by Penny Jordan
‘Looks as if our transport has just arrived,’ George commented. Outside the hotel were two Land Rovers, equipped with extra seats, and open to the fresh air.
‘Everyone ready?’
Everyone was. The quartet were first at the Land Rovers, followed by the young honeymoon couple. Tamara was about to sit beside them when the guide prevented her.
‘You sit in next one,’ he told her. ‘I sit here,’ and she had perforce to join Dot and George in the rear Land Rover, her heart thumping uncomfortably when Zachary Fletcher slid his long length in beside her.
There wasn’t a lot of room in the vehicle; Dot and George were both inclined to plumpness, and Tamara could feel the heat of Zachary Fletcher’s thigh burning through the thin fabric of her jeans. She tried to move away surreptitiously, but it was impossible to do so without squashing up to George.
The guide climbed into the foremost Land Rover and shouted something to the driver and they were off.
The road leading from the hotel complex was smooth and well tarmacked, but the moment they turned off it they were on a road which by the looks of it had been neglected for years. As the wheels of the Land Rover plunged into a huge pothole Tamara was flung bodily against Zachary Fletcher. It was like running full tilt into a stone wall, she thought breathlessly as his arm came out to save her and she was held against the hard, muscled wall of his chest and the taut flatness of his belly. It could only have been seconds before he released her, but they were the longest seconds of Tamara’s life. The heat of him seemed to burn right through her thin clothes, imprinting itself against her body. Scarlet colour ran up under her skin as she realised that just as she had been aware of the male contours of his body so he must have felt the soft fullness of her breasts.
‘Tamara, are you all right?’
Dot’s anxious query intruded on her thoughts. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured her, adding formally, ‘Thank you, Mr Fletcher. I was caught off guard.’
There was something distinctly enigmatical about the look he gave her. ‘It happens to us all,’ she was assured, ‘and please … call me Zach, Tamara.’
‘Oh, just look at that view!’ Dot exclaimed, drawing attention away from Tamara’s faintly flushed cheeks. ‘Have you ever been to the Caribbean before, Zach?’
‘No.’
All of them looked to their right, where the ground fell away to the sea, a vivid and impossible blue melting into lilac mists on the horizon.
‘It’s so beautiful!’ Dot sighed.
‘But very poor,’ George reminded her. ‘I can’t get over the poverty in which a lot of the islanders still live. When you’re here you begin to understand the pull Communism has for some of these people.’
‘You’re right,’ Zach agreed. ‘Already there are strong left-wing groups in all the Caribbean islands. They get their education and training in Cuba, and unless the West starts sitting up and taking notice we’re going to wake up one day and find we’ve lost the Caribbean to Castro.’
‘Oh, no politics, please!’ Dot protested. ‘Let’s not spoil our holiday! Tamara, just look at that building perched down there on the hillside. It looks as though it’s amost ready to fall into the sea!’
It was quite a long drive to the beginning of the rain forest, made worse by the appalling condition of the roads. Although St Stephen’s was one of the largest of the Caribbean islands, it had been very badly neglected; however, the hotel manager had told Tamara that they were hoping that the revenue from tourists would help to improve the facilities of the island.
The plain which stretched from the coast to the rain forest was dotted with banana plantations, the island’s main crop, and after a while the novelty of seeing the fruit protected from the insects by bright blue plastic bags began to wear off. The closer they got to their destination the more aware Tamara became of a certain tension in the man seated on her left. There was nothing in the relaxed manner in which he lounged in his seat to betray any emotion. His face was slightly averted as though he were studying the countryside, so that all Tamara could see was the taut line of his jaw and the dark hair growing low in his nape, but the aura of tension emanating from him was unmistakable; she could feel her own nerve endings shivering in primeval response, and she wondered what was wrong.
‘Oh, that must be the restaurant,’ Dot commented when a solitary building appeared on the edge of the plain just where the volcanic mountains rose steeply to the sky, their sides clothed in thick tropical vegetation.
The plain itself seemed to be completely bereft of dwellings of any sort, although one or two dusty cart tracks looked as though they must lead to either villages or houses.
‘Most of the plantation owners built their homes on the Atlantic side of the island,’ Zach explained when Tamara commented on the uninhabited landscape. ‘It was considered to be healthier and less likely to be attacked by pirates.’
His face seemed to relax a little as he spoke to her, the bones softening a little from their previous fixed rigidity, and then the Land Rovers started to climb up towards the restaurant.
Made of wood, its original green paint had long ago faded to a dull olive, and inside, despite the overhead fans, the air was thick and clammy. Tamara had never felt less like food, and while the other members of the party settled themselves at the long trestle tables she went back outside, finding it both cooler and fresher.
‘Not hungry?’
She hadn’t realised that Zach Fletcher had followed her, but shook her head mutely, unwilling to admit to the momentary weakness which had overcome her inside the restaurant.
‘Me neither.’
The admission surprised her and her expression betrayed the fact. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked grimly. ‘Aren’t insensitive brutes like me allowed to have normal feelings?’
‘I never said …’ Tamara began defensively, but he cut her short, and mocked, ‘You never said, no. You didn’t need to, those eyes of yours say it all. Quite a contradiction, aren’t you? On the one hand we have the modern, liberated young woman, holidaying apart from her … fiancé, and yet those eyes could belong to a sheltered novice, with no more idea of modern mores than a babe in arms.’
‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ve decided that I’ll have something to eat after all,’ Tamara said pointedly, brushing past him, but once inside the restaurant she could do no more than drink a glass of lemonade and toy with the salad she had ordered.
It was after two o’clock when their guide preceded them along one of the paths leading from the restaurant up into the mountains.
Within half an hour Tamara was perspiring heavily, glad of her cotton tee-shirt, and she wasn’t the only one. Everyone seemed to be feeling the effects of the intense humidity, even, to her surprise, Zach Fletcher, whose shirt front was dark as his perspiration soaked into it, and yet unlike the other men he made no move to either roll up the long sleeves or discard the shirt altogether. Perhaps it was because he knew how darkly attractive he looked in the black shirt and pants, Tamara thought acidly, instantly dismissing the thought as stupid; he wasn’t the sort of man who needed to attract female attention by dressing dramatically; even in the same type of floral bermudas and shirts favoured by some of the more flamboyant guests, any woman worthy of the name would give him a second look.
The deeper they progressed into the forest, the more closely entwined were the trees; mahogany predominant among them; vines twining chokingly around them, dead and decaying vegetation lining the forest floor, the sweet rotting smell making Tamara long for a breath of clean, fresh air. Once or twice their guide stopped to point out to them an orchid, growing among the rampant greenery, and occasionally the laboured sound of their breathing was broken by the shrill screech of a parrot, although they never actually glimpsed the birds. On several occasions they could hear the sound of water, but they never came in sight of any of the streams which the guide told them ran through the forest, with apparently spectacular waterfalls in places.
Tamara regre
tted her decision to join the walk; there was something oppressive and unwholesome about the forest and its environs, something that made her flinch and long to be out in the open once more.
At her side Zach seemed to be having no problem in keeping up with the others, despite his claim that he was recuperating from an accident, but at one point when the guide called a halt and Sue shrieked out suddenly when she caught sight of a small lizard, Tamara, who had been looking in Zach’s direction, saw him pale suddenly beneath his tan, perspiration beading his skin, his fingers curling into his thigh.
‘Are you all right?’ Her low, impulsive question seemed to free him from whatever had held him in its grip, because his face suddenly seemed to relax.
‘Fine,’ he assured her hardily. ‘Come on, I think our guide’s ready.’
They tramped through the forest for over two hours, Tamara steadily growing more and more oppressed by the entwining branches blotting out so much of the sunlight, and the heavy, unreal atmosphere around them. It was almost as though she had stepped into one of the enchanted forests of her childhood, and now, as then, fear mingled with the feeling of unreality.
They had climbed quite steeply, the path sometimes so narrow that they had to walk in single file. At one point, as promised, the rain suddenly started to fall, in saturating sheets which penetrated even the thickness of the vegetation, and the guide, who had come prepared, handed out umbrellas, large enough for two people to shelter under together.
Tamara shared hers with Zach, marvelling at the abruptness with which the rain came and went.
‘It’s something you get used to,’ Zach told her laconically, causing her to comment in surprise, ‘You said you hadn’t been to the Caribbean before.’
‘I haven’t, but one jungle’s very much like another.’
He didn’t say anything more and Tamara had the conviction that subject was not one he wished to take any further. For some reason they seemed to have been teamed together for the walk possibly because everyone else was already with somebody, and she wished passionately that she had never decided to participate in the walk. She didn’t like the atmosphere pervading the forest and she didn’t like the prickles of awareness she experienced every time some inadvertent movement brought her into physical contact with Zach Fletcher.
He glanced at his watch and frowned.
‘We ought to be heading back. There’s no dusk as we know it at home here. Another couple of hours and it will be fully dark.’
He walked forward, catching hold of the guide’s arm, and spoke to him. The guide shook his head vehemently.
‘No turn back yet,’ he told Zach. ‘Soon, but not yet. Not much further now,’ he added with the air of a commander urging his flagging troops to greater effort.
‘How much further can “not much” be?’ Sue groaned when they had walked for another fifteen minutes. ‘I’m bushed!’
Tamara could only agree. She felt hot and sticky and was longing for a cooling shower. Perspiration had darkened the front of her hair, and her mouth felt dry. She was also beginning to regret the lunch she had refused, distinct pangs of hunger assailing her. She had some biscuits in her bag, but it was too much effort to put it down and search for them. Everyone else seemed tired too; everyone, that was, apart from Zach, who despite the sweat stains marring his shirt, still seemed able to keep up with their guide without flagging.
Ahead of her Tamara saw the guide stop. They had reached a small clearing where a fallen tree had created a tiny space.
With groans of relief the small party came to a standstill, with the exception of the guide, who for some reason appeared to be slightly nervous. Tamara watched him as his eyes darted round the clearing as though looking for something. Zach wandered over to her side.
‘Something wrong?’
He too was watching the guide, and although he hid it well Tamara thought she glimpsed a certain disquiet in his eyes, before he veiled them and said smoothly, ‘Ready for the return journey? I—’
He broke off suddenly as the clearing was invaded by half a dozen men carrying machine guns and dressed in camouflage fatigues.
At her side Tamara heard Zach swear under his breath, and then they were being herded together like so many cattle, the muzzle of one gun pressing icily against Tamara’s throat as she stumbled over an exposed tree root.
‘Just what the hell is all this about?’ Zach addressed the question to the man who was obviously in charge of the small group, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to take command; none of the other men challenged his right to do so, and Tamara suspected they were all, like her, too dazed, to think of asking the question ‘why’.
Motioning to them to keep still with his gun, the man came forward while two of his men menaced them with raised guns.
‘You are to be held hostage until our Government releases the men it wrongly imprisoned six months ago,’ they were told in excellent English. ‘It is time the rest of the world knew what is happening here in the Caribbean. We are tired of incompetent capitalism, governments who allow us to starve, who refused to educate children above the age of fourteen, who condemn their own people to a life of poverty and degradation.’
‘Holding us hostage would not alter anything,’ Zach told him. ‘But if you release us without harm now, I promise you that we will make sure that you are allowed to put your view to your Government.’
None of them moved a muscle. They were all looking to Zach to provide a lead they could follow. Tamara couldn’t believe it was actually happening. She looked round for their guide, but he was nowhere to be seen. Dot was clutching George’s arm, her face pale and strained. The two honeymooners were in each other’s arms, while Sue and Heather moved a little closer to their husbands. Only she had no one to turn to.
‘Yes, and then they would throw us in prison with our comrades,’ the guerrilla sneered. ‘No, my friend, we need you too much to release you. Without you our Government will never set our comrades free; they will be shot. Come …’ he ordered roughly, ‘we have four hours’ march ahead of us. It will be at least that time before your hotel raises the alert, and by then they will have no chance of finding you. Very few people know this forest as well as Kennedy here does,’ he told them, with a jerk of his gun in the direction of a grim-faced islander, one of the two who was standing over them with a gun.
Out of the corner of her eye Tamara saw Heather sway towards Chris, her face paper-white.
‘Oh, God help us, Chris,’ she moaned softly. ‘What are we going to do?’
Her words seemed to release a wave of panic over all of them. Tamara herself shivered uncontrollably despite the clammy heat; only Zach remaining cool and controlled in the face of their predicament.
‘Come,’ the leader of the guerrillas commanded. ‘It is time to leave.’
‘You can’t get away with this!’ Alex Browne protested in a tight voice. ‘The English Government …’
‘Is many thousands of miles away, my friend,’ the guerrilla mocked him, ‘and the time when nations were prepared to risk any confrontation for the sake of their subjects is long past. Your Government will do nothing for you …’
‘And neither will yours for you!’ George burst out. His skin had an unhealthy purplish tinge and Tamara saw Dot reach out towards him, shaking her head warningly.
‘It’s his blood pressure,’ she murmured to Tamara, adding in terror, ‘Oh, my God, what’s going to happen to us?’
‘You cannot expect us to walk as fast as your men,’ Zach pointed out to the guerrilla. ‘If you intend to take us all hostage you will have to keep us alive—your Government will never hand over your comrades in return for lifeless bodies, and if you want to keep us alive you will have to make allowances …’
The islander frowned, appearing to consider Zach’s statement, and then turned and said something in a rapid patois to one of his companions, who shrugged and grimaced.
‘We cannot afford to waste time,’ he told Zach.
‘And neither can you afford to take risks with our lives,’ Zach reiterated smoothly. ‘Wouldn’t it be simpler to just take one of us hostage, while allowing the rest to go free? Especially if we were to guarantee that your story was printed in the British newspapers; that way your cause would receive far greater publicity than it would simply by holding us to ransom. Your own Government is hardly likely to make public the knowledge that people cannot holiday safely on St Stephen’s.’
Tamara held her breath while the guerrilla leader consulted with his companions. Would he accept Zach’s suggestion? She had no doubt that if he did, Zach intended to be the one to volunteer to remain behind, and she wondered if she had been mistaken after all, and he was in some way connected with the Army. It wasn’t a question she could ask.
The sun was dropping swiftly towards the horizon, fear an almost tangible emotion in the small clearing as they waited for the guerrillas’ decision.
‘You,’ their leader commanded roughly, turning back to Zach, ‘do you give your word that what we want will receive publicity?’
‘Whoever said that the pen is mightier than the sword knew what life was all about,’ Zach muttered sardonically under his breath to Tamara, as he inclined his head, and then looked across at George.
‘Mr Partington will inform the British Consul of what has happened and of our bargain—the freedom of my companions in return for publicising your cause.’
‘Our Government has no wish to quarrel with Britain and is sure to release our comrades once it is known that we hold a British hostage.’
Tamara wasn’t so sure. There had been several cases in the Press recently where lone Britons had been kidnapped and held for many months without the Government doing anything to negotiate their freedom. Or at least that was the way it seemed on the surface.