy is a horse?’
‘Maybe horses weren’t as big in those days,’ said Forester.
‘Any horse that could carry a man in full armour was no midget,’ Willis pointed out. He spooned the last of the gravy from his plate. ‘We’d better get started – I don’t want to work all night again.’
Rohde nodded briefly and Forester looked over at Peabody, snoring on the bunk. ‘I think we’ll start with a bucket of the coldest water we can get,’ he said.
IV
O’Hara looked across the gorge.
Tendrils of smoke still curled from the burnt-out vehicles and he caught the stench of burning rubber. He looked speculatively at the intact jeep at the bridgehead and debated whether to do something about it, but discarded the idea almost as soon as it came to him. It would be useless to destroy a single vehicle – the enemy had plenty more – and he must husband his resources for more vital targets. It was not his intention to wage a war of attrition; the enemy could beat him hands down at that game.
He had been along the edge of the gorge downstream to where the road turned away, half a mile from the bridge, and had picked out spots from which crossbowmen could keep up a harassing fire. Glumly, he thought that Armstrong was right – the enemy would not be content to be docile targets; they would certainly take steps to protect themselves against further attack. The only reason for the present success was the unexpectedness of it all, as though a rabbit had taken a weasel by the throat.
The enemy was still vigilant by the bridge. Once, when O’Hara had incautiously exposed himself, he drew a concentrated fire that was unpleasantly accurate and it was only his quick reflexes and the fact that he was in sight for so short a time that saved him from a bullet in the head. We can take no chances, he thought; no chances at all.
Now he looked at the bridge with the twelve-foot gap yawning in the middle and thought of ways of getting at it. Fire still seemed the best bet and Willis had said that there were two drums of paraffin up at the camp. He measured with his eye the hundred-yard approach to the bridge; there was a slight incline and he thought that, given a good push, a drum would roll as far as the bridge. It was worth trying.
Presently Armstrong came down to relieve him. ‘Grub’s up,’ he said.
O’Hara regarded Armstrong’s smooth cheeks. ‘I didn’t bring my shaving-kit,’ he said. ‘Apparently you did.’
‘I’ve got one of those Swiss wind-up dry shavers,’ said Armstrong. ‘You can borrow it if you like. It’s up at the shelter in my coat pocket.’
O’Hara thanked him and pointed out the enemy observation posts he had spotted. ‘I don’t think they’ll make an attempt on the bridge today,’ he said, ‘so I’m going up to the camp this afternoon. I want those drums of paraffin. But if anything happens while I’m gone and the bastards get across, then you scatter. Aguillar, Benedetta and Jenny rendezvous at the mine – not the camp – and they go up the mountain the hard way, steering clear of the road. You get up to the camp by the road as fast as you can – you’d better move fast because they’ll be right on your tail.’
Armstrong nodded. ‘I have the idea. We stall them off at the camp, giving the others time to get to the mine.’
‘That’s right,’ said O’Hara. ‘But you’re the boss in my absence and you’ll have to use your own judgment.’
He left Armstrong and went back to the shelter, where he found the professor’s coat and rummaged in the pockets. Benedetta smiled at him and said, ‘Lunch is ready.’
‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ he said, and went down the hill towards the pond, carrying the dry shaver.
Aguillar pulled his overcoat tighter about him and looked at O’Hara’s retreating figure with curious eyes. ‘That one is strange,’ he said. ‘He is a fighter but he is too cold – too objective. There is no hot blood in him, and that is not good for a young man.’
Benedetta bent her head and concentrated on the stew. ‘Perhaps he has suffered,’ she said.
Aguillar smiled slightly as he regarded Benedetta’s averted face. ‘You say he was a prisoner in Korea?’ he asked.
She nodded.
‘Then he must have suffered,’ agreed Aguillar. ‘Perhaps not in the body, but certainly in the spirit. Have you asked him about it?’
‘He will not talk about it.’
Aguillar wagged his head. That is also very bad. It is not good for a man to be so self-contained – to have his violence pent-up. It is like screwing down the safety-valve on a boiler – one can expect an explosion.’ He grimaced. ‘I hope I am not near when that young man explodes.’
Benedetta’s head jerked up. ‘You talk nonsense, Uncle. His anger is directed against those others across the river. He would do us no harm.’
Aguillar looked at her sadly. ‘You think so, child? His anger is directed against himself as the power of a bomb is directed against its casing – but when the casing shatters everyone around is hurt. O’Hara is a dangerous man.’
Benedetta’s lips tightened and she was going to reply when Miss Ponsky approached, lugging a crossbow. She seemed unaccountably flurried and the red stain of a blush was ebbing from her cheeks. Her protection was volubility. ‘I’ve got both bows sighted in,’ she said rapidly. ‘They’re both shooting the same now, and very accurately. They’re very strong too – I was hitting a target at one hundred and twenty yards. I left the other with Doctor Armstrong; I thought he might need it.’
‘Have you seen Señor O’Hara?’ asked Benedetta.
Miss Ponsky turned pink again. ‘I saw him at the pond,’ she said in a subdued voice. ‘What are we having for lunch?’ she continued brightly.
Benedetta laughed. ‘As always – stew.’
Miss Ponsky shuddered delicately. Benedetta said, ‘It is all that Señor Willis brought from the camp – cans of stew. Perhaps it is his favourite food.’
‘He ought to have thought of the rest of us,’ complained Miss Ponsky.
Aguillar stirred. ‘What do you think of Señor Forester, madam?’
‘I think he is a very brave man,’ she said simply. ‘He and Señor Rohde.’
‘I think so too,’ said Aguillar. ‘But also I think there is something strange about him. He is too much the man of action to be a simple businessman.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Miss Ponsky demurred. ‘A good businessman must be a man of action, at least in the States.’
‘Somehow I don’t think Forester’s idea is the pursuit of the dollar,’ Aguillar said reflectively. ‘He is not like Peabody.’
Miss Ponsky flared. ‘I could spit when I think of that man. He makes me ashamed to be an American.’
‘Do not be ashamed,’ Aguillar said gently. ‘He is not a coward because he is an American; there are cowards among all people.’
O’Hara came back. He looked better now that he had shaved the stubble from his cheeks. It had not been easy; the clockwork rotary shaver had protested when asked to attack the thicket of his beard, but he had persisted and was now smooth-cheeked and clean. The water in the pond had been too cold for bathing, but he had stripped and taken a sponge-bath and felt the better for it. Out of the corner of his eye he had seen Miss Ponsky toiling up the hill towards the shelter and hoped she had not seen him – he did not want to offend the susceptibilities of maiden ladies.
‘What have we got?’ he asked.
‘More stew,’ said Aguillar wryly.
O’Hara groaned and Benedetta laughed. He accepted the aluminium plate and said, ‘Maybe I can bring something else when I go up to the camp this afternoon. But I won’t have room for much – I’m more interested in the paraffin.’
Miss Ponsky asked, ‘What is it like by the river?’
‘Quiet,’ said O’Hara. ‘They can’t do much today so they’re contenting themselves with keeping the bridge covered. I think it’s safe enough for me to go up to the camp.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ said Benedetta quickly.
O’Hara paused, his fork in mid-air. ‘I don’t know if …’
‘We need food,’ she said. ‘And if you cannot carry it, somebody must.’
O’Hara glanced at Aguillar, who nodded tranquilly. ‘I will be all right,’ he said.
O’Hara shrugged. ‘It will be a help,’ he admitted.
Benedetta sketched a curtsy at him, but there was a flash of something in her eyes that warned O’Hara he must tread gently. ‘Thank you,’ she said, a shade too sweetly. ‘I’ll try not to get in the way.’
He grinned at her. ‘I’ll tell you when you are.’
V
Like Forester, O’Hara found the going hard on the way up to the camp. When he and Benedetta took a rest halfway, he sucked in the thin, cold air greedily, and gasped, ‘My God, this is getting tough.’
Benedetta’s eyes went to the high peaks. ‘What about Miguel and Señor Forester? They will have it worse.’
O’Hara nodded, then said, ‘I think your uncle ought to come up to the camp tomorrow. It is better that he should do it when he can do it in his own time, instead of being chased. And it will acclimatize him in case we have to retreat to the mine.’
‘I think that is good,’ she said. ‘I will go with him to help, and I can bring more food when I return.’
‘He might be able to help Willis with his bits and pieces,’ said O’Hara. ‘After all, he can’t do much down at the bridge anyway, and Willis wouldn’t mind another pair of hands.’
Benedetta pulled her coat about her. ‘Was it as cold as this in Korea?’
‘Sometimes,’ O’Hara said. He thought of the stonewalled cell in which he had been imprisoned. Water ran down the walls and froze into ice at night – and then the weather got worse and the walls were iced day and night. It was then that Lieutenant Feng had taken away all his clothing. ‘Sometimes,’ he repeated bleakly.
‘I suppose you had warmer clothing than we have,’ said Benedetta. ‘I am worried about Forester and Miguel. It will be very cold up in the pass.’
O’Hara felt suddenly ashamed of himself and his self-pity. He looked away quickly from Benedetta and stared at the snows above. ‘We must see if we can improvise a tent for them. They’ll spend at least one night in the open up there.’ He stood up. ‘We’d better get on.’
The camp was busy with the noise of hammering and the trebuchet was taking shape in the central clearing between the huts. O’Hara stood unnoticed for a moment and looked at it. It reminded him very much of something he had once seen in an avant-garde art magazine; a modern sculptor had assembled a lot of junk into a crazy structure and had given it some high-falutin’ name, and the trebuchet had the same appearance of wild improbability.
Forester paused and leaned on the length of steel he was using as a crude hammer. As he wiped the sweat from his eyes he caught sight of the newcomers and hailed them. ‘What the hell are you doing here? Is anything wrong?’
‘All’s quiet,’ said O’Hara reassuringly. ‘I’ve come for one of the drums of paraffin – and some grub.’ He walked round the trebuchet. ‘Will this contraption work?’
‘Willis is confident,’ said Forester. ‘That’s good enough for me.’
‘You won’t be here,’ O’Hara said stonily. ‘But I suppose I’ll have to trust the boffins. By the way – it’s going to be bloody cold up there – have you made any preparations?’
‘Not yet. We’ve been too busy on this thing.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ said O’Hara sternly. ‘We’re depending on you to bring the good old U.S. cavalry to the rescue. You’ve got to get across that pass – if you don’t, then this piece of silly artillery will be wasted. Is there anything out of which you can improvise a tent?’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Forester. ‘I’ll have a look around.’
‘Do that. Where’s the paraffin?’
‘Paraffin? Oh, you mean the kerosene. It’s in that hut there. Willis locked it up; he put all the booze in there – we had to keep Peabody sober somehow.’
‘Um,’ said O’Hara. ‘How’s he doing?’
‘He’s not much good. He’s out of condition and his disposition doesn’t help. We’ve got to drive him.’
‘Doesn’t the bloody fool realize that if the bridge is forced he’ll get his throat cut?’
Forester sighed. ‘It doesn’t seem to make any difference – logic isn’t his strong point. He goofs off at the slightest opportunity.’
O’Hara saw Benedetta going into one of the huts. ‘I’d better get that paraffin. We must have it at the bridge before it gets dark.’
He got the key of the hut from Willis and opened the door. Just inside was a crate, half-filled with bottles. There was a stir of longing in his guts as he looked at them, but he suppressed it firmly and switched his attention to the two drums of paraffin. He tested the weight of one of them, and thought, this is going to be a bastard to get down the mountain.
He heaved the drum on to its side and rolled it out of the hut. Across the clearing he saw Forester helping Benedetta to make a travois, and crossed over to them. ‘Is there any rope up here?’
‘Rope we’ve got,’ replied Forester. ‘But Rohde was worried about that – he said we’ll need it in the mountains, rotten though it is; and Willis needs it for the trebuchet, too. But there’s plenty of electric wire that Willis ripped out to make crossbow-strings with.’
‘I’ll need some to help me get that drum down the mountain – I suppose the electric wire will have to do.’
Peabody wandered over. His face had a flabby, unhealthy look about it and he exuded the scent of fear. ‘Say, what is this?’ he demanded. ‘Willis tells me that you and the spic are making a getaway over the mountains.’
Forester’s eyes were cold. ‘If you want to put it that way – yes.’
‘Well, I wanna come,’ said Peabody. ‘I’m not staying here to be shot by a bunch of commies.’
‘Are you crazy?’ said Forester.
‘What’s so crazy about it? Willis says it’s only fifteen miles to this place Altemiros.’
Forester looked at O’Hara speechlessly. O’Hara said quietly, ‘Do you think it’s going to be like a stroll in Central Park, Peabody?’
‘Hell, I’d rather take my chance in the mountains than with the commies,’ said Peabody. ‘I think you’re crazy if you think you can hold them off. What have you got? You’ve got an old man, a silly bitch of a school-marm, two nutty scientists and a girl. And you’re fighting with bows and arrows, for God’s sake.’ He tapped Forester on the chest. ‘If you’re making a getaway, I’m coming along.’
Forester slapped his hand away. ‘Now get this, Peabody, you’ll do as you’re damn well told.’
‘Who the hell are you to give orders?’ said Peabody with venom. ‘To begin with I take no orders from a limey – and I don’t see why you should be so high and mighty, either. I’ll do as I damn well please.’
O’Hara caught Forester’s eye. ‘Let’s see Rohde,’ he said hastily. He had seen Forester balling his fist and wanted to prevent trouble, for an idea was crystallizing in his mind.
Rohde was positively against it. ‘This man is in no condition to cross the mountains,’ he said. ‘He will hold us back, and if he holds us back none of us will get across. We cannot spend more than one night in the open.’
‘What do you think?’ Forester asked O’Hara.
‘I don’t like the man,’ said O’Hara. ‘He’s weak and he’ll break under pressure. If he breaks it might be the end of the lot of us. I can’t trust him.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ Forester agreed. ‘He’s a weak sister, all right. I’m going to overrule you, Miguel; he comes with us. We can’t afford to leave him with O’Hara.’
Rohde opened his mouth to protest but stopped when he saw the expression on Forester’s face. Forester grinned wolfishly and there was a hard edge to his voice when he said, ‘If he hold us up, we’ll drop the bastard into the nearest crevasse. Peabody will have to put up or shut up.’
He called Peabody over. ‘All right, you come with us. But let’s get this straight right from the start. You take orders.’
Peabody nodded. ‘All right,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll take orders from you.’
Forester was merciless. ‘You’ll take orders from anyone who damn well gives them from now on. Miguel is the expert round here and when he gives an order – you jump fast.’
Peabody’s eyes flickered, but he gave in. He had no option if he wanted to go with them. He shot a look of dislike at Rohde and said, ‘Okay, but when I get back Stateside the State Department is going to get an earful from me. What kind of place is this where good Americans can be pushed around by spics and commies?’
O’Hara looked at Rohde quickly. His face was as placid as though he had not heard. O’Hara admired his self-control – but he pitied Peabody when he got into the mountains.
Half an hour later he and Benedetta left. She was pulling the travois and he was clumsily steering the drum of paraffin. There were two loops of wire round the drum in a sling so that he could have a measure of control. They had wasted little time in saying goodbye to Rohde and Forester, and still less on Peabody. Willis had said, ‘We’ll need you up here tomorrow; the trebuchet will be ready then.’
‘I’ll be here,’ promised O’Hara. ‘If I haven’t any other engagements.’
It was difficult going down the mountain, even though they were on the road. Benedetta hauled on the travois and had to stop frequently to rest, and more often to help O’Hara with the drum. It weighed nearly four hundred pounds and seemed to have a malevolent mind of its own. His idea of being able to steer it by pulling on the wires did not work well. The drum would take charge and go careering at an angle to wedge itself in the ditch at the side of the road. Then it would be a matter of sweat and strain to get it out, whereupon it would charge into the opposite ditch.
By the time they got down to the bottom O’Hara felt as though he had been wrestling with a malign and evil adversary. His muscles ached and it seemed as though someone had pounded him with a hammer all over his body. Worse, in order to get the drum down the mountain at all he had been obliged to lighten the load by jettisoning a quarter of the contents and had helplessly watched ten gallons of invaluable paraffin drain away into the thirsty dust.
When they reached the valley Benedetta abandoned the travois and went for help. O’Hara had looked at the sky and said, ‘I want this drum at the bridge before nightfall.’
Night swoops early on the eastern slopes of the Andes. The mountain wall catches the setting sun, casting long shadows across the hot jungles of the interior. At five in the afternoon the sun was just touching the topmost peaks and O’Hara knew that in an hour it would be dark.
Armstrong came up to help and O’Hara immediately asked, ‘Who’s on watch?’
‘Jenny. She’s all right. Besides, there’s nothing doing at all.’
With two men to control the erratic drum it went more easily and they manoeuvred it to the bridgehead within half an hour. Miss Ponsky came running up. ‘They switched on their lights just now and I think I heard an auto engine from way back along there.’ She pointed downstream.
‘I would have liked to try and put out the headlamps on this jeep,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t want to waste an arrow – a quarrel – and in any case there’s something in front of the glass.’
‘They have stone guards in front of the lights,’ said Armstrong. ‘Heavy mesh wire.’
‘Go easy on the bolts, anyway,’ said O’Hara. ‘Peabody was supposed to be making some but he’s been loafing on the job.’ He carefully crept up and surveyed the bridgehead. The jeep’s headlights illuminated the whole bridge and its approaches and he knew that at least a dozen sharp pairs of eyes were watching. It would be suicidal to go out there.
He dropped back and looked at the drum in the fading light. It was much dented by its careering trip down the mountain road but he thought it would roll a little farther. He said, ‘This is the plan. We’re going to burn the bridge. We’re going to play the same trick that we played this morning but we’ll apply it on this side of the bridge.’
He put his foot on top of the drum and rocked it gently. ‘If Armstrong gives this one good heave it should roll right down to the bridge – if we’re lucky. Jenny will be standing up there with her crossbow and when it gets into the right position she’ll puncture it. I’ll be in position too, with Benedetta to hand me the other crossbow with a fire-bolt. If the drum is placed right then we’ll burn through the ropes on this side and the whole bloody bridge will drop into the water.’
‘That sounds all right,’ said Armstrong.
‘Get the bows, Jenny,’ said O’Hara and took Armstrong to one side, out of hearing of the others. ‘It’s a bit more tricky than that,’ he said. ‘In order to get the drum in the right place you’ll have to come into the open.’ He held his head on one side; the noise of the vehicle had stopped. ‘So I want to do it before they get any more lights on the job.’
Armstrong smiled gently. ‘I think your little bit is more dangerous than mine. Shooting those fire-bolts in the dark will make you a perfect target – it won’t be as easy as this morning, and then you nearly got shot.’
‘Maybe,’ said O’Hara. ‘But this has got to be done. This is how we do it. When that other jeep – or whatever it is – comes up, maybe the chaps on the other side won’t be so vigilant. My guess is that they’ll tend to watch the vehicle manoeuvre into position; I don’t think they’re a very disciplined crowd. Now, while that’s happening is the time to do your stuff. I’ll give you the signal.’
‘All right, my boy,’ said Armstrong. ‘You can rely on me.’
O’Hara helped him to push the drum into the position easiest for him, and then Miss Ponsky and Benedetta came up with the crossbows. He said to Benedetta, ‘When I give Armstrong the signal to push off the drum, you light the first fire-bolt. This has got to be done quickly if it’s going to be done at all.’
‘All right, Tim,’ she said.
Miss Ponsky went to her post without a word.
He heard the engine again, this time louder. He saw nothing on the road downstream and guessed that the vehicle was coming slowly and without lights. He thought they’d be scared of being fired on during that half-mile journey. By God, he thought, if I had a dozen men with a dozen bows I’d make life difficult for them. He smiled sourly. Might as well wish for a machine-gun section – it was just as unlikely a possibility.
Suddenly the vehicle switched its lights on. It was quite near the bridge and O’Hara got ready to give Armstrong the signal. He held his hand until the vehicle – a jeep – drew level with the burnt-out truck, then he said in a whispered shout, ‘Now!’
He heard the rattle as the drum rolled over the rocks and out of the corner of his eye saw the flame as Benedetta ignited the fire-bolt. The drum came into sight on his left, bumping down the slight incline which led towards the bridge. It hit a larger stone which threw it off course. Christ, he whispered, we’ve bungled it.
Then he saw Armstrong run into the open, chasing after the drum. A few faint shouts came from across the river and there was a shot. ‘You damned fool,’ yelled O’Hara. ‘Get back.’ But Armstrong kept running forward until he had caught up with the drum and, straightening it on course again, he gave it another boost.
There was a rafale of rifle-fire and spurts of dust flew about Armstrong’s feet as he ran back at full speed, then a metallic thunk as a bullet hit the drum and, as it turned, O’Hara saw a silver spurt of liquid rise in the air. The enemy were divided in their intentions – they did not know which was more dangerous, Armstrong or the drum. And so Armstrong got safely into cover.
Miss Ponsky raised the bow. ‘Forget it, Jenny,’ roared O’Hara. ‘They’ve done it for us.’
Again and again the drum was hit as it rolled towards the bridge and the paraffin spurted out of more holes, rising in gleaming jets into the air until the drum looked like some strange kind of liquid Catherine wheel. But the repeated impact of bullets was slowing it down and there must have been a slight and unnoticed rise in the ground before the bridge because the drum rolled to a halt just short of the abutments.
O’Hara swore and turned to grasp the crossbow which Benedetta was holding. Firing in the dark with a fire-bolt was difficult; the flame obscured his vision and he had to will himself consciously to take aim slowly. There was another babble of shouts from over the river and a bullet ricocheted from a rock nearby and screamed over his head.
He pressed the trigger gently and the scorching heat was abruptly released from his face as the bolt shot away into the opposing glare of headlamps. He ducked as another bullet clipped the rock by the side of his head and thrust the bow at Benedetta for reloading.
It was not necessary. There was a dull explosion and a violent flare of light as the paraffin around the drum caught fire. O’Hara, breathing heavily, moved to another place where he could see what was happening. It would have been very foolish to pop his head up in the same place from which he had fired his bolt.
It was with dejection that he saw a raging fire arising from a great pool of paraffin just short of the bridge. The drum had stopped too soon and although the fire was spectacular it would do the bridge no damage at all. He watched for a long time, hoping the drum would explode and scatter burning paraffin on the bridge, but nothing happened and slowly the fire went out.
He dropped back to join the others. ‘Well, we messed that one up,’ he said bitterly.
‘I should have pushed it harder,’ Armstrong said.
O’Hara flared up in anger. ‘You damned fool, if you hadn’t run out and given it another shove it wouldn’t have gone as far as it did. Don’t do an idiotic thing like that again – you nearly got killed!’
Armstrong said quietly, ‘We’re all of us on the verge of getting killed. Someone has to risk something besides you.’
‘I should have surveyed the ground more carefully,’ said O’Hara self-accusingly.
Benedetta put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t worry, Tim; you did the best you could.’
‘Sure you did,’ said Miss Ponsky militantly. ‘And we’ve shown them we’re still here and fighting. I bet they’re scared to come across now for fear of being burned alive.’
‘Come,’ said Benedetta. ‘Come and eat.’ There was a flash of humour in her voice. ‘I didn’t bring the travois all the way down, so it will be stew again.’
Wearily O’Hara turned his back on the bridge. It was the third night since the plane crash – and six more to go!
FIVE (#ulink_c805c016-8dc0-509d-91bd-44c2fa8cdd8d)
Forester attacked his baked beans with gusto. The dawn light was breaking, dimming the bright glare of the Coleman lamp and smoothing out the harsh shadows on his face. He said, ‘One day at the mine – two days crossing the pass – another two days getting help. We must cut that down somehow. When we get to the other side we’ll have to act quickly.’
Peabody looked at the table morosely, ignoring Forester. He was wondering if he had made the right decision, done the right thing by Joe Peabody. The way these guys talked, crossing the mountains wasn’t going to be so easy. Aw, to hell with it – he could do anything any other guy could do – especially any spic.
Rohde said, ‘I thought I heard rifle-fire last night – just at sunset.’ His face was haunted by the knowledge of his helplessness.
‘They should be all right. I don’t see how the commies could have repaired the bridge and got across so quickly,’ said Forester reasonably. ‘That O’Hara’s a smart cookie. He must have been doing something with that drum of kerosene he took down the hill yesterday. He’s probably cooked the bridge to a turn.’
Rohde’s face cracked into a faint smile. ‘I hope so.’
Forester finished his beans. ‘Okay, let’s get the show on the road.’ He turned round in his chair and looked at the huddle of blankets on the bunk. ‘What about Willis?’
‘Let him sleep,’ said Rohde. ‘He worked harder and longer than any of us.’
Forester got up and examined the packs they had made up the previous night. Their equipment was pitifully inadequate for the job they had to do. He remembered the books he had read about mountaineering expeditions – the special rations they had, the lightweight nylon ropes and tents, the wind-proof clothing and the specialized gear – climbing-boots, ice-axes, pitons. He smiled grimly – yes, and porters to help hump it.
There was none of that here. Their packs were roughly cobbled together from blankets; they had an ice-axe which Willis had made – a roughly shaped metal blade mounted on the end of an old broom handle; their ropes were rotten and none too plentiful, scavenged from the rubbish heap of the camp and with too many knots and splices for safety; their climbing-boots were clumsy miners’ boots made of thick, unpliant leather, heavy and graceless. Willis had discovered the boots and Rohde had practically gone into raptures over them.
He lifted his pack and wished it was heavier – heavier with the equipment they needed. They had worked far into the night improvising, with Willis and Rohde being the most inventive. Rohde had torn blankets into long strips to make puttees, and Willis had practically torn down one of the huts single-handed in his search for extra long nails to use as pitons. Rohde shook his head wryly when he saw them. ‘The metal is too soft, but they will have to do.’
Forester heaved the pack on to his back and fastened the crude electric wiring fastenings. Perhaps it’s as well we’re staying a day at the mine, he thought; maybe we can do better than this. There are suitcases up there with proper straps, there is the plane – surely we can find something in there we can use. He zipped up the front of the leather jacket and was grateful to O’Hara for the loan of it. He suspected it would be windy higher up, and the jacket was windproof.
As he stepped out of the hut he heard Peabody cursing at the weight of his pack. He took no notice but strode on through the camp, past the trebuchet which crouched like a prehistoric monster, and so to the road which led up the mountain. In two strides Rohde caught up and came abreast of him. He indicated Peabody trailing behind. ‘This one will make trouble,’ he said.
Forester’s face was suddenly bleak. ‘I meant what I said, Miguel. If he makes trouble, we get rid of him.’
It took them a long time to get up to the mine. The air became very thin and Forester could feel that his heartbeat had accelerated and his heart thumped in his chest like a swinging stone. He breathed faster and was cautioned by Rohde against forced breathing. My God, he thought; what is it going to be like in the pass?
They reached the airstrip and the mine at midday. Forester felt dizzy and a little nauseated and was glad to reach the first of the deserted huts and to collapse on the floor. Peabody had been left behind long ago; they had ignored his pleas for them to stop and he had straggled farther and farther behind on the trail until he had disappeared from sight. ‘He’ll catch up,’ Forester said. ‘He’s more scared of the commies than he is of me.’ He grinned with savage satisfaction. ‘But I’ll change that before we’re through.’
Rohde was in nearly as bad shape as Forester, although he was more used to the mountains. He sat on the floor of the hut, gasping for breath, too weary to shrug off his pack. They both relaxed for over half an hour before Rohde made any constructive move. At last he fumbled with numb fingers at the fastenings of his pack, and said, ‘We must have warmth; get out the kerosene.’
As Forester undid his pack Rohde took the small axe which had been brought from the Dakota and left the hut. Presently Forester heard him chopping at something in one of the other huts and guessed he had gone for the makings of a fire. He got out the bottle of kerosene and put it aside, ready for when Rohde came back.
An hour later they had a small fire going in the middle of the hut. Rohde had used the minimum of kerosene to start it and small chips of wood built up in a pyramid. Forester chuckled. ‘You must have been a boy scout.’
‘I was,’ said Rohde seriously. ‘That is a fine organization.’ He stretched. ‘Now we must eat.’
‘I don’t feel hungry,’ objected Forester.
‘I know – neither do I. Nevertheless, we must eat.’ Rohde looked out of the window towards the pass. ‘We must fuel ourselves for tomorrow.’
They warmed a can of beans and Forester choked down his share. He had not the slightest desire for food, nor for anything except quietness. His limbs felt flaccid and heavy and he felt incapable of the slightest exertion. His mind was affected, too, and he found it difficult to think clearly and to stick to a single line of thought. He just sat there in a corner of the hut, listlessly munching his lukewarm beans and hating every mouthful.
He said, ‘Christ, I feel terrible.’
‘It is the soroche,’ said Rohde with a shrug. ‘We must expect to feel like this.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘We are not allowing enough time for acclimatization.’
‘It wasn’t as bad as this when we came out of the plane,’ said Forester.
‘We had oxygen,’ Rohde pointed out. ‘And we went down the mountain quickly. You understand that this is dangerous?’
‘Dangerous? I know I feel goddam sick.’
‘There was an American expedition here a few years ago, climbing mountains to the north of here. They went quickly to a level of five thousand metres – about as high as we are now. One of the Americans lost consciousness because of the soroche, and although they had a doctor, he died while being taken down the mountain. Yes, it is dangerous, Señor Forester.’
Forester grinned weakly. ‘In a moment of danger we ought to be on a first-name basis, Miguel. My name is Ray.’
After a while they heard Peabody moving outside. Rohde heaved himself to his feet and went to the door. ‘We are here, señor.’
Peabody stumbled into the hut and collapsed on the floor. ‘You lousy bastards,’ he gasped. ‘Why didn’t you wait?’
Forester grinned at him. ‘We’ll be moving really fast when we leave here,’ he said. ‘Coming up from the camp was like a Sunday morning stroll compared to what’s coming next. We’ll not wait for you then, Peabody.’
‘You son of a bitch. I’ll get even with you,’ Peabody threatened.
Forester laughed. ‘I’ll ram those words down your throat – but not now. There’ll be time enough later.’
Rohde put out a can of beans. ‘You must eat, and we must work. Come, Ray.’
‘I don’t wanna eat,’ moaned Peabody.
‘Suit yourself,’ said Forester. ‘I don’t care if you starve to death.’ He got up and went out of the hut, following Rohde. ‘This loss of appetite – is that soroche, too?’
Rohde nodded. ‘We will eat little from now on – we must live on the reserves of our bodies. A fit man can do it – but that man … ? I don’t know if he can do it.’
They walked slowly down the airstrip towards the crashed Dakota. To Forester it seemed incredible that O’Hara had found it too short on which to land because to him it now appeared to be several miles long. He plodded on, mechanically putting one foot in front of the other, while the cold air rasped in his throat and his chest heaved with the drudging effort he was making.
They left the airstrip and skirted the cliff over which the plane had plunged. There had been a fresh fall of snow which mantled the broken wings and softened the jagged outlines of the holes torn in the fuselage. Forester looked down over the cliff, and said, ‘I don’t think this can be seen from the air – the snow makes perfect camouflage. If there is an air search I don’t think they’ll find us.’
Walking with difficulty over the broken ground, they climbed to the wreck and got inside through the hole O’Hara had chopped when he and Rohde had retrieved the oxygen cylinder. It was dim and bleak inside the Dakota and Forester shivered, not from the cold which was becoming intense, but from the odd idea that this was the corpse of a once living and vibrant thing. He shook the idea from him, and said, ‘There were some straps on the luggage rack – complete with buckles. We could use those, and O’Hara says there are gloves in the cockpit.’
‘That is good,’ agreed Rohde. ‘I will look towards the front for what I can find.’
Forester went aft and his breath hissed when he saw the body of old Coughlin, a shattered smear of frozen flesh and broken bones on the rear seat. He averted his eyes and turned to the luggage-rack and began to unbuckle the straps. His fingers were numb with the cold and his movements clumsy, but at last he managed to get them free – four broad canvas straps which could be used on the packs. That gave him an idea and he turned his attention to the seat belts, but they were anchored firmly and it was hopeless to try to remove them without tools.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/desmond-bagley/high-citadel-landslide/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Desmond Bagley
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 17.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: Double action thrillers by the classic adventure writer set in the South American Andes and British Columbia.HIGH CITADELWhen Tim O′Hara′s plane is hijacked and forced to crash land in the middle of the Andes, his troubles are only beginning. A heavily armed group of communist soldiers intent on killing one of his passengers – an influential political figure – have orders to leave no survivors. Isolated in the biting cold of the Andes, O′Hara′s party must fight for their lives with only the most primitive weapons…LANDSLIDEBob Boyd is a geologist, as resilient as the British Columbia timber country where he works for the powerful Matterson Corporation. But his real name and his past are mysteries – wiped out by the accident that nearly killed him. Then Boyd reads a name that opens a door in his memory: Trinavant – and discovers that Bull Matterson and his son will do almost anything to keep the Trinavant family forgotten forever…Includes a unique bonus – My Old Man′s Trumpet, a previously unpublished short story about a New Orleans music shop owner.