"What's she done?" I asked Avila and pulled the girl up from the ground.
"She's been selling herself round the town while I've been away," he said. "God knows what she might have picked up."
"She's yours?"
He nodded. "A Huna girl. I bought her just over a year ago."
We'd spoken in Portuguese and I turned to give Joanna a translation. "There's nothing to be done. The girl belongs to him."
"What do you mean, belongs to him?"
"He bought her, probably when her parents died. It's com-mon enough up-river and legal."
Bought her?' First there was incredulity in her eyes, then a kind of white-hot rage. 'Well, I'm damn well buying her back,' she said. 'How much will this big ape take?"
"Actually he speaks excellent English," I said. "Why not ask him yourself."
She was really angry by then, scrabbled in her handbag and produced a hundredcruzeiro note which she thrust at Avila. "Will this do?"
He accepted it with alacrity and bowed politely. "A pleasure to do business with you, senhorita," he said and made off rapidly up the street in the direction of the hotel.
The girl waited quietly for whatever new blow fate had in store for her, that impassive Indian face giving nothing away. I questioned her in Portuguese which she seemed to under-stand reasonably well.
I said to Joanna. "She's a Huna all right. Her name is Christina and she's sixteen. Her father was a wild rubber tapper. He and the mother died from small-pox three years ago. Some woman took her in then sold her to Avila last year. What do you intend to do with her?"
"God knows," she said. "A shower wouldn't be a bad idea to start with, but if s more Sister Maria Teresa's department than mine. How much did I pay for her, by the way?"
"About fifty dollars - a hundredcruzeiros. Avila can take his pick of girls like her for ten which leaves him ninety for booze."
"My God, what a country," she said, and taking Christina by the hand, started down the street towards the airstrip.
I spent the afternoon helping Mannie do an engine check on the Bristol Hannah arrived back just after six and was in excellent spirits. I lay in my hammock and watched him shave while Mannie prepared the evening meal.
Hannah was humming gaily to himself and looked years younger. When Mannie asked him if he wanted anything to eat he shook hishead and pulled on a clean shirt.
I said, "You're wasting your time, Mannie. His appetite runs to other things tonight"
Hannah grinned. "Why don't you give in, kid? I mean that's a real woman. She's been there and back and that kind need a man."
He turned his back and went off whistling as I swung my legs to the floor. Mannie grabbed me by the arm. "Let it gosNeil."
I stood up, walked to the edge of the hangar and leaned against a post looking out over the river, taking time to calm down. Funny how easily I got worked up over Hannah these days.
Mannie appeared and pushed a cigarette at me. "You know, Neil, women are funny creatures. Not at all as we imagine them. The biggest mistake we make is to see them as we think they should be. Sometimes the reality is quite different..."
"All right, Mannie, point taken." Great heavy spots of rain darkened the dry earth and I took down an oilskin coat and pulled it on. "I'll go and check on Sister Maria Teresa. I'll see you later."
I'd taken up her bag of tricks, an oilskin coat and a pressure lamp, earlier in case the vigil proved to be a prolonged one. Just as I reached the outer edge of Landro, I met her on the way in with the mother walking beside her carrying her newly-born infant in a blanket, the father following behind.
"A little girl," Sister Maria Teresa announced, "but they don't seem to mind. I'm going to stay the night with them. Will you let Joanna know for me?"
I accompanied them through the gathering darkness to the shack the couple called home, then I went back along the street to the hotel.
The rain was really coming down now in great solid waves and I sat at the bar with Figueiredo for a while, playing draughts and drinking' some of that gin I'd brought in for him, wailing for it to stop.
After an hour, I gave up, lit my lamp and plunged down the steps into the rain. The force was really tremendous. It was like being in a small enclosed world, completely alone and for some reason, I felt exhilarated.
Light streamed through the closed shutters when I went up the steps to the veranda of the house and a gramophone was playing. I stood there for a moment listening to the murmur of voices, the laughter, then knocked on the door.
Hannah opened it. He was in his shirtsleeves and held a glass of Scotch in one hand. I didn't give him a chance to say any-thing.
I said, "Sister Maria Teresa's spending the night in Landro with a woman who's just had a baby. She wanted Joanna to know."
He said, "Okay, I'll tell her."
As I turned away Joanna appeared behind him, obviously to see what was going on. It was enough. I said, "Oh, by the way, I'll be flying up to Santa Helena with you in the morn-ing. The mail run will have to wait."
His face altered, became instantly wary. "Who says so?"
"Colonel Alberto. Wants me to take a little walk with him tomorrow to meet some Huna. I'll be seeing you."
I went down into the rain. I think she called my name, though I could not be sure, but when I glanced back over my shoulder, Hannah had moved out on to the veranda and was looking after me.
Some kind of small triumph, I suppose, but one that I sus-pected I would have to pay dearly for.
NINE
Drumbeat
I did not sleep particularly well and the fact that it was three a.m. before Hannah appeared didn't help. I slept only fitfully after that and finally got up at six and went outside.
It was warm and oppressive, unusually so considering the hour and the heavy grey clouds promised rain of the sort that would last for most of the day. Not my kind of morning at all and the prospect of what was to follow had little to commend it.
I wandered along the front of die open hangar and paused beside the Bristol which stood there with its usual air of expectancy as if waiting for something to happen. It carne to me suddenly that other men must have stood beside her like this, coughing over the first cigarette of the day as they waited to go out on a dawn patrol, sizing up the weather, waiting to see what the day would bring. It gave me a curious feeling of kinship which didn't really make any sense.
I turned and found Hannah watching me. That first time we'd met after I'd crash-landed in the Vega, I'd been struck by the ageless quality in his face, but not now. Perhaps it was the morning or more probably, the drink from the previous night, but he looked about a hundred years old. As if he had ex-perienced everything there ever was and no longer had much faith in what was to come.
The tension between us was almost tangible. He said harshly, "Do you intend to go through with this crazy business?"
"I said so, didn't I?"
He exploded angrily. "God damn it, there's no knowing how the Huna might react. If they turn sour, you won't have a prayer."
"I can't say I ever had much faith in it anyway." I started to move past him.
He grabbed my arm and spun me round. "What in the hell are you trying to prove, Mallory?"
I see now, on reflection, that he saw the whole thing as some sort of personal challenge. If I went, then he would have to go or appear less than me and not only to Joanna Martin, for as I have said, he was a man to whom appearances were every-thing.
He was angry because I had put him in an impossible posi-tion which should have pleased me. Instead I felt as sombre as that grey morning itself.
"Let's just say Fm tired of life and leave it at that" And for a moment, he believed me enough to slacken his grip so that I was able to pull free. As I walked back along the edge of the hangar, the first heavy drops of rain pattered against the roof.
The run to Santa Helena was uneventful enough in spite of the bad weather. We didn't get away until much later than had been anticipated because of poor visibility, but from nine o'clock on, there was a perceptible lightening in the sky although the rain still fell heavily and Hannah decided to chance it
He asked me to take the controls which suited me in the circumstances for it not only kept me out of Joanna Martin's way, but also meant that I didn't have to struggle to find the right things to say to Sister Maria Teresa. I left all that to Hannah who seemed to do well enough although for most of the time the conversation behind was unintelligible to me, bound up as I was in my thoughts.
The situation at Santa Helena was no better. The same heavy rain drifting up from the forest again in grey mist because of the heat, but landing was safe enough and I put the Hayley down with hardly a bump.
I had radioed ahead on take-off and had given them an estimated time of arrival. In spite of this I was surprised to find Alberto himself waiting to greet us with the guard detail at the side of the strip.
He came forward to meet us as the Hayley rolled to a halt and personally handed the two women down from the cabin, greet-ing them courteously. His face beneath the peaked officer's cap was serious and he presented a melancholy figure, adrift in an alien landscape. The caped cavalry greatcoat he wore was obviously an echo of better days.
He led the way back to the small jetty where the motor launch waited. It presented a formidable appearance. There was a Lewis gun on the roof of the main saloon, another in the prow, each protected by sandbags, and a canvas screen along each side of the boat deck made it possible to move unobserved and also provided some sort of cover against arrows.
An awning had been rigged in the stern against the rain, there was a cane table and canvas chairs and as we approached, an orderly came out of the saloon carrying a tray. He wore white gloves and as the ladies seated themselves, served coffee from a silver pot in delicate china cups. The rain hammered down, a couple of alligators drifted by. A strange, mad dream standing there by the rail with only the stench of rotting vegeta-tion rising from the river to give it reality.
Alberto approached and offered me a cigarette. "In regard to our conversation yesterday, Senhor Mallory. Have you come to any decision?"
"A hell of a morning for a walk in the forest," I said, peering out under the awning. "On the other hand, it could be interesting."
He smiled slightly, hesitated, as if about to say something, obviously thought better of it and turned away leaving me at the rail on my own. To say that I instantly regretted my words was certainly not so and yet I had voluntarily committed my-self to a situation of grave danger which made no kind of sense at all. Now why was that?
A couple of soldiers were already casting-off and the launch eased away from the jetty. Alberto accepted a cup of coffee from the orderly and said, "There won't be time to drop you at Santa Helena at the moment. The Huna have changed our meeting-place to the site of an older rubber plantation, a ruinedjazenda about five miles up-river from here and a mile inland. The appointed hour is still the same however, noon, so we shall barely make the rendezvous on time as it is. Under the circumstances, I'm afraid you'll all have to come along for the ride."
"May I ask what your plans are, Colonel?" Sister Maria Teresa inquired.
"Simplicity itself, Sister." He smiled wearily. "I go to talk peace with the Huna as my superiors, who are at present sitting on their backsides a good thousand miles from here behind their desks, insist."
"You don't approve?"
"Let us say I am less than sanguine as to the result A dele-gation, one chief and five elders, has agreed to meet me on their terms which means I go alone, except for my interpreter and very definitely unarmed. The one change in the arrange-ment so faris that Senhor Mallory, who knows more about Indians than any man I know, has agreed to accompany me."
Joanna Martin went very still, her coffee cup raised halfway to her mouth. She turned and looked at me fixedlysa slight frown on her face.
Sister Maria Teresa said, "A long walk, Mr Mallory."
Hannah was good and angry, glared at me, eyes wild, then at Joanna Martin. He didn't like what he was going to say but he got it out, I'll say that for him. "You can count me in too, Colonel."
"Don't be stupid," I cut in. "Who in the hell would be left to fly the women out in the Hayley if anything went wrong?"
There was no arguing with that and he knew it. He turned away angrily and Sister Maria Teresa said, "It has been my experience in the past, Colonel, that Indians do not look upon any group containing a woman as a threat to them. Wouldn't you agree, Mr Mallory?"
Alberta glanced quickly at me, aware instantly, as I was myself, of what was in her mind. I said, "Yes, that's true up to a point. They certainly don't take women to war themselves, but I wouldn't count on it."
