High Citadel / Landslide (16 page)

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!

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 to 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.

Rohde came aft carrying the first-aid box which he had taken from the bulkhead. He placed it on a seat and opened it, carefully moving his fingers among the jumbled contents. He grunted. ‘Morphine.’

‘Damn,’ said Forester. ‘We could have used that on Mrs Coughlin.’

Rhode held up the shattered end of an ampoule. ‘It would have been no use; they are all broken.’

He put some bandages away in his pocket, then said, ‘This will be useful—aspirin.’ The bottle was cracked, but it still held together and contained a hundred tablets. They both took two tablets and Rohde put the bottle in his pocket. There was nothing more in the first-aid box that was usable.

Forester went into the cockpit. The body of Grivas was there, tumbled into an obscene attitude, and still with the look of deep surprise frozen into the open eyes which were gazing at the shattered instrument panel. Forester moved forward, thinking that there must be something in the wreck of an aircraft that could be salvaged, when he kicked something hard that slid down the inclined floor of the cockpit.

He looked down and saw an automatic pistol.

My God, he thought; we’d forgotten that. It was Grivas’s gun, left behind in the scramble to get out of the Dakota. It would have been of use down by the bridge, he thought, picking it up. But it was too late for that now. The metal was cold in his hand and he stood for a moment, undecided, then he slipped it into his pocket, thinking of Peabody and of what lay on the other side of the pass.

Equipment for well-dressed mountaineers, he thought sardonically; one automatic pistol.

They found nothing more that was of use in the Dakota, so they retraced their steps along the airstrip and back to the hut. Forester took the straps and a small suitcase belonging to Miss Ponsky which had been left behind. From these unlikely ingredients he contrived a serviceable pack which sat on his shoulders more comfortably than the one he had.

Rohde went to look at the mine and Peabody sat slackly in a corner of the hut watching Forester work with lacklustre eyes. He had not eaten his beans, nor had he attempted to keep the fire going. Forester, when he came into the hut, had looked at him with contempt but said nothing. He took the axe and chipped a few shavings from the baulk of wood that Rohde had brought in, and rebuilt the fire.

Rohde came in, stamping the snow from his boots. ‘I have selected a tunnel for O’Hara,’ he said. ‘If the enemy force the bridge then O’Hara must come up here; I think the camp is indefensible.’

Forester nodded, ‘I didn’t think much of it myself,’ he said, remembering how they had ‘assaulted’ the empty camp on the way down the mountain.

‘Most of the tunnels drive straight into the mountain,’ said Rohde. ‘But there is one which has a sharp bend about fifty metres from the entrance. It will give protection against rifle fire.’

‘Let’s have a look at it,’ said Forester.

Rohde led the way to the cliff face behind the huts and pointed out the tunnels. There were six of them driven into the base of the cliff. ‘That is the one,’ he said.

Forester investigated. It was a little over ten feet high and not much wider, just a hole blasted into the hard rock of the mountainside. He walked inside, finding it deepening from gloom to darkness the farther he went. He put his hands before him and found the side wall. As Rohde had said, it bent to the left sharply and, looking back, he saw that the welcome blue sky at the entrance was out of sight.

He went no farther, but turned around and walked back until he saw the bulk of Rohde outlined against the entrance. He was surprised at the relief he felt on coming out into the daylight, and said, ‘Not much of a home from home—it gives me the creeps.’

‘Perhaps that is because men have died there.’

‘Died?’

‘Too many men,’ said Rohde. ‘The government closed the mine—that was when Señor Aguillar was President.’

‘I’m surprised that Lopez didn’t try to coin some money out of it,’ commented Forester.

Rohde shrugged. ‘It would have cost a lot of money to put back into operation. It was uneconomical when it ran—just an experiment in high-altitude mining. I think it would have closed anyway.’