Hannah's voice boomed over the speaker. "Beautiful, kid, just beautiful. What a show. Are you getting this?"
I reached for the mike. "Loud and clear, Sam. Avila just bought it. I'm bringing the women out now."
"Wait on the bank and don't cross till I'm down," he said. "I've got the other Thompson with me. I'll give you covering fire. Christ, I wish I'd a couple of Vickers on this thing. I'd give the bastards something to remember." He laughed out loud. "I'll be seeing you, kid."
Sister Maria Teresa was on her knees beside Avila, lips mov-ing in prayer. I dragged her up roughly. "No time for that now. We'll leave by the vestry door. Once you're outside run for the river and don't look back. And I'd get that habit off if I were you, Sister, unless you want to drown."
She seemed dazed as if not understanding what was happen-ing, her mind, I dunk, temporarily rejecting the terrible reality. Joanna took charge then, literally tearing the habit off her, turning her within seconds to another person entirely. A small, frail woman in a cotton shift with iron-grey hair close-cropped to the head.
I hustled them into the vestry, opened the door cautiously and peered out. The Bristol was very close now, circling some-where overhead. The river was perhaps sixty or seventy yards away.
I pushed them out into the darkness, struck a match, dropped it into the pool of paraffin I had left earlier. Flames roared across the floor into the church. I had a final glimpse of the altar, the Holy Mother standing above it, the Child in her arms, a symbol of something surely, then I turned and ran.
I slid down the bank to join Joanna and Sister Maria Teresa in the shallows below. Flames danced in the dark waters, smoke drifted across in a billowing cloud, a scene from hell.
I could not hear the Huna for there was only one sound then, the roaring of the engine as the Bristol came in low. And sud-denly he was there, bursting out of the smoke a hundred feet above the river, the Black Baron coming in for his last show.
It needed a genius and there was one on hand that night. He judged the landing with absolute perfection, his wheels touched down at the very ultimate tip of the sandbank, giving himself the whole two-hundred-yard length to pull up in.
He rushed past, water spraying up from the wheels in two great waves and I saw him clearly, the black leather helmet, the goggles, white scarf streaming out behind him.
I shove the women out into the water, held the Thompson over my head and went after them. It wasn't particularly deep, four or five feet at the most, but the current was strong and it was taking them all their time to force a passage.
Hannah was already tax-ing back to the other end of the sandbank. He turned into the wind, ready for take-off, and then the engine cut. Out of the night behind us, voices lifted high above the flames, the Huna in full cry.
Hannah was out of the Bristol now, standing at the edge of the sandbank; firing his Thompson gun across the channel. I didn't look back, I had other things on my mind. Sister Maria Teresa slipped sideways, caught by the current. I flung myself forward getting a hand to her just in time, another to Joanna. For a moment things hung in the balance, the current pushing against us and then we were ploughing through the shallows and up on to the sandbank.
There must have been a hundred Huna at least on the river-bank, outlined dearly against the flames. At that distance most of their arrows were falling short, but already some were slid-ding down into the water.
When the Thompson emptied, he slipped in another maga-zine and commenced firing again. I gave Joanna a leg up into the observer's cockpit, then shoved Sister Maria Teresa up after her.
Hannah backed up to join me. "Better get in and get this thing started, kid."
"What about you?"
"Can you turn that prop on your own?"
There was no argument there. I climbed up into the cock-pit and made ready to go. He emptied the Thompson gun at the dark line now halfway across the channel, then dropped it to the sand and ran round to the front of the machine.
"Ready," he yelled.
I nodded and wound the starting magneto. He heaved on the propeller. The engine roared into life. Hannah jumped to one side.
I leaned out of the cockpit. "The wing," I cried. "Get on the wing."
He waved, ducked under the lower port wing and flung him-self across it, grasping the leading edge with his gloved hands. There was a chance, just a chance that it might work.
I thrust the throttle open and started down the sandbank as the first of the Huna came up out of the water. Fifty or sixty yards and I had the tail up, but that was going to be all for the drag from his body was too much to take. I knew it and so did he - he was too good a pilot not to.
One moment he was there, the next he had gone, releasing his grip on the leading edge, sliding back to the sand. The Bristol seemed to leap forward, I pulled the stick back and we lifted off.
I had time for one quick glance over my shoulder. He had got to his feet, was standing, feet apart facing them, firing his automatic coolly.
And then the dark wave rolled over him like the tide cover-ing the shore.
SIXTEEN
Downriver
"Thecomandante will not keep you waiting long, senhor. Please to be seated. A cigarette, perhaps?"
The sergeant was very obviously putting himself out con-siderably on my behalf so I met him halfway and accepted the cigarette.
So, once again I found myself outside thecomandante's office in Manaus and for one wild and uncertain moment, I wondered if it was then or now and whether anything had really happened.
A fly buzzed in the quiet, there were voices. The door opened and thecomandante ushered Sister Maria Teresa out. She was conventionally attired again in a habit of tropical white, ob-tained as I understoodit, from some local nuns of another Order.
Her smile faded slightly at the sight of me. Thecomandante shook hands formally. "Entirely at your service, as always, Sister."
She murmured something and went out. He turned to me beaming, the hand outstretched again. "My dear Senhor Mallory, so sorry to have kept you waiting."
"That's all right," I said. "My boat doesn't leave for an hour."
He gave me a seat, offered me a cigar which I refused, then sat down himself behind the desk. "I have your passport and travel permit ready for you. All is in order. I also have two letters, both a long time in arriving, I fear." He pushed every-thing across to me in a little pile. "I was not aware that you held a commission in your Royal Air Force."
"Just in the Reserve," I said. "There's a difference."
"Not for much longer, my friend, if the newspapers have it right."
I put the passport and travel permit in my breast pocket and examined the letters, both of which had been originally posted to my old address in Lima. One was from my father and mother, I knew by the writing. The other was from the Air Ministry and referred to me as Pilot Officer N. G. Malory. They could wait, both of them.
Thecomandante said, "So, you go home to England at last and Senhor Sterne also. I understand his visa has come through"
"That's right."
There was a slight pause and he was obviously somewhat embarrassed as if not quite knowing what to say next. So he did the obvious thing, jumped up and came round the desk.
"Well, I must not detain you."
We moved to the door, he opened it and held out his hand. As I took it, his smile faded. It was as if he had decided it was necessary to make some comment and perhaps, for him, it was.
He said, 'In spite of everything, I am proud to have been his friend. He was a brave man. We must remember him as he was at the end, not by what went before.'
I didn't say a word. What could I say? I simply shook hands and his door closed behind me for the last time.
As I walked across the pillared entrance hall my name was called. I turned and found Sister Maria Teresa moving towards me.
'Oh, Mr Mallory,' she said. 'I was waiting for you. I just wanted the chance to say goodbye."
She seemed quite her old self again. Crisp white linen, the cheeks rosy, the same look of calm eager joy about her as when we first met.
"That's kind of you."
She said, "In some ways I feel that we never really under-stood each other and for that, I'm sorry."
"That's all right," I said. "It takes all sorts. I understand you're staying on here?"
"That's right. Others will be arriving from America to join me shortly."
"To go back up-river?"
"That's right."
"Why don't you leave them alone?" I said. "Why doesn't everybody leave them alone? They don't need us - any of us -and they obviously don't need what we've got to offer."
"I don't think you quite understand," she said.
I was wasting my time, I realised that suddenly and com-pletely. "Then I'm glad I don't, Sister," I told her.
I think in that final moment, I actually got through to her. There was something in the eyes that was different, something undefmable, but perhaps that was simply wishful thinking. She turned and walked out.
I watched her go down the steps to the line of horse-drawn cabs whose drivers dozed in the hot sun. Nothing had changed and yet everything was different.
I never saw her again.
Standing at the rail of the stern-wheeler in the evening light and half an hour out of Manaus, I remembered my letters. As I was reading the one from the Air Ministry, Mannie found me.
"Anything interesting?"
"I've been put on the active service list," I said. "Should have reported two months ago. This thing's been chasing me since Peru."
"So?" He nodded gravely. "The news from Europe seems to get worse each day."
"One thing's certain," I said. "They're going to need pilots back home. All they can get."
"I suppose so. What happens in Belem? Will you apply to your consul for passage home?"
I shook my head, took the small linen bag Avila had given me in the church at Santa Helena and handed it to him. He opened it and poured a dozen fair-sized uncut diamonds into his palm.
"Avila's parting present. I know it's illegal, but we should get two or three thousand pounds for them in Belem with no trouble. I'll go halves with you and we'll go home in style."
He replaced them carefully. "Strange," he said. "To live as he did and in the end, to die so bravely."
I thought he might take it further, attempt to touch on what had remained unspoken between us, but he obviously thought better of it.
"I've got a letter to write. I'll see you later." He patted me on the arm awkwardly and slipped away.
I had not heard her approach and yet she was there behind me, like a presence sensed.
She said, "I've just been talking to the captain. He tells me there's a boat due out of Belem for New York the day after we get in."
"That's good," I said. "You'll be able to fly to California from there. Still make that test of yours at M.G.M. on time."
The horizon was purple and gold, touched with fire. She said, "I've just seen Mannie. He tells me you've had a letter drafting you into the R.A.F."
"That's right."
"Are you pleased?"
I shrugged. "If there's going to be a war, and it looks pretty certain, then it's the place to be."
"Can I write to you? Have you got an address?"
"If you like. I've been posted to a place called Biggin Hill. A fighter squadron. And my mother would always pass letters on."
"That's good."
She stood there, waiting for me to make some sort of move and I didn't. Finally she said hesitantly, "If you'd like to come down later, Neil. You know my cabin."
I shook my head. "I don't think there would be much point."
He was between us still, always would be. She knew it and so did I.She started to walk away, hesitated and turned towards me.
"All right, I loved him a little, for whatever that's worth, and I'm not ashamed of it. In spite of everything, he was the most courageous man I've ever known - a hero - and that's how I'll always remember him."
It sounded like a line from a bad play and he was worth more than that.
'He wasn't any hero, Joanna," I said. "He was a bastard, right from the beginning, only he was a brave bastard and probably the finest pilot I'm ever likely to meet. Let that be an end of it."
She walked away, stiff and angry, but somehow it didn't seem to matter any more. Hannah would have approved and that was the main thing.
