The Three Sentinels

by Geoffrey Household

  ‘Did they know Lorenzo has disappeared?’

  ‘No. I reported it to Police Headquarters as a matter of routine of no special importance. A piece of paper filed away until I add to the dossier.’

  ‘Since you left I have it from a reliable source that Lorenzo somehow misunderstood instructions and could not find the right place.’

  ‘It does not matter. They will send the man who hid the explosives to collect them. All he needs is a truck.’

  ‘How will he come?’

  ‘By fishing boat. That’s how he brought them in.’

  ‘Where did they get this fellow from?’

  ‘They did not tell me and I could not ask too many questions. But there is a discreet surveillance of visitors to the Union office, and I felt sure I could identify him from the files.’

  González pulled out his notebook.

  ‘Here, Don Mateo, we have him without any ifs or perhapses. Inocencio Velez Garcia. Age 41. Born Barcelona. Anarchist and dinamitero. Republican refugee. Employed during the war by British agents in Valparaiso. Believed to have been secretly trained by them. In hospital 1949 for extraction of three machine pistol bullets. Claimed he had no enemies and must have been mistaken for someone else. Communist agents suspected. 1952 arrested for bank robbery. Unshakeable alibi and case dismissed. Witnesses bought by funds of unknown origin. Present employment: watch repairer. Known in his own circles as El Vicario.’

  ‘Sounds as if he gave good value for money,’ Mat said. ‘Why should he agree to come and collect the stuff? If police want a chat with him they have only to catch him unloading.’

  ‘The property of the Union, not his.’

  ‘And they are above the law?’

  ‘Provided they have a good enough story. Besides that, Don Mateo, I have assured them in your name that we do not want to know how their property got there or what it was for.’

  All satisfactory so far as it went. Mat was thankful that he had persuaded Rafael Garay to post the guard on the Charca. That was checkmate if there were any attempt at a double-cross by the Union or their expert from Barcelona.

  Nowhere else, however, was there any simplicity. The foreground of the picture was unfinished, blank as the face of the Cordillera. He had little doubt that Lorenzo had been murdered. The Union was the likely culprit. On the other hand González was sure they knew nothing, and he was not easily fooled. Yet Lorenzo’s disappearance must somehow be connected with the explosives.

  ‘What’s your plan when the fishing boat arrives?’ he asked González. ‘I’ve been the hell of a lot of things, but never a gun-runner in or out.’

  ‘We should not show ourselves at all. The Company and the police must not be involved. When the boxes are safely on board I will check the contents and get the boat away immediately.’

  ‘I think we should promise Inocencio something in cash over and above the Union rate for the job. Have you any idea how much of it there is?’

  ‘A hundred and fifty kilos, they said—plus his own refinements.’

  ‘Refinements. Yes. Your watch repairer would have been safely away by the time that little lot went up.’

  ‘Can your reliable source help us any more?’

  ‘No,’ Mat replied rather too bluntly.

  ‘It is true that at that age the more one interrogates the less sense one gets.’

  Mat was amused by the acute and accurate guess, but did not comment on it. Police captains, in his experience, could never resist showing off their cunning once they had been admitted to intimacy.

  ‘Do you think it safe to question Delgado?’ he asked. ‘He genuinely wants peace.’

  ‘He wants his chance and has got it.’

  ‘You don’t approve?’

  ‘Me? I am a shadow, Don Mateo, careful to whose feet I attach myself. There are men such as yourself and Garay who do not seek power but have it. There are politicians like Delgado who want it for its own sake. He is a crook and in your hands.’

  ‘A good reason for telling the truth?’

  ‘In my business, none better.’

  It was always a relief to be able to talk openly with Gil Delgado. Daily he paced in and out of headquarters, belly swinging, ready to be ingratiating with anyone but Gateson. Mat agreed with González’s reading of him. His game was to emerge as the leader who had brought peace and so to become the unchallengeable representative of the Cabo Desierto workers. That could well lead to a position of national importance; in Delgado there was another Dave Gunner on the way up. He was quite ruthless enough to deal with Lorenzo without any sense of guilt, but it was hard to see how that uniformed dummy could ever have been an obstacle to his plans.

  Mat received him in the conference room rather than his office, emphasizing that they talked as equal to equal with a common interest. He had noticed that the padded chairs and polished table had an excellent effect on Delgado who already felt himself the politician among lawyers and engineers. Sherry of course improved his manners, but not so much as the decanter and cut glasses. And very rightly!

  In the event of a clash what arms had Rafael Garay? Very few, Delgado replied, but no one should underrate iron bars and knives. Explosives? Yes, a few dozen sticks of dynamite and some detonators, but no plans for using them beyond poking them into scraps of pipe. Had Rafael any secret stock? None at all, Delgado answered positively; he would have known about it.

  ‘Rafael will never attack his comrades or you, Don Mateo, provided we go slow. But give him an excuse to fight and he will take it.’

  That was good advice and sincere. In the easy atmosphere Mat risked the direct question.

  ‘Have you any idea what could have happened to Lorenzo, Don Gil?’

  ‘I suspect that he knew too much for his health. He was always with Birenfield—the pair of them in enough mud to drown a cat.’

  ‘It could be Garay?’

  ‘Not for a moment! Rafael is a Quixote. Violent, yes, but more Christian than the Christians.’

  ‘All the same, rumour has it that he fired those two shots at Birenfield.’

  ‘He did, but not to kill.’

  ‘And you still think I can get the men back to work without bloodshed?’

  ‘Of course! They’ll get tired of it, man. All this for some women and children, which was only an accident!’

  So that was now Delgado’s attitude! To Mat the Company’s cheating of their men was still unforgiveable; to refrain from saying what he thought had needed more self-control than any of his guarded moves to undo the damage. Humanity—one despaired of it! Delgado’s ‘only an accident’ was as damnable as Dave Gunner’s ‘only foreigners’. Garay and his party were utterly wrong-headed, and it was not at all more Christian than Christians to allow resentment and vengeance to overcome common sense; but for themselves there was nothing to be gained except a poor living off the land. That was to be respected.

  The days which followed were the worst that Cabo Desierto had given him. When the boycott committee accepted his proposals congratulations had poured in from London and the Capital, but now the high hopes had led to nothing. Only force could shift Rafael Garay and his toughs from the key installations of the field and the Three Sentinels. Delgado was probably right in maintaining that the militants would dwindle away, but meanwhile he was helpless.

  Disappointment was at its most bitter on the field. He was blamed for not calling in the army. Gateson had let slip the plan to empty the Charca and whispered that Mat himself had prevented it. Even Ray Thorpe was impatient and for the first time in favour of machine guns. None of them could honestly say ‘I told you so’, but the four words haunted his loneliness as if they had.

  It was with a feeling of holiday that he joined González at the port to observe the arrival of the Rosita and that watch-repairing El Vicario. The operation was of minor importance compared to starting the flow of the Three Sentinels down to the sea but at least provided an illusion of action. At four in the afternoon he had seen from his ocean grand
stand of a window a black speck on the horizon which had to be the fishing boat. When he reached the customs shed she was in sight at sea level, and ten minutes later the thudding of the Diesel could be heard. So silent was the town that he could detect the beat echoing back from the sharp slope of the ridge. Human beings were sweating out the last hour of siesta; their stillness emphasised the other interminable silence of the field and its machinery.

  Rosita rounded the breakwater with two alarming rolls, like a drunken sailor keeping balance and a purposeful course in spite of his legs, and tied up close under the customs shed, her deck just below the level of the quay. Three men began to discharge her boxes of fish. It was not a big catch, but seemed to be very fresh and of a quality better suited to the Capital than Cabo Desierto. Meanwhile the master walked into the port offices to report his arrival and telephone the buyers in the market.

  Watching through the window of González’s office, Mat remarked:

  ‘A retired naval officer who deliberately hasn’t shaved for two days?’

  ‘Possibly. But two of the crew must be genuine fishermen. Last time the fish was bought, not caught, and they hadn’t enough ice.’

  ‘Which is the expert?’

  ‘He must be the little one.’

  That was obvious when one looked closely at the three men sitting on the edge of the empty fish hold. Though the slenderness of the Spaniard, the colour of his skin and his bared, muscular arms were not very different from those of his mestizo companions, he lacked their softness of outline. He was tense rather than thin all the way from forehead to feet.

  ‘You had better go back now, Don Mateo, before the buyers arrive.’

  Certainly it would be wise. If things went badly wrong and the General Manager was down at the port for no apparent reason, everyone would assume that he was implicated.

  ‘How long will El Vicario take?’

  ‘He will go up after dark and should be back in an hour.’

  ‘They’ll be seen loading the boxes on board.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. With all four at work it should not take them more than three minutes—then cast off and away!’

  ‘What will you say the boxes are, if asked?’

  ‘Ice from the market in their own containers. That’s what they told me and why should I bother?’

  ‘A damned unlikely story!’

  ‘Of course. So people will assume it is one of my rackets and settle for that.’

  ‘Let me know as soon as Rosita is clear! I shall be at my house.’

  Mat drove back to headquarters and signed a mass of correspondence, none of which had anything to do with oil or the men who refused to handle it. Law, houses, land—he might as well, he thought, have been a smart estate agent flogging properties for retirement. Sun-drenched plot with uninterrupted views over the Pacific. Money back if it rains more than once a year. Company’s water, provided organised labour doesn’t blow it up.

  ‘Pilar, do you consider all your police to be crooks?’

  ‘You know they are.’

  ‘Can you think of any racket that González could possibly be in?’

  ‘He hasn’t much opportunity at Cabo Desierto, but I suppose we could frame him if we have to.’

  Not much of grandee ethics in that! Well, she must be excused for the sake of the unquestioning loyalty in the ‘we’. He felt a sudden access of pity for poor, cynical González who saw so clearly that in any dubious intrigue he could be left holding the baby. The captain’s unreserved trust, which had often seemed a mere frightened choice of the right protector, was really a great compliment.

  He went home after dark and relaxed over his long evening drinks on the verandah where he was within easy reach of the telephone. It refused to ring before, during or after dinner. Several times he left the table and went out into the darkness to look for Rosita’s triangle of lights which should be visible when she was a mile or so out from Cabo Desierto.

  Pepe came in to clear away the coffee bearing a message from Amelia that she hoped there was nothing wrong with the steak of barracuda in his favourite salsa verde.

  ‘I told her that your mind was on business and you were always looking out of the window,’ Pepe said. ‘But she had to know.’

  Business, yes. No feeling of holiday now. This secret removal of the gelignite and its temptations was vital to success.

  At last he was sure that he saw Rosita, though there were no points of red or green. The white masthead light vanished as soon as spotted—only the phosphorescence, perhaps, of some great tail flicking the water. Soon afterwards González called to say that their friend was not yet back. Underlying his discretion there seemed to be a note of worry.

  It was nearly midnight when González himself came up to the house with the news that the truck was back, empty, in the same obscure lane from which it had been taken. He could not understand it. Nothing should have gone wrong.

  Inocencio had lived up to his name. He drifted off about seven o’clock, went to the fishing crews’ usual taverna for a drink and a snack, walked up the main street in pretended search of amusement and drifted down again to the port. There González intercepted him and discreetly slipped him the extra payment which had been gratefully received. The man appeared trustworthy and confident.

  After leaving González he walked past the parked truck without looking at it and then, as if struck by its convenience, turned back into the darkness between the truck and a blank wall where he had a leisurely pee. That finished without any disturbance or any passer-by, he jumped straight into the cab of the truck and was away. A police patrol concealed near the road junction between the ridges reported that he had driven through to the old field. That was all González needed to know and he had withdrawn the patrol.

  ‘What have you done with the truck?’

  ‘Put it in with my police vehicles and been all over it.’

  ‘Any sign of a struggle?’

  ‘None yet. All I can tell you so far is that he never loaded the explosives. There are oil and gravel on the floor of the truck, but no marks of boxes.’

  ‘And the boat?’

  ‘Still in port. The master is protesting about staying overnight, but I have told him that he must.’

  Mat gave orders that in the morning the old field had to be thoroughly searched by the police. Secrecy could no longer be preserved, for somebody must know exactly what they were seeking. That somebody might be an unexpected Union agent or Rafael Garay or even Gateson. But there was an excellent excuse for the rest of Cabo Desierto. The Company and the police were looking for the body of Lorenzo.

  Under some boards. That was the only clue. Ray Thorpe, let into the secret of the real object of the search, was sure that he had never ordered any hole to be boarded over; but anyone could have made a quick, strong job of it with duckboards or planks from shed floors and drilling platforms. He would have a record of any sizeable object or engine which had been removed during the actual closing down of the field. Before that, when the field had been in full production, swoppings and shiftings of machinery had been of almost weekly occurrence. His diary might be helpful and he would look, but he would probably come up with scores of possible holes.

  Without any rain to wear away the ground, the year-old footmarks of Thorpe’s gangs remained much as they had been made. They could be deep in oily sand or stand out on a rock as if they had been painted black or leave a vaguely foot-shaped mat of gravel and oil. There were impressions of a child’s foot confirming the presence of Chepe. He seemed to have been accompanied by an adult and to have wandered about among the ranks of the thirties. That this was the right quarter was corroborated by prints of Lorenzo’s boots, the soles of which were known and entirely different from the rubber boots or canvas shoes of the oil workers. There were signs that he had once walked from the road into the fifties. Chepe, too, had once gone some way in that direction. But there was no doubt at all that their main search had been in and around the thirties.


  Inocencio Vélez García, alias El Vicario, had disappeared as completely as Lorenzo. To Mat it seemed highly probable that he was at large and planning to get clear of Cabo Desierto by the overland route for good reasons of his own. He was the sort of wiry, desertworthy fellow who would take the risk, especially if he had a partner ready to ride out from the Capital to meet him with food and water. He might of course have been murdered, but it would be a more chancy business to deal with him than with Lorenzo. As a freelance dinamitero who had managed to reach the age of 41 he was likely to have escaped more bullets than the three which hit him and to have left the odd corpse behind in the process.

  There was nothing for it but to give up the search. The master of Rosita refused to wait any longer. His orders to be away before dawn were precise and his pay depended on obeying. All he knew was that he had to land a passenger and take him off again with a load of boxes during the night. Mat damned his employers for being over-discreet. One could see their point. If Rosita ever came under suspicion, any investigation would soon bring to light who had twice chartered her and why.

  Chapter Ten

  From the garden of the Farm Manager’s house the black oil field was out of sight. The landscape visible through a windbreak of tall eucalyptus was divided as neatly as any flag into blue ocean, green farmland, yellow mountain. The only reminder that Industry existed, silent and on the defensive, was the cluster of tanks beyond the port, their steel tops flashing like round shields in the sun.

  Rafael was a frequent visitor, quick to learn and eager to ask the questions of the ignorant which to Manuel Uriarte often seemed more penetrating—if one really tried to give an honest answer—than those of experienced farmers. The agronomist could not approve his obstinacy but understood it, being himself full of compassion towards his fellows, most of whom would all their lives be deprived of his own utter satisfaction with his work.