Face to the Sun (15 page)

So we started on our way back to get clear of the vital area without as yet any clear idea of where we were bound. It was always the frontier which attracted us, in spite of the risk that our
neighbours across the border might return the Punchao to Heredia as state property.

Dreams, all dreams! Any competent detective would be able to tell from the tracks that something had been moved into or out of the tree and that six men had been engaged. To this day I
don’t know what happened. The police on the bridge must have had second thoughts about the six peasants who came across separately instead of rolling over as one single body of noisy drunks
and passed on the advice to detain and question any of these who had not yet reached his stated home. Again we had underrated Heredia’s secret police.

The first sign that all was not well was that the piquet had been increased to three men and had been moved to the edge of the forest where they were examining the footprints on the ground. We
got away in the twilight by circling Donna’s former paddock and on to the well-beaten track to Ramales. That wretched village had to be avoided so we aimed for the bridge over which the
all-conquering tanks had come. There were a couple of sentries on that too, posing still another question: Did the Civil Guard know that they were on the track of the Punchao or not? I thought they
did not; they were still after stragglers from the defeated Retadores. I was wrong.

It was neither stragglers nor the Punchao they were after. It was me. I was known to have got away from Ramales with the Punchao and Teresa. The chap whose importunate bowels had fooled the
guard on the bridge at Puerto Santa Maria was probably me. And there was some evidence that I had fallen in with the equally dangerous Felipe Montes.

Felipe and I cleared out of the immediate district with the Punchao, leaving the other four to find their own way to the car-park or the frontier. I thought of taking refuge with the
curandera
but that would have put both Pepe and her at risk. The only other place I knew where we could rest in peace and discuss future plans was the old cave on the way to Ramales.

Very cautiously, we approached it with Felipe leading. He had just time to scream half a warning when there was a blinding flash of light from the interior and he dropped in a hale of fire. To
go back to the entrance was certain death so I dived for the narrow passage at the back of the cave where we had stabled the horse and never explored more deeply.

As the light was still focused on Felipe’s shattered body I had a fraction of a second to get behind the remains of a smooth, upright boulder beyond which the passage carried on. Flakes
and chips of stone formed a screen to my left but none of them struck me for I was protected from the line of fire. One of my assailants walked forward to pick up my body and received two rounds of
my machine-pistol at close range. In their astonishment at anybody being still alive in the passage they ceased fire for a moment which gave me time – so far as time existed at all – to
extend my right arm and shoot out their light. Another score for my African Father of his Country; he may have turned me into a thief, but he did give me an education in self-defence. My resentment
of his treatment of me faded away for good.

Before they could plaster the darkness from a spare battery, I found that I had splashed into a pool and was behind a rock fall from the roof. Beyond it was a narrow strip of grey – well,
optimism could almost call it grey. I splashed towards it and saw the vague outline of a tree. Deciding that I was justifiably at war I waited for them, bagged at least two and shot out their light
again. They left the tunnel after that, or perhaps there were no more of them.

I found myself on the hillside faintly lit by a quarter-moon. The golden chain of the Punchao was remarkably strong, hanging round my neck like an insistent, importunate friend whom you wish was
at the bottom of the sea but cannot shake off. There on the grassy slope above the peacefully running streamlet I took it off. It looked at me even in that ghostly light through its golden disks,
claiming to be immortal.

‘You wouldn’t bloody well have been immortal if I had not been lying on you,’ I said aloud.

‘And if my cousin the moon had not helped us both,’ it seemed to answer.

I put it back with grudging thanks and stood up to have a look round the hillside. Below me all was black. Ahead of me, the silver stream had trickled along its miniature valley until it formed
a pool which over­flowed when the water was high enough. The only possible route to follow was back towards its source which must lie in the tableland high above Ramales. But then a better idea
occurred to me: to follow the stream down in the darkness to its junction with the river, which should not be far from the bridge over which the tanks had launched their surprise attack. Or why not
march even further and put the Punchao back in a home which it knew, behind the veil of white water at the fall to the sea? Easy to find. And if I were no longer available Teresa would know the
exact spot – if, that is, Teresa’s refuge could be known.

So dawn discovered us – me and the Punchao – well to the south of Ramales and nearly half-way to the beach where we had hidden from the Heredistas behind the waterfall. The forest
was now cut from the tracks of the two armies moving up to the northern frontier and progress could be fast. It was most unlikely that the search for the Punchao would be directed at the fall when
Heredia knew that it had been present at the main battle and the mutiny.

‘You’ll be pretty comfortable there,’ I told the Punchao.

I had got into the habit of talking to it as the most important member of the party. I think the discharge of so many firearms in a closed space had affected my hearing and, slightly, my
reason.

I need not go into all the narrow escapes and mistaken paths which accounted for three full days and nights until I heard the moaning of the sea followed by many anxious hours of pure
boy-scouting while I explored the two headlands which surrounded the beach to make sure that there would be no woman and child still searching for their beloved dead. When I was satisfied that I
was alone, I crept under the waterfall and replaced the Punchao in its former hole, covering it with gravel.

And now for Teresa. That she was not already over the frontier was certain, for there would be then no reason for the secrecy of her message; nor was she in the capital – fairly safe if
she was still dressed as a boy and among friends who could be trusted. I could not envisage Teresa bearing inaction with patience. It would be useless to cage her in a position bounded by
nothingness from breakfast to bed. On the other hand, she was not one for the forest and a tent or sleeping bag unless it was in some way a command post.

Somewhere in remote country there must be the nucleus of a future government and she had been trusting to Felipe to put me in touch with it; the message of ‘polo’ was meant to give
me a hint. It did not. Some of the temporary inhabitants of the car-park would undoubtedly be Felipe’s collaborators, but if he would not answer questions they certainly would not. Polo. The
message was too vague for me to understand. Perhaps I might if I knew more of Malpelo and its landowners who appeared to be lying low in their estates or safely abroad in Paris.

Another point. I could not help her and any enquiries – for example, as a Spaniard looking for a job as a groom – might very well lead Heredia’s police to her. It was not for
nothing that Felipe had refused to tell me where she was until it was too late. For all I knew, she might be thankful that I was dead.

I could add that cheerful thought to all the others. I was without food and without a friend, in much the same position as I had been in London except that I still had some money, but it could
not buy my life or hers. I was at the end of the road which had started with a black bag in Harrods.

There was only one course open to me: to forget the lot of them and go home. Not so easy as it had been. My clothes were filthy rags and I should have to buy more before entering the National
Bank to draw out the remainder of my money and then to buy a ticket from Malpelo to London. Passport? I still had it but I reckoned that its validity would be about five minutes. The protection of
the British Consul-General? Not very likely for a man notorious for having fought against the legal government. No, my only hope was with the Retadores if I could find a commander who knew enough
of my story to believe me.

I set off for Santa Maria, approaching the capital by the main road after fording the river. In the suburbs I saw occasional faces which I recognised but none gave me more than a glance, so I
reckoned that I could safely order breakfast if the place was sufficiently grubby. The sole proprietor, when presenting the bill, asked me if I were a Spaniard and I answered that I had come from
Spain four years ago and stayed on because I liked Malpelo. Yes, there were not so many police about then, he said – a perfectly casual remark, but I took it as a kindly warning that even in
this simplest of joints a derelict such as I might be asked to show his papers. Back on the street, I cursed Heredia again for turning this little heaven into a hell.

I slunk down to the port and its car-park and after some delay was admitted. I was shocked to find that I was not easily identified without Felipe to vouch for me, and kept apart until someone
who had been present at the council of war recognised me from my Spanish accent in spite of my filthy, matted beard and torn clothes. When I told them the manner of Felipe’s death some of
them wept. He had been a natural leader and much loved.

I insisted on leaving them as soon as possible, for the rest of our party had not returned. I do not know whether they ever did or had been captured and shot. Meanwhile, I was given a luxurious
bath which went a long way to restoring morale. My shirt and trousers were roughly mended, enough to preserve decency, and my beard trimmed so far as to remain in keeping with my rags. Then I ate
enormously and slept the sleep of the half-drunk till late in the morning.

They begged me to stay with them, but I refused for fear of being recognised and compromising the safety of their hide-out. So I left the car-park when the coast was clear with enough food to
keep me going until I was far enough from Santa Maria to enter a shop with comparative safety and spend some of the money which they lent me. They told me to aim for the wild south-eastern tip of
Malpelo where the Retadores were in some force carrying on a mild tip-and-run guerrilla warfare too harmless to call for a full punitive expedition, though probably next on Heredia’s
list.

I was soon clear of the docks and their suburbs and set out for the east in good heart with my forged papers. They were inspected at the last post outside the town while I tried to hide my
anxiety. It was needless, giving me confidence that the experts at the car-park knew their jobs. Then came the long trudge to the east. Faces on the road and in the little villages turned from the
deep sunburn of the tropical Spaniard to the reddish brown of the Indian and the greyish black of the mestizos. All wished me good luck and good day, knowing that a poor man walking alone, had need
of both, and preserving the good manners which Spain had left behind.

When night fell I found a little ruin of a shed and slept. Twenty-five miles were behind me and I had completely recovered from my depression. Central America had charm. To judge by Malpelo, it
had been a happier little state under the presidents whose portraits filled Heredia’s ante-room. The Spaniard was and remained the conquerer, but a Christian and therefore cordial conquerer.
What had democracy and its politicians added to the general tolerance? Nothing until the arrival of industry had given birth to a proletariat.

In the morning I set out again for the east. The country had become primeval and I could see that it would be a base for a formidable guerrilla stronghold though there was little sign of it
beyond the police posts which seemed to have been recently and lightly fortified. I thought it perfectly safe to eat and drink at a
fonda
just outside the last houses and so preserve my bag
of supplies for an emergency. Another traveller joined me on the bench and began to question me. I had given him my usual story of being a Spaniard who had settled down in Malpelo, saying, to avoid
giving a definite address, that I was a fisherman working out of Santa Maria and on my way home. He led me into details of where I lived and only then did I realise that his questions were more
than friendly curiosity; so I paid my bill, walked out of the
fonda
and made the appalling mistake of walking briskly and purposefully east instead of west to Santa Maria which I had given
as my destination.

‘Come with me!’ he said, catching me up. ‘We have a cart going to Santa Maria this afternoon and it can give you a lift if you have a chat with my officer first.’

I thanked him enthusiastically. I think he had no idea that I had spotted him as a plain-clothes cop. His patter was good, but he wasn’t very bright.

The cart was standing outside the police station. The horse – well, it was a horse and that was about all one could say for it. The plain-clothes cop, who had now smilingly given up the
pretence of being anything else, went inside to telephone. I cut the traces and galloped away. He had not been telephoning at all, for he jumped out of the office and fired a couple of shots from
an antique revolver. I left the road for open fields and was relieved to find that the horse could at any rate jump a ditch on the way back to its pasture and that, on the whole, it preferred the
open to pulling a trap. I was now beyond overtaking but a marked man wherever I rode.

I gave up any idea of searching for Teresa if – doubtful anyway – she had taken refuge with some scattered band of Retadores. For the first time, I realised that it was her I wanted
rather than safety. I dismissed the thought. But what else was there? I was in the midst of a country of which I knew only a very limited strip where every man would be against me or afraid to
contact me unless he was above suspicion. Above suspicion – well, that suggested Hector. Undoubtedly he could help, but how? The most he could do was to hand over the Punchao to his
father-in-law in return for my life. Forget Teresa!