She came upon him suddenly from behind after being guided by the clink of glass against stone. He was sitting gazing at the moon, the bottle in his hand, and was quietly humming a tune she did not know. The bottle was half-empty.
He turned as she stepped forward out of the shadows and held out the bottle. ‘Have a drink; it’s good for what ails you.’ His voice was slurred and furry.
‘No, thank you, Tim.’ She stepped down and sat beside him. ‘You have a tear in your shirt—I’ll mend it if you come back to the shelter.’
‘Ah, the little woman. Domesticity in a cave.’ He laughed humourlessly.
She indicated the bottle. ‘Do you think this is good—at this time?’
‘It’s good at this or any other time—but especially at this time.’ He waved the bottle. ‘Eat, drink and be merry—for tomorrow we certainly die.’ He thrust it at her. ‘Come on, have a snort.’
She took the proffered bottle and quickly smashed it against a rock. He made a movement as though to save it, and said, ‘What the hell did you do that for?’ in an aggrieved voice.
‘Your name is not Peabody,’ she said cuttingly.
‘What do you know about it? Peabody and I are old pals—bottle-babies, both of us.’ He stooped and groped. ‘Maybe it’s not all gone—there might be some to be saved.’ He jerked suddenly. ‘Damn, I’ve cut my bloody finger,’ he said and laughed hysterically. ‘Look, I’ve got a bloody finger.’
She saw the blood dripping from his hand, black in the moonlight. ‘You’re irresponsible,’ she said. ‘Give me your hand.’ She lifted her skirt and ripped at her slip, tearing off a strip of cloth for a bandage.
O’Hara laughed uproariously. ‘The classic situation,’ he said. ‘The heroine bandages the wounded hero and does all the usual things that Hollywood invented. I suppose I should turn away like the gent I’m supposed to be, but you’ve got nice legs and I like looking at them.’
She was silent as she bandaged his finger. He looked down at her dark head and said, ‘Irresponsible? I suppose I am. So what? What is there to be responsible for? The world can go to hell in a hand-basket for all I care.’ He crooned. ‘Naked came I into the world and naked I shall go out of it—and what lies between is just a lot of crap.’
‘That’s a sad philosophy of life,’ she said, not raising her head.
He put his hand under her chin to lift her head and stared at her. ‘Life? What do you know about life? Here you are—fighting the good fight in this crummy country—and for what? So that a lot of stupid Indians can have something that, if they had any guts at all, they’d get for themselves. But there’s a big world outside which is always interfering—and you’ll kowtow to Russia or America in the long run; you can’t escape that fate. If you think that you’ll be masters in your own country, you’re even more stupid than I thought you were.’
She met his eyes steadily. In a quiet and tranquil voice she said, ‘We can try.’
‘You’ll never do it,’ he answered, and dropped his hand. ‘This is a world of dog eat dog and this country is one of the scraps that the big dogs fight over. It’s a world of eat or be eaten—kill or be killed.’
‘I don’t believe that,’ she said.
He gave a short laugh. ‘Don’t you? Then what the hell are we doing here? Why don’t we pack up our things and just go home? Let’s pretend there’s no one on the other side of the river who wants to kill us on sight.’
She had no answer to that. He put his arm round her and she felt his hand on her knee, moving up her thigh under her skirt. She struggled loose and hit him with her open palm as hard as she could. He looked at her and there was a shocked expression in his eyes as he rubbed his cheek.
She cried, ‘You are one of the weak ones, Tim O’Hara, you are one of those who are killed and eaten. You have no courage and you always seek refuge—in the bottom of a bottle, in the arms of a woman, what does it matter? You’re a pitiful, twisted man.’
‘Christ, what do you know about me?’ he said, stung by the contempt in her voice but knowing that he liked her contempt better than her compassion.
‘Not much. And I don’t particularly like what I know. But I do know that you’re worse than Peabody—he’s a weak man who can’t help it; you’re a strong man who refuses to be strong. You spend all your time staring at your own navel in the belief that it’s the centre of the universe, and you have no human compassion at all.’
‘Compassion?’ he shouted. ‘I have no need of your compassion—I’ve no time for people who are sorry for me. I don’t need it.’
‘Everyone needs it,’ she retorted. ‘We’re all afraid—that’s the human predicament, to be afraid, and any man who says he isn’t is a liar.’ In a quieter voice she went on, ‘You weren’t always like this, Tim—what caused it?’
He dropped his head into his hands. He could feel something breaking within him; there was a shattering and a crumbling of his defences, the walls he had hidden behind for so long. He had just realized the truth of what Benedetta said; that his fear was not an abnormality but the normal situation of mankind and that it was not weakness to admit it.
He said in a muffled voice, ‘Good Christ, Benedetta, I’m frightened—I’m scared of falling into their hands again.’
‘The communists?’
He nodded.
‘What did they do to you?’
So he told her and in the telling her face went white. He told her of the weeks of lying naked in his own filth in that icy cell; of the enforced sleeplessness, the interminable interrogations; of the blinding lamps and the electric shocks; of Lieutenant Feng. ‘They wanted me to confess to spreading plague germs,’ he said. He raised his head and she saw the streaks of tears in the moonlight. ‘But I didn’t; it wasn’t true, so I didn’t.’ He gulped. ‘But I nearly did.’
In her innermost being she felt a scalding contempt for herself—she had called this man weak. She cradled his head to her breast and felt the deep shudders which racked him. ‘It’s all right now, Tim,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’
He felt a draining of himself, a purging of the soul in the catharsis of telling to another human being that which had been locked within him for so long. And in a strange way, he felt strengthened and uplifted as he got rid of all the psychic pus that had festered in his spirit. Benedetta took the brunt of this verbal torrent calmly, comforting him with disconnected, almost incoherent endearments. She felt at once older and younger than he, which confused her and made her uncertain of what to do.
At last the violence of his speech ebbed and gradually he fell silent, leaning back against the rock as though physically exhausted. She held both his hands and said, ‘I’m sorry, Tim—for what I said.’
He managed a smile. ‘You were right—I have been a thorough bastard, haven’t I?’
‘With reason.’
‘I must apologize to the others,’ he said. ‘I’ve been riding everybody too hard.’
She said carefully, ‘We aren’t chess pieces, Tim, to be moved as though we had no feelings. And that’s what you have been doing, you know; moving my uncle, Willis and Armstrong—Jenny, too—as though they were just there to solve the problem. You see, it isn’t only your problem—it belongs to all of us. Willis has worked harder than any of us; there was no need to behave towards him as you did when the trebuchet broke down.’
O’Hara sighed. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But it seemed the last straw. I was feeling bloody-minded about everything just then. But I’ll apologize to him.’
‘A better thing would be to help him.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll go now.’ He looked at her and wondered if he had alienated her for ever. It seemed to him that no woman could love him who knew about him what this woman knew. But then Benedetta smiled brilliantly at him, and he knew with relief that everything was going to be all right.
‘Come,’ she said. ‘I’ll walk with you as far as the shelter.’ She felt an almost physical swelling pain in her bosom, a surge of wild, unrea
sonable happiness, and she knew that she had been wrong when she had felt that Tim was not for her. This was the man with whom she would share her life—for as long as her life lasted.
He left her at the shelter and she kissed him before he went on. As she saw the dark shadow going away down the mountain she suddenly remembered and called, ‘What about the tear in your shirt?’
His answer came back almost gaily. ‘Tomorrow,’ he shouted, and went on to the glimmer of light where Willis was working against time.
V
The morning dawned mistily but the rising sun soon burned away the haze. They held a dawn conference by the trebuchet to decide what was to be done next. ‘What do you think?’ O’Hara asked Willis. ‘How much longer will it take?’
Armstrong clenched his teeth round the stem of his pipe and observed O’Hara with interest. Something of note had happened to this young man; something good. He looked over to where Benedetta was keeping watch on the bridge—her radiance this morning had been unbelievable, a shining effulgence that cast an almost visible glow about her. Armstrong smiled—it was almost indecent how happy these two were.
Willis said, ‘It’ll be better now we can see what we’re doing. I give us another couple of hours.’ His face was drawn and tired.
‘We’ll get to it,’ said O’Hara. He was going to continue but he paused suddenly, his head on one side. After a few seconds Armstrong also caught what O’Hara was listening to—the banshee whine of a jet plane approaching fast.
It was on them suddenly, coming low up-river. There was a howl and a wink of shadow as the aircraft swept over them to pull up into a steep climb and a sharp turn. Willis yelled, ‘They’ve found us—they’ve found us.’ He began to jump up and down in a frenzy of excitement, waving his arms.
‘It’s a Sabre,’ O’Hara shouted. ‘And it’s coming back.’
They watched the plane reach the top of its turning climb and come back at them in a shallow dive. Miss Ponsky screamed at the top of her voice, her arms going like a semaphore, but O’Hara said suddenly, ‘I don’t like this—everyone scatter—take cover.’
He had seen aircraft behave like that in Korea, and he had done it himself; it had all the hallmarks of the beginning of a strafing attack.
They scattered like chickens at the sudden onset of a hawk and again the Sabre roared over, but there was no chatter of guns—just the diminishing whine of the engine as it went away down river. Twice more it came over them and the tough grass standing in clumps trembled stiff stems in the wake of its passage. And then it was gone in a long, almost vertical climb heading west over the mountains.
They came out of cover and stood in a group looking towards the peaks. Willis was the first to speak. ‘Damn you,’ he shouted at O’Hara. ‘Why did you make us hide? That plane must have been searching for us.’
‘Was it?’ asked O’Hara. ‘Benedetta, does Cordillera have Sabres in the Air Force?’
‘That was an Air Force fighter,’ she said. ‘I don’t know which squadron.’
‘I missed the markings,’ said O’Hara. ‘Did anyone get them?’
No one had.
‘I’d like to know which squadron that was,’ mused O’Hara. ‘It could make a difference.’
‘I tell you it was part of the search,’ insisted Willis.
‘Nothing doing,’ said O’Hara. ‘The pilot of that plane knew exactly where to come—he wasn’t searching. Someone had given him a pinpoint map position. There was nothing uncertain about his passes over us. We didn’t tell him; Forester didn’t tell him—they’re only just leaving the mine now—so who did?’
Armstrong used his pipe as a pointer. They did,’ he said, and pointed across the river. ‘We must assume that it means nothing good.’
O’Hara was galvanized into activity. ‘Let’s get this bloody beast working again. I want that bridge ruined as soon as possible. Jenny, take a bow and go downriver to where you can get a good view of the road where it bends away. If anyone comes through, take a crack at them and then get back here as fast as you can. Benedetta, you watch the bridge—the rest of us will get cracking here.’
Willis had been too optimistic, because two hours went by and the trebuchet was still in pieces and far from being in working order. He wiped a grimy hand across his face. ‘It’s not so bad now—another hour will see it right.’
But they did not get another hour. Benedetta called out, ‘I can hear trucks.’ Following immediately upon her words came the rattle of rifle shots from downriver and another sound that chilled O’Hara—the unmistakable rat-a-tat of a machine-gun. He ran over to Benedetta and said breathlessly, ‘Can you see anything?’
‘No,’ she answered; then, ‘Wait—yes, three trucks—big ones.’
‘Come down,’ said O’Hara. ‘I want to see this.’
She climbed down from among the rocks and he took her place. Coming up the road at a fast clip and trailing a cloud of dust was a big American truck and behind it another, and another. The first one was full of men, at least twenty of them, all armed with rifles. There was something odd about it that O’Hara could not at first place, then he saw the deep skirting of steel plate below the truck body which covered the petrol tank. The enemy was taking precautions.
The truck pulled to a halt by the bridge and the men piled out, being careful to keep the truck between themselves and the river. The second truck stopped behind; this was empty of men apart from two in the cab, and O’Hara could not see what the covered body contained. The third truck also contained men, though not as many, and O’Hara felt cold as he saw the light machine-gun being unloaded and taken hurriedly to cover.
He turned and said to Benedetta, ‘Give me that bow, and get the others over here.’ But when he turned back there was no target for him; the road and mountainside opposite seemed deserted of life, and the three trucks held no profit for him.
Armstrong and Willis came up and he told them what was happening. Willis said, ‘The machine-gun sounds bad, I know, but what can they do with it that they can’t do with the rifles they’ve got? It doesn’t make us much worse off.’
‘They can use it like a hose-pipe,’ said O’Hara. ‘They can squirt a steam of bullets and systematically hose down the side of the gorge. It’s going to be bloody dangerous using the crossbow from now on.’
‘You say the second truck was empty,’ observed Armstrong thoughtfully.
‘I didn’t say that; I said it had no men. There must be something in there but the top of the body is swathed in canvas and I couldn’t see.’ He smiled sourly. ‘They’ve probably got a demountable mountain howitzer or a mortar in there—and if they have anything like that we’ve had our chips.’
Armstrong absently knocked his pipe against a rock, forgetting it was empty. ‘The thing to do now is have a parley,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘There never was a siege I studied where there wasn’t a parley somewhere along the line.’
‘For God’s sake, talk sense,’ said O’Hara. ‘You can only parley when you’ve got something to offer. These boys are on top and they know it; why should they parley? Come to that—why should we? We know they’ll offer us the earth, and we know damned well they’ll not keep their promises—so what’s the use?’
‘We have something to offer,’ said Armstrong calmly. ‘We have Aguillar—they want him, so we’ll offer him.’ He held up his hands to silence the others’ protests. ‘We know what they’ll offer us—our lives, and we know what their promises are worth, but that doesn’t matter. Oh, we don’t give them Aguillar, but with a bit of luck we can stretch the parley out into a few hours, and who knows what a few hours may mean later on?’
O’Hara thought about it. ‘What do you think, Willis?’
Willis shrugged. ‘We don’t stand to lose anything,’ he said, ‘and we stand to gain time. Everything we’ve done so far has been to gain time.’
‘We could get the trebuchet into working order again,’ mused O’Hara. ‘That alone would be worth it. All right, let’s try
it out.’
‘Just a minute,’ said Armstrong. ‘Is anything happening across there yet?’
O’Hara looked across the gorge; everything was still and quiet. ‘Nothing.’
‘I think we’d better wait until they start to do something,’ counselled Armstrong. ‘It’s my guess that the new arrivals and the old guard are in conference; they may take a while and there’s no point in breaking it up. Any time we gain is to our advantage, so let’s wait awhile.’
Benedetta, who was standing by quietly, now spoke. ‘Jenny hasn’t come back yet.’
O’Hara whirled. ‘Hasn’t she?’
Willis said, ‘Perhaps she’ll have been hit; that machinegun…’ His voice tailed away.
‘I’ll go and see,’ said Benedetta.
‘No,’ said O’Hara sharply. ‘I’ll go—she may need to be carried and you can’t do that. You’d better stay here on watch and the others can get on with repairing the trebuchet.’
He plunged away and ran across the level ground, skirting the bridgehead where there was no cover and began to clamber among the rocks on the other side, making his way downriver. He had a fair idea of the place Miss Ponsky would have taken and he made straight for it. As he went he swore and cursed under his breath; if she had been killed he would never forgive himself.
It took him over twenty minutes to make the journey—good time considering the ground was rough—but when he arrived at the most likely spot she was not there. But there were three bolts stuck point first in the ground and a small pool of sticky blood staining the rock.
He bent down and saw another blood-spot and then another. He followed this bloody spoor and back-tracked a hundred yards before he heard a weak groan and saw Miss Ponsky lying in the shadow of a boulder, her hand clutching her left shoulder. He dropped to his knee beside her and lifted her head. ‘Where were you hit, Jenny? In the shoulder?’
Her eyes flickered open and she nodded weakly.
‘Anywhere else?’
High Citadel / Landslide Page 19