by Jack Higgins
Alberto took a gun which was, I understood, his personal property - probably one of the most deadly hand-guns ever made: the Model 1932 Mauser machine-pistol, and he gave Pedro a .45 automatic to stick in his waistband under the ragged poncho he wore.
The interpreter was something of a surprise for I had expected at least some sign of his white blood and found none. He looked all Huna to me in spite of his white man's clothing.
To finish, Alberto produced a couple of Mills grenades, slipped one in his pocket and handed the other to me. 'Another little extra.' He smiled lightly. 'Just in case.'
There was some confused shouting outside. As we turned, the saloon door was flung open and Sergeant Lima stood there, mouth gaping.
'What is it, man?' Alberto demanded and Hannah produced the .45 automatic from his shoulder holster with a speed which could only indicate considerable practice.
'The holy Sister, Colonel,' Lima croaked. 'She has gone into the jungle.'
There was dead silence and Joanna Martin slumped into a chair and started to whisper a Hail Mary, probably for the first time in years.
Alberto said savagely, 'Good God, man, how could such a thing be? You were supposed to be guarding the deck. You were in command.'
'As God is my witness, Colonel.' Lima was obviously terrified. 'One second she was standing there, the next, she was over the rail and into the jungle before we realised what was happening.'
Which was too much, even for the kind of rigidly correct professional soldier that Alberto was. He slapped him backhanded across the face, threw him into a chair and turned to Hannah.
'Captain Hannah, you will oblige me by taking charge here. I suggest you keep the launch in midstream till our return. If this miserable specimen gives you even a hint of trouble, shoot him.' He turned to me. 'And now, my friend, I think we move very fast indeed.'
*
Pedro was first over the rail and Alberto and I were not far behind. The launch was already moving out into the current as we reached the edge of the forest. I glanced back over my shoulder, caught a glimpse of Hannah standing in the stern under the awning, a machine-gun in his hands, Joanna Martin at his shoulder. God knows why, but I waved, some sort of final gallant gesture, I suppose, then turned and plunged into that green darkness after Alberto.
As I have said, the track had been built wide enough to accommodate reasonably heavy traffic and I now discovered that it had exceptionally solid foundations, logs of ironwood, embedded into the soft earth for its entire length. The jungle had already moved in on it to a considerable extent, but it still gave a quick, clear passage through the kind of country that would have been about as penetrable as a thorn thicket to a white man.
The branches above were so thickly intertwined that virtually no rain got through and precious little light either. The gloom was quite extraordinary and rather eerie.
Pedro was well ahead, running very fast and soon disappeared from sight. I followed hard on Alberto's heels. After a while, we heard a cry and a few yards farther on found Pedro and Sister Maria Teresa standing together.
Alberto kept his temper remarkably under the circumstance. He simply said, 'This is foolishness of the worst kind, Sister. I must insist that you return with us at once.'
'And I, Colonel, am as equally determined to carry on,' she said.
I was aware of the forest foxes calling to each other in the jungle on either side and knew that it was already too late to go back, perhaps for all of us. The thing I was most conscious of was my contempt for her stupidity, a feeling not so much of anger, but of frustration at her and so many like her who out of their own pig-headed insistence on doing good ended up causing more harm than a dozen Avilas.
There was some sort of thud in the shadows a yard or two behind. My hand went through the slit in my pocket and found the grip and trigger guard of the Thompson. There was a Huna lance embedded in the earth beside the track, a necklace of monkey skulls hanging from it.
'What does it mean?' Sister Maria Teresa asked.
'That we are forbidden to go back,' Alberto said. 'The decision as to what to do with you is no longer mine to make, Sister. If it is of any consolation to you at all, you have probably killed us all.'
At the same moment, a drum started to boom hollowly in the middle distance.
*
We put a bold face on it, the only thing to do and moved on, Pedro in the lead, Sister Maria Teresa following. Alberto and I walked shoulder-to-shoulder at the rear.
We were not alone for the forest was alive with more than wild life. Birds coloured in every shade of the rainbow lifted out of the trees in alarm and not only at our passing. Parrots and macaws called angrily to each other.
'What did you say?' I murmured to Alberto. 'A chief and five elders?'
'Don't rub it in,' he said. 'I've a feeling this is going to get considerably worse before it gets better.'
The drum was louder now and somehow the fact that it echoed alone made it even more sinister. There was the scent of wood-smoke on the damp air and then the trees started to thin and suddenly it was lighter and then the gable of a house showed clear and then another.
Not that it surprised me for in the great days of the Brazilian rubber boom, so many millions were being made that some of the houses on the plantations up-country were small palaces, with owners so wealthy they could afford to pay private armies to defend them against the Indians. But not now. Those days were gone and Matamoros and places like it crumbled into the jungle a little bit more each year.
We emerged into a wide clearing, what was left of the house on the far side. The drumming stopped abruptly. Our hosts were waiting for us in the centre.
The cacique or chief was easily picked out and not only because he was seated on a log and had by far the most magnificent head-dress, a great spray of macaw feathers. He also sported a wooden disc in his lower lip which pushed it a good two inches out from his face, a sign of great honour amongst the Huna.
His friends were similarly dressed. Beautifully coloured feather head-dresses, a six-foot bow, a bark pouch of arrows, a spear in the right hand. Their only clothing, if that's what you could call it, was a bark penis sheath and various necklaces and similar ornaments of shells, stones or human bone.
The most alarming fact of all was that they were all painted for war, the entire skin surface being coated with an ochre-coloured mud peculiar to that section of the river. They were angry and showed it, hopping from one foot to the other, rattling on at each other like a bunch of old women in the curiously sibilant whispering that passed for speech amongst them and the anger on their flat, sullen faces was as the rage of children and as unpredictable in its consequences.
The chief let loose a broadside. Pedro said, 'He wants to know why the holy lady and Senhor Mallory are here? He's very worried. I'm not sure why.'
'Maybe he intended to have us killed out of hand,' I said to Alberto, 'and her presence has thrown him off balance.'
He nodded and said to Pedro, 'Translate as I speak. Tell him the Huna have killed for long enough. It is time for peace.'
Which provoked another outburst, the general gist of which was that the white men had started it in the first place which entitled the Huna to finish. If all the white men went from the Huna lands, then things might be better.
Naturally Alberto couldn't make promises of that kind and in any case, he was committed to a pretty attacking form of argument. The Huna had raided the mission at Santa Helena, had murdered Father Conte and many nuns.
The chief tried to deny this although he didn't stand much of a chance of being believed with a nun's rosary and crucifix hanging around his neck. His elders shuffled from foot to foot again, scowling like schoolboys in front of the headmaster so Alberto piled on the pressure. They had already seen what the government could do. Did they wish the white man's great bird to drop more fire from the sky on their villages?
One by one, more Indians had been emerging from the forest into the clearing. I
had been aware of this for some time and so had Alberto, but he made no reference to it. They pressed closer, hanging together in small groups, shouting angrily. I won't say working up their courage for fear didn't enter their thinking.
I glanced once at Sister Maria Teresa and found her - how can I explain it? - transfixed, hands clasped as if in prayer, eyes shining with compassion, presumably for these brands to be plucked from the flames.
It was round about then that Alberto raised the question of the two missing nuns. The response was almost ludicrous in its simplicity. From denying any part in the attack on Santa Helena in the first place, the chief now just as vehemently denied taking any female captives. All had been killed except for those who had got away.
Which was when Alberto told him he was lying because no one had got away. The chief jumped up for the first time and loosed off another broadside, stabbing his finger repeatedly at Pedro. I noticed the outsiders had crept in closer now in a wide ring which effectively cut off our retreat to the forest.
Alberto gave me a cigarette and lit one himself nonchalantly. 'It gets worse by the minute. He called me here to kill me, I am certain of that now. How many do you make it out there?'
'At least fifty.'
'I may have to kill someone to encourage the others. Will you back me?'
Before I could reply, the chief shouted again. Pedro said, 'He's getting at me now. He says I've betrayed my people.'
In the same moment an arrow hissed through the rain and buried itself in his right thigh. He dropped to one knee with a cry and two of the elders raised their spears to throw, howling in unison.
I had already unbuttoned the front of my oilskin coat in readiness for something like this, but I was too slow. Alberto drew and fired the Mauser very fast, shooting them both in the body two or three times, the heavy bullets lifting them off their feet.
The rest turned and ran and I loosed off a quick burst to send them on their way, deliberately aiming to one side, ripping up the earth in fountains of dirt and stone.
Within seconds there was not an Indian to be seen. Their voices rose angrily from the jungle all the way round the clearing. When I turned, Pedro was on his feet, Sister Maria Teresa crouched beside him tugging at the arrow. 'You're wasting your time, Sister,' I told her. 'Those things are barbed. He'll need surgery to get the arrowhead out.'
'He's right,' Pedro said, and reached down and snapped off the shaft as close to his thigh as possible.
'Right, let's get moving,' Alberto said. 'And be prepared to pick up your skirts and run if you want to live, Sister.'
'A moment, please, Colonel.'
One of the two men he had shot was already dead, but the other was having a hard time of it, blood bubbling between his lips with each breath. To my astonishment she knelt beside him, folded her hands and began to recite the prayers for the dying.
'Go Christian soul from this world, in the name of God the Father Almighty who created thee...'
Her voice moved on, Alberto shrugged helplessly and removed his cap. I followed suit with some reluctance, aware of the shrill cries of rage from the forest, thinking of that half-mile of green tunnel to the jetty. It suddenly came to me, with a sense of surprise, that I was very probably going to die.
Amazing what a difference that made. I was aware of the rain, warm and heavy, the blood on the dying man's mouth. No colour had ever seemed richer. The green of the trees, the heavy scent of wood-smoke from somewhere near at hand.
Was there much to regret? Not really. I had done what I wanted to do against all advice and every odds possible and it had been worth it. I could have been a junior partner in my father's law firm now and safe at home, but I had chosen to go to the margin of things. Well, so be it...
The Huna's final breath eased out in a dying fall, Sister Maria Teresa finished her prayers, stood up and turned her shining face towards us.
'I am ready now, gentlemen.'
I was no longer angry. There was no point. I simply took her arm and pushed her after Alberto who had turned and started towards the beginning of the track, Pedro limping beside him.
As we approached the forest I half expected a hail of arrows, but nothing came. Pedro said, 'They will wait for us on the track, Colonel. Play with us for a while. It is their way.'
Alberto paused and turned to me. 'You agree with him?'
I nodded. 'They like their fun. It's a game to them, remember. They'll probably try to frighten us to death for most of the way and actually strike when we think we are safe, close to the river.'
'I see. So the main thing to remember is to walk for most of the way and run like hell over the last section?'
'Exactly.'
He turned to Sister Maria Teresa. 'You heard, Sister?'
'We are in God's hands,' she said with that saintly smile of hers.
'And God helps those who help themselves,' Alberto told her.
A group of Indians had filtered out of the forest perhaps fifty yards to the right. He took his Mills bomb from his pocket, pulled the pin and threw it towards them. They were hopelessly out of range, but the explosion had a more than salutary effect. They vanished into the forest and all voices were stilled.
'By God, I may have stumbled on something,' he said. 'Let them sample yours also, my friend.'
I tossed it into the middle of the clearing, there was a satisfactorily loud explosion, birds lifted angrily out of the trees, but not one single human voice was to be heard.
'You like to pray, Sister?' Alberto said, taking her by the arm. 'Well, pray that silence lasts us to the jetty.'
It was, of course, too much to expect. The Huna were certainly cowed by the two explosions, it was the only explanation for their lack of activity, but not for long. We made it to the halfway mark and beyond in silence and then the forest foxes started to call to each other.
There was more than that, of course. The rattle of spear shafts drummed against war clubs, shrill, bird-like cries in the distance, bodies crashing through the undergrowth.
But I could hear the rushing of the river, smell the dank rottenness of it and there was hope in that.
The sounds in the undergrowth on either side were closer now and parallel. We had a couple of hundred yards to go, no more, and there was the feeling that perhaps they were moving in for the kill.
Alberto said, 'I'll take the left, you take the right, Mallory. When I give the word let them have a couple of bursts then we all run.'
Even then, I didn't think we stood much of a chance, but there wasn't really much else we could do. I didn't hear what he shouted because he seemed to be firing that machine-pistol of his in the same instant. I swung, crouching, the Thompson gun bucking in my hands as I sprayed the foliage on my side.
We certainly hit something to judge by the cries, but I didn't stop to find out and ran like hell after Pedro and Sister Maria Teresa. For a man with an arrowhead embedded in his thigh he was doing remarkably well although I presume the prospect of what would happen to him if he fell into their hands alive was having a salutary effect.
The cries were all around us again now. I fired sideways, still running and was aware of another sound, the steady rattle of a Lewis gun. A moment later we broke out on to the river-bank in time to see the launch moving in fast, Hannah himself working the gun in the prow.
I think it was about then that the arrows started to come, swishing through the trees one after the other, never in great numbers. One buried itself in the ground in front of me, another took Pedro full in the back, driving him forward. He spun round, took another in the chest and fell on his back.
I kept on running, ducking and weaving, for this was no place for heroes now, aware of the shooting from the launch, the hands helping Sister Maria Teresa over the rail. As Alberto followed her, an arrow pierced his left forearm. The force must have been considerable for he stumbled, dropping his Mauser into the river and I grabbed his other arm and shoved him over the rail. As I followed, I heard Hannah cry out, the engine
note deepened and we started to pull away from the jetty.
Alberto staggered to his feet and in the same moment, one of his men cried out and pointed. I turned to see Pedro on his hands and knees like a dog back there on the landing stage, the stump of an arrow shaft protruding from his back. Behind him, the Huna broke from the forest howling like wolves.
Alberto snapped the shaft of the arrow in his arm with a convulsive movement, pulled it out and grabbed a rifle from the nearest man. Then he took careful aim and shot Pedro in the head.
The launch turned downstream. Alberto threw the rifle on the deck and grabbed Sister Maria Teresa by the front of her habit, shaking her in helpless rage. 'Who killed him, Sister, you or me? Tell me that? Something else for you to pray about.'
She gazed up at him mutely, a kind of horror on her face. Perhaps for the first time in her saintly life she was realising that evil as the result of good intentions is just as undesirable, but I doubt it in view of subsequent events.
As for Alberto, it was as if something went out of him. He pushed her away and said in the tiredest voice I've ever heard, 'Get away from me and stay away.'
He turned and lurched along the deck.
TEN
Just One of those Things
I came awake slowly, not at all certain that I was still alive and found myself in my hammock in the hangar at Landro. The kettle was boiling away on the spirit stove. Mannie was sitting beside it reading a book.
'Is it any good?' I asked him.
He turned, peering over the top of cheap spectacles at me, then closed the book, stood up and came forward, genuine concern in his eyes.
'Heh, what were you trying to do? Frighten me?'
'What happened?'
'You went out like a light, that's what happened, just after getting out of the plane. We carted you in here and Sister Maria Teresa had a look at you.'
'What did she have to say?'
'Some kind of reaction to too much stress was all she could come up with. You crowded a lot of living into a small space in time today, boy.'