The Three Sentinels

by Geoffrey Household

  ‘You are not reasonable, Rafael.’

  ‘This is our home. And, thanks to you, we can live without wages.’

  That to Rafael was the point upon which there could be no surrender. Revenge upon the Company, yes—but justified by his nebulous vision of a peaceful return to what men were meant to do. In Cabo Desierto could be a society of quiet growth, of creation in emptiness to fill the other emptiness left behind by Catalina. A majority did not agree with him. Well, but in the end it must. Here could be happiness, a living lesson of what would happen if one rejected companies and treachery and cowardice. That only Capitalism or the State could have financed Uriarte’s artificial paradise he understood, but there was no reason why the workers should not take it over.

  ‘The Company has promised that anyone who wants to live off the land may do so.’

  ‘The Company is dead. We have killed it as it killed our women.’

  ‘There is always Don Mateo.’

  ‘True, there is Don Mateo. But this is a question of principle.’

  One single man stood in his way. The Company was powerless and the State afraid. That outside world, against which Gil used to warn him, could be defied, for no one else was prepared to use armed force if the government was doubtful. Don Mateo had won the first round but could not win the next. Rafael had no resentment against that single man, that courteous single man, only against Gil Delgado who had sold out for the sake of his own importance.

  ‘Reasonable!’ Rafael spat the word. ‘To you Delgado is reasonable!’

  ‘Yes, Rafael, I think he is.’

  ‘And what have you to say to treachery?’

  ‘Man, I am talking of his policy not his character.’

  ‘An absurdity! What a man is and what he does are the same.’

  ‘But not in politics, Rafael.’

  ‘This is not politics. This is war.’

  ‘All wars end in peace some time.’

  ‘But that is all I ask. Peace and no oil!’

  Down the black bar of the road which separated the farm from desolation something white glided in and out of sight, changing rapidly from a determined gull to a figure bent over the handle bars of a bicycle and pedalling fast through the heat of the late afternoon.

  ‘Someone for you,’ Uriarte said.

  ‘Why for me?’

  ‘Here we grow things. There is nothing so important that it cannot wait for the sun to pass.’

  Antón, soaked in sweat, jumped off his borrowed bicycle, greeted Uriarte and panted to Rafael that Rosita was in port again.

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘Set a watch to see what she unloads. The skipper does not look to me like a fisherman.’

  ‘A favour, Don Manuel! Would you drive us to the town?’

  ‘So much hurry for fish?’

  ‘For the safety of the Charca,’ Rafael replied, certain that Manuel Uriarte could be trusted with some of the truth. ‘We believe this boat may carry an expert to blow it up. On her first voyage she brought the explosives.’

  ‘Don Mateo would never allow it.’

  ‘To hell with Don Mateo! I think he knows and does not know. It could be someone in London or the Union or González or any other bastard without shame. You and I do not see eye to eye, Don Manuel, but neither of us will let all this go back to desert.’

  ‘A fairy story! But it costs nothing to drive you in. Throw your bicycle in the back, Antón!’

  Uriarte dropped them at the market. There Rafael quickly confirmed that Rosita had really brought fish, though hardly enough to make a call worthwhile. He had not time to trail or question the crew, which any way would only arouse suspicion. Since nothing was certain the right game was to go up to Well 32 in the dusk, hide and await developments.

  Rafael collected three of his best men from the guard on the Sentinels, skirted the south end of the golf course in the last of the light and then climbed the second ridge into the old field. His plan was to post the three along the route from 58 to 32 with orders to watch but to take no action unless he himself shouted to them. Meanwhile he and Antón would remain hidden within a few yards of 32. He could not tell whether the unknown visitor meant to bring in more explosives—in which case they would be gratefully received—or to collect what he needed for an attempt on the Charca; but by the time he had lifted the boards and started his work his intentions would be obvious.

  The first essential task for Rafael and Antón was to remove the body of Lorenzo—a private affair which there was no reason for anyone else to observe. They had no chance to do it. The party was still picking its way in darkness between 58 and 32 when a truck was heard crawling up the approach road without lights. Rafael, flustered by the unexpected speed of the enemy’s arrival, quickly posted his men where they were and himself ran forward with Antón to 32 where they vanished into the complex blacknesses and lay still. It occurred to Rafael that in the hurry he might have underrated the sort of emissary who would arrive on Rosita. He and Antón had only their knives and the Mayor’s revolver with the dubious firing pin. Their three comrades were too far away to support them.

  The truck stopped. They would have had plenty of time to deal with Lorenzo. It was a good quarter of an hour before the driver appeared. How he had come and for how long he had observed his objective was a mystery. They had not heard a sound or seen any movement until the figure materialised from the night already standing by the boarded hole. He stood quite still, listening. Rafael could have sworn that he was smelling the air, too, and that their presence must be detected by a man whose professional wariness was so evident. He himself was lying between two baulks of timber with the fallen number board over him to hide the paleness of shirt and trousers. Antón’s position was more free. He was curled up under the derrick and indistinguishable from the well head.

  Satisfied that he was alone, the saboteur began to clear away the junk and scraps of metal over the boards; and even this he did carefully with the least possible noise. He raised the cover, shone his torch inside the hole and with a single flow of movement plunged into a patch of thicker darkness. There was just enough starlight to distinguish his outline and an outstretched arm, menacing as a snake, with an automatic pistol at the end of it. Rafael did not think that Antón would be able to see him at all, and was thankful. Though Antón’s orders were that the man should be taken alive if at all possible, one could never be sure of him. He was quite capable of impulsively trying a shot and either giving away his position by the click of the misfire or missing.

  There was silence except for the faint whines and rattles of the wind among the rigs. Patience came naturally to Rafael, and patience had a good chance of being the deciding factor in the end. The enemy should be tackled while his hands were occupied in carrying boxes, either there at 32 or at the truck or perhaps on the way to it. He waited. Antón would not find it so easy. Twice he saw him change to a more comfortable position, undulating round the well head like a cat and quite invisible through the dark, vertical stripes of the derrick to anyone who did not know he was there.

  At last the stranger stood up boldly and returned to the hole. He dragged up the body of Lorenzo, laid it on one side and proceeded to lift out the boxes of explosive, opening several of them for a quick check of the contents and separating one from the rest. He had replaced the automatic in a shoulder holster under his shirt and was now vulnerable if only Rafael could have extricated himself from under his number board silently and in one jump. Antón had moved. Rafael could only see that he had left the well head and become—probably—that shapeless blotch near the edge of the drilling platform which did not seem to have been there before. He was just too far away for a noiseless attack while the man’s back was turned. Either by sheer telepathy or his alert, decisive movements this professional from the outside world gave the impression that he could pull his gun in a second and that no charge had a hope of succeeding.

  As he bent to take out another box Antón crouched with toes on the
edge of the platform and launched himself through the air on to his back. Even so the shock was not conclusive, for both were lightly built. As Rafael, slower and more clumsy, stumbled out from hiding, a bullet kicked up the gravel at his feet. Though Antón was clamped to his enemy, pinioning his arms, the man had still managed to draw his gun, apparently firing between his knees as the pair rolled over. It was still far from all over when Rafael had fastened on his wrist and disarmed him. Short of killing him there was nothing for it but to jam him down on his face and lie spreadeagled over the writhing body until the rest of the party came up to add their weight.

  They lifted him to his feet with his hands tied behind his back and a belt tight round his ankles. Rafael, touching the trigger of the splendid pistol, loosed off a shot which narrowly missed a box of gelignite.

  ‘I should put on the safety catch if I were you,’ the stranger said.

  He held himself upright and, so far as was possible, carelessly. There was a set smile on half his mouth in spite of blood which trickled from it through the paste of oil and sand.

  ‘Your name?’

  ‘On a job of this sort I am known as El Vicario.’

  ‘Well, Vicar, who sent you?’

  ‘Man, if I am paid I do not ask questions.’

  ‘You hid these explosives when you came here the first time.’

  ‘Since you know so much, yes.’

  ‘And tonight you were going to use them.’

  ‘You’re wrong there, mate. I was going to take them away.’

  ‘You lie! Do you want me to kill you?’

  ‘No. But it seems likely you will any way.’

  ‘Search him!’

  Antón went through his pockets, at the same time giving him a vicious prick with his knife, and pulled out a roll of notes.

  ‘He hasn’t the sense to leave his money at home,’ Antón said.

  ‘This? This I got here.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘From your police captain. Since he is not my employer, I have no objection to telling you.’

  ‘Then it was the Government which sent you!’ Rafael exclaimed.

  ‘Those pickpockets? It was not! This money was a sweetener. A little tip such as sometimes comes one’s way.’

  ‘Who gave it to González?’

  ‘I can tell you that. The Company.’

  ‘The Company knew about Rosita?’

  ‘It would seem so, since I was expected.’

  ‘Ask him whether he killed Lorenzo, Chief!’ said one of Rafael’s men.

  Rafael did not reply, but El Vicario had no hesitation.

  ‘If you mean this fellow in the boots whom I dug up, I did not kill him. He keeps remarkably well in this climate, but you can see for yourselves that he was killed neither today nor two months ago. And he died from a knife in the throat which is not my practice though you cannot be supposed to know it.’

  ‘Did the Company find out where this stuff was?’ Rafael asked.

  ‘It seems they did not, or why should they want me to collect it instead of digging it up themselves?’

  The money in his pocket was strong evidence that his story was true; he really had been employed to remove the explosives from Cabo Desierto. Rafael, already feeling guilty in the presence of the crumpled Lorenzo and impressed in spite of himself by the courage of the living, could not make up his mind.

  ‘Look! I have no objection to leaving you this little lot,’ El Vicario said. ‘But I can see you do not want it known that you have it.’

  ‘That’s how it is,’ Rafael answered more peaceably. ‘So I cannot let you return to your boat empty-handed.’

  ‘I have heard there are other ways back to the Capital. There was, I believe, some trouble with your women.’

  ‘You will die!’ Antón screamed.

  ‘If I must. But do not forget I belong to your class, mates, and have fought for it!’

  ‘Fought for it ? Scab! Assassin! You were paid to cut off our water and break the boycott.’

  ‘I tell you this, friend. I have never taken money from the State or the Capitalists.’

  ‘It was our Union then?’ Rafael asked.

  ‘As you wish.’

  So the Union it was and Don Mateo’s hint was right. Who could have believed it? By God, it was all beyond a plain carpenter trying to fight decently! First Antón and needless killing, then the betrayal of Gil Delgado and now this infamy of the Union.

  ‘Didn’t you understand that you would starve us out?’

  ‘I do not read the papers. They make me sick. Oil, railways, companies, banks—we do not need them. Pay me for my trouble, and Boom goes a piece of their property.’

  ‘You are right,’ Rafael said, for the man’s passion to destroy what existed fitted his own mood of disgust. ‘We do not need them. But the innocent must not suffer.’

  ‘Then may I remind you that I am one?’

  Not so innocent as he pretended. If the money was good, he didn’t want to ask questions. But El Vicario knew how a man ought to die. And that was something, more than something. Rafael could not have told exactly what it was which appealed to him across the centuries, but it was there.

  It was impossible to let him return to the boat. The fake fishing captain was in this up to the neck; so were González and Don Mateo. El Vicario would have to tell them that the militant workers had the explosives and might also mention Lorenzo. His throat ought to be cut then and there. What else could be done with him? Perhaps he might be allowed later on to attempt the land journey or to steal a boat and try his luck on the open sea. As likely as not he would cross a frontier and keep clear of those crooks at the Union.

  But mercy was troublesome. It needed planning. And El Vicario was not an easy customer; he’d escape if he could. The company houses were not built to hold prisoners of—at a guess—considerable experience, and a permanent guard could not be posted without neighbours showing curiosity. Now that the field was split, nothing could be kept secret from Gil Delgado and his party.

  His mind ran over deep holes in the ground and tanks—places with unclimbable walls where El Vicario could be held as long as necessary. But there were no wells in Cabo Desierto, and anyone dropped into a tank would be fried in his fat by sunset. In the refinery there must be cool tanks if any of them were clean. The refinery, however, was a mystery like the Sentinels, to be guarded but not touched: a coiling cooker with wisps of vapour and pipes of flame where only the technicians could know what tank would kill—probably all of them whether empty or not.

  The thought of metal in the sun brought to mind the shining tops of the distant tank farm and the afternoon—so long ago it seemed—with Uriarte. Uriarte was a possible ally. He had concrete silos, well shaded, well washed out when all the grass had been fed to the dairy herd. It was worth a try. No one except his own guards at the Charca would be on the road to the farm. If Uriarte could not be convinced—well then, there was nothing for it but Antón and his knife.

  Rafael put back the few boxes which had been taken out, laid Lorenzo on top of them and replaced the cover. He ordered El Vicario’s legs to be untied and marched him down to the truck. One of his men who could drive well enough for a straightforward journey took the wheel while he and Antón lay down in the back with their prisoner. The first crossroads and the hairpin bends down to the plain were empty. At the lower junction, closer to the town, where the road to the farm branched off, the truck must have been seen, but there was no reason why it should attract any attention.

  They stopped short of the farm manager’s house and Rafael went on alone. Uriarte, warned by the approaching headlights, was waiting for him inside the gate.

  ‘Well, did you find your saboteur?’ he asked sceptically.

  ‘I have him here.’

  ‘And his explosives?’

  ‘He has not told me where they are.’

  Perfectly true. Rafael had learned the trick of feminine prevarication during the years of peace and laughter with Ca
talina. She claimed fiercely that she never told a lie.

  ‘You are sure you have the right man?’

  ‘He has confessed that he was sent by the Union to destroy the Charca.’

  ‘And still alive?’

  ‘I will not let them kill him in cold blood, Don Manuel. That is my difficulty. But I cannot let him go.’

  ‘Why not tell Don Mateo?’

  ‘Impossible! He knew of this. It was he who told me to set a guard on the Charca. Me, his enemy! If he could have prevented the disaster any other way, he would have done so.’

  It was the first time that such a thought had occurred to Rafael and, now that it had, he took it as true. His need and his own eloquence suppressed, for himself as well as Uriarte, the fact that El Vicario was taking the explosives away.

  ‘I cannot help you, Rafael. I am as angry as you, but I am a servant of the Company.’

  ‘If I cannot find a safe place for him I must kill him.’

  ‘There is no safe place here.’

  ‘Yes. An empty silo. He cannot climb out. And I can feed him and talk to him. You need know nothing.’

  ‘But if he calls for help someone will hear him.’

  ‘There is no place where your men do not come?’

  ‘Of course there isn’t. Do you give me your word that in the end you will let him go?’

  ‘Yes, I swear. I will send him out secretly by land with food and water and a guide for the first part of the track. After that he must take his chance.’

  ‘Well, that’s more than he deserves. A silo won’t do, Rafael, but I have a cellar under the shed where I keep my seedlings. What sort of man is he?’

  ‘A kind of anarchist, but valiant and well-spoken.’

  ‘Not a man to break all my pots in a rage?’

  ‘He has destroyed so much, I think, that he would not break things meanly for fun. He will stay there calmly, planning how to escape.’

  ‘Then come and see my dungeon and tell me if it will do.’

  It had been a cistern in the early days of the farm. Uriarte had built over it a laboratory-cum-potting-shed for his own private hobby: the introduction from more temperate zones of flowering shrubs able to flourish under the partial shade of eucalyptus or in the patios of the town. A light, steel ladder led down from the shed to the cistern, which had a cool, even temperature and adjustable ventilation. The walls of smooth concrete were ten feet high.