The Three Sentinels (20 page)

Returning to the office he found a message from the Mayor that the last of the seriously injured policemen was being discharged from hospital and would leave for the Capital on the evening
launch; he himself would be at the quay to wish him well on behalf of the community and he wondered if Don Mateo would also like to be present. Mat saw no reason why he should. A letter of thanks
on behalf of the Company and a generous cheque was the usual procedure. To turn up on the quay could appear a trifle provocative at a time when his every action was read as meaning something or
other which it didn’t. He asked Pilar what she thought and received the haughty reply that he was above all such nonsense and might as well go and find out what the Mayor really wanted.

There was no delegation on the quay—just the Mayor, Captain González and Jane Thorpe as chairwoman of the hospital committee. The Mayor did not appear to want anything or, if he
did, was even vaguer than usual. After a string of compliments he strolled off with González, and Mat invited Mrs. Thorpe to join him in something long and cold under the colonnade. He
admired her for herself and her three languages—excellent Spanish, a formal standard English which she kept for Mrs. Gateson and the Country Club and a marked west-country accent which she
used at home with her husband and intimate friends.

‘I cannot imagine why His Worship wanted me,’ he said. ‘Am I the only reliable witness to his whereabouts at six in the evening?’

Jane Thorpe laughed.

‘I told him I wanted to talk to you,’ she replied.

A clever woman! She knew very well that he was inclined to resent feminine influence, but that he would only be amused if she admitted it at once. It wasn’t surprising that the Mayor had
obeyed her. No doubt Jane was busy patching up his matrimonial differences.

‘And telephoned Pilar to make sure I came?’

‘Of course!’

‘What’s so private and urgent, Jane?’

‘Chepe. When Ray had left for the office, I found the child hanging round the house waiting.’

‘Any hint of peace?’

‘No, worse news. He couldn’t come to you directly with it.’

‘Jane, I have never used him in that way,’ Mat said, quick to deny the implication that he cultivated Chepe as a useful informer. ‘I think his father knows it, though of course
he wouldn’t tell Chepe more than he must. The boy’s integrity—that’s what matters! You’ll understand. You’re the only person who could. What’s bothering
him?’

‘He believes Rafael means to kill you.’

‘Nonsense! You know that as well as I do.’

‘Well, yes,’ she answered doubtfully. ‘But Rafael has changed.’

‘Whatever put it into the child’s head?’

‘He wouldn’t say. Loyalty. Just what you were talking about. And he was quite incoherent. Something about you being no use.’

‘I saw him this morning.’

He told Jane Thorpe of the inexplicable incident and the doll-like lump which he had taken home.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen it.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something that belonged to Catalina.’

‘But why give it to me?’

‘I think I see, but I’m not sure. Mat, did you ever have a Teddy Bear or anything when you were young?’

‘I suppose so, but I’ve forgotten.’

‘Well, if you’ve forgotten you won’t understand. But to Chepe it means security, protection, love, everything.’

‘But then he wouldn’t give it away.’

‘Protection, Mat. Think about that!’

‘You mean, his personal little god to look after me?’

‘If we could put that into seven-year-old language. Ask Luis Solano!’

‘I’m damned if I do.’

‘Oh, what a lot of privacies you have! You see why I had to talk to you alone.’

‘Ray … well …’

‘He’d understand the Teddy Bear angle much better than you,’ she retorted. ‘Any way I didn’t know about that. What I was afraid of was that Ray would take any
threat to your life far too seriously. He’d do anything for you and he’s impulsive.’

‘Fearless too, bless him! But I’m as sure of Garay as of myself. He must often have shouted that he’d like to bump me off. And if it comes to that I’ve been asked before
now if I would approve an accident being arranged for him. Probably he let himself go and the child misunderstood him.’

‘But you’ll be careful, Mat, won’t you?’

‘Within reason. What’s going on at the port?’

The evening seemed noisier than usual though nothing very definite could be distinguished since the excitement was round the corner at the bottom of the main street. The launch might have
narrowly missed an incoming boat or a lorry have backed into a pile of crates or the police, most improbably, might have hauled an incapable drunk into the station. In such cases the lookers-on
took sides eagerly and went on expressing their opinions until they were hoarse or bored, or the original contestants had slunk off to settle the argument in peace alarmed at the enthusiasm of
their backers.

A small crowd emerged into the main street, not coming forward as in a demonstration but moving slowly backwards with their eyes on the attraction. This centre of gravity as in turn it surged
round the corner seemed to be moving sideways—the effect of two parties on each side of the road continually turning to face each other. Marching up the middle were Rafael Garay and Gil
Delgado stopping at intervals to exchange remarks, their extremes of colour very marked among the browns of the surrounding faces.

‘Better get inside, Jane,’ Mat said.

‘Where are the police?’

‘In the station, where they should be.’

No, one didn’t want the police. He remembered telling Dave Gunner that they used to give them the day off to go fishing, and it was true. But the Company then had the daring and geniality
of youth. Now there wasn’t any Company except for himself. He continued to sit at his table almost alone. The rest of the outside customers had discreetly disappeared or had joined the
backward moving crowd, curiosity overcoming the risk of being caught in an eruption of violence.

As the fuming couple came abreast of the café, Rafael turned on his General Manager, partly provoked by his casual, cross-legged loneliness, partly invited by a confident wave of the
hand.

‘Hola, you! This arse-licker of yours says there are no funds to pay us.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘To the bank!’

‘But it is shut.’

‘Then it will be opened.’

The band of Rafael’s followers on the near side of the road turned away from their opponents to watch the unexpected conversation. There were only a dozen of them but those the toughest of
the oil workers well able to hold their own in any set-to with larger crowd behind Delgado.

‘A lot of good you will get from the Bank! The manager will be hiding under the counter. He is not one of us.’

One of us. That note again which always bewildered Rafael. Don Mateo must feel it. Clever devil as he was, it could not be a pose.

‘And you! What do you know about this?’

‘Nothing, friend. I am not a cashier.’

‘Leave him alone, Rafael!’ Delgado yelled. ‘This is not for him or the Company.’

‘At least he is honest.’

‘Tell me I lie again and we come to blows!’

‘I think I had better fetch a policeman,’ Mat said.

There was an instant’s silence at so senseless a remark, and then it burst on the two factions. What a type, this Don Mateo!

He took the opportunity to stride out and join the leaders, his glass still in his hand.

‘Friends, this can be settled without blowing up the bank. One of you says that it has no funds, the other that it has. You are not the only ones to suffer from the banks and their rules
and their papers. It is perfectly possible that you are both right. If you will come to my office tomorrow, Don Rafael, I will have the facts for you.’

‘I do not visit your office like this Judas!’

‘As you wish. Then where?’

‘Where our women are buried!’ Rafael retorted, carried away by his anger and not meaning a literal appointment.

‘That is a promise?’

‘If you come alone.’

‘I shall come alone this evening.’

Rafael gathered up his men with a sweep of the arm and led them away, pushing contemptuously through Delgado’s supporters. He had never intended this confrontation which started behind the
port offices where the new boycott committee was distributing relief funds to the needy. The amount available had been dying away for some time as the professionally benevolent became bored with
Cabo Desierto and the oil workers of the continent lost interest in supporting a boycott which had been publicised as unreasonable and against the advice of the Union. There had, however, been one
anonymous and substantial transfer from Zurich every week. Gil Delgado announced to the meeting that the bank told him it had not arrived and that future payments had been cancelled.

Normally Rafael would have accepted the fact since none of those in most need was among his supporters, but his nerves were ragged after two days of holding and feeding El Vicario without any
practical plan for getting rid of him. He burst out that his people were being victimised and accused Delgado of trying to bring them to heel by starvation. Gil had no trouble in refuting the
accusation. Rafael’s men, he said, were among the most competent of the peasants. That in itself was offensive, for it suggested that they kept part of the communal produce for themselves.
But there was a more brutal bit of his vulgarity to come. Many, he added, were without families and had only themselves to keep. It was a marvel that men who had lost their wives did not storm the
committee then and there.

As committee and protesters turned into the main street Rafael was near to losing control of his men and himself and knew it. The unexpected presence of the General Manager was a relief. He
could be used as a distraction. That was the main motive behind his deliberately rude response.

Well, he would have to meet him now; and nobody after that public exchange could accuse him of slinking round to the office to talk in private. He felt confident of holding his own better in the
dark, and of dominating mere eyes by his physical superiority.

Antón insisted that he should post a few reliable men up among the sand hills and go armed. He agreed. That Don Mateo would try to assassinate him or have him kidnapped was unthinkable,
but there were others in the Company—that Gateson for one—and how far they might go was uncertain. They distrusted their General Manager. One could see it in the matter of the Charca.
Why was he unable to guard the water himself?

The little cemetery was a lonely spot out beyond the refinery and not far from the shacks where those guiltless, terrified women had picked up their children and escaped. The Cabo Desierto
cemetery was full, so the priest had consecrated new ground. A lot of nonsense! What would happen to those dead was neither better nor worse than to Catalina, a pulp hurled up and down between the
fury of the surf and the green peace of deep water until it was eaten by the crabs.

The ground was surrounded by a low wall, hastily built. He came early and sat there waiting. The sea itself gave some light so that the wall was white and monotonous as the breakers. Don Mateo
was visible a hundred yards away as he walked along the beach—a moving rod, tall and black, against the milkiness of the spent terraces of the surf.

‘So you have come, Don Rafael!’

‘And why not?’

‘Several reasons, friend, for you as for me.’

‘I have nothing against you personally, Don Mateo. Chepe—I have not forgotten.’

‘It is nothing. The child deserves all we can give.’

‘He has too much freedom, but you will understand my time is not my own.’

Rafael felt no more of his intended domination. He was only conscious of equality in loneliness. Don Mateo for the moment had become the vague patriarchal adviser for whom he had so often felt a
need. That would not do. He was there to listen to him about banks.

‘Have you anything to say or not?’ he asked aggressively. ‘What do you know of this swindle of Delgado’s?’

‘A lot. Delgado told the truth. It’s a dirty business, but you had better know where your weekly subvention came from.’

‘Do not tell me from Russia, for I shall not believe it.’

‘You would be right. It came from an oil company—one of the biggest which hopes to buy Cabo Desierto cheap.’

‘How did you find out?’

‘Because I myself was suspected of taking this money to keep the boycott alive.’

‘You? There are people without shame or decency.’

It was Henry Constantinides in far-off London who had supplied the information. There in London Wall Henry must have envisaged his General Manager smoothly insinuating the facts—if
necessary at all—into the ear of some urbane visitor from Embassy or Government, not frankly exposing them to his enemy, both together among the rusty cans and refuse on the edge of an
eternity.

It had been obvious that Gateson’s accusation could not be a mere shot in the dark; the Field Manager, however angry, was not fool enough for that. There had to be some basis of fact:
perhaps a private letter from Birenfield or some former colleague repeating a rumour which was running through the underground of the oil industry. Mat had at once cabled to Henry whose discreet
enquiries through the head office of the Cabo Desierto bank, aided by his interlocking directorships, revealed the identity of the generous benefactor; but attempts to prove it came up against a
dead end—so dead that it stank to high heaven. Why the weekly payments had stopped was anybody’s guess, possibly because the boycott—to any outside observer—now seemed
certain to collapse or because the donors had been warned of Henry’s investigation.

Mat explained to Rafael as simply as he could the motives of his charitable sympathisers.

‘So we were paid just to change one oil company for another?’

‘These things happen, friend. Don’t blame yourself!’

Still another illusion gone. Even if he had known he would probably have accepted the money and laughed at the crooks who sent it—with the help of Gil Delgado’s cynicism. Though he
didn’t blame himself, he felt a need to excuse himself. He stumbled over words to explain the contradiction.