‘Could be right.’ Cloudsley had reached for the glasses and he was scowling into the small but powerful lenses. ‘Doesn’t show, but—’
‘I’ll go on ahead, Harry. OK? If they’re there, and if there’s a way up that’s not too steep…’ The photographs, taken from above, hadn’t shown any more than you could see now, and in both cases the apparent perspectives could be misleading. He was beginning to feel confident that his theory was right — that it was the only explanation that fitted. He suggested to Cloudsley, ‘Quicker to bring some horses up, rather than try to move the gear ourselves at half the speed?’
Cloudsley’s expression suggested that such decisions were for him to make, not his guest artist. But he nodded. ‘All right.’ Glancing round. ‘One of you go with him. Geoff—’
‘Better be me, Harry?’ Jake West added, ‘If Monkey’s down there?’
Because Start, the HALO dropper, was his partner and might want him there. Cloudsley agreed. ‘OK. While they’re gone, the rest of us can start humping the stuff along. Say in five-hundred yard stages. Starting now.’
Beale moved toward the gear: ‘Right…’ On the same wavelength, all of them, sharply aware they had to get to the missiles before the Argies deployed them. Or while there were still some there to be doctored. Andy understood and shared their impatience. Speed of transit depended on having horses; so did ‘cover’, a safe transit. And there was still no guarantee, you could be clutching at a non-existent straw. Remembering another remark of Cloudsley’s, something about there being mountains to climb between the start and finish of this operation, translating that figurative statement into reality, the prospect of what might still lie ahead was staggering. First to get there at all — even with the horses and with Strobie’s help; then to get inside not only the base but the actual warehouse — hangar, store, whatever — and to do whatever they intended doing to the missiles, which from something Tony Beale had said to Cloudsley at one stage was apparently a dangerous operation in itself. Then to extract themselves — still undetected — and get away. Hundreds of miles of open country between them and the coast, so getting there would be a marathon on its own; and then there’d be the problem of getting off the coastline, which surely would be guarded… The expression ‘mind-boggling’ didn’t come near to doing it justice, and the nightmare aspect was suddenly more frightening because you were here, out on the limb which when you saw it at close quarters looked decidedly shaky.
Treat it — he thought — like you’d treat the Grand National course. One fence at a time. Like — now — finding the horses…
He explained to West what a mojón was. Then answered another question, as they jogged downhill, about who owned the land below them. ‘Family called O’Higgins. It’s the northern end of their property, pretty useless except there’s a small lake a bit to the southeast. Water’s a problem, you know, it all falls in Chile, that side of the mountains.’ You had to watch your footing as you ran. He added, ‘It’s not likely we’d meet anyone up here, though, this time of year. Most will have brought their sheep down into the valleys by now. We’ll be all right — just — because luckily the weather’s holding. Anyone seeing us might think we’d cut it pretty fine, but that’s about all.’ His words came in spasms as he trotted. ‘Another couple of weeks, it’d be too late, you’d be getting blizzards. Then you lose animals, if they’re still on the high ground.’
‘Through what — the snow?’
‘The cold, yes. Then foxes, when they’re weakened. Pumas too, some areas.’
‘Here?’
‘Most likely. Not enough cover for them lower down. You’ll see, it’s just low scrub, no cover. But the pumas would make forays down there for food.’
‘And you lose sheep to them?’
He grunted an affirmative. ‘Used to hunt them — with rifles. They’re worst when they’ve littered and the mother’s teaching her cubs to kill. Instead of knocking off one animal for a meal she’ll kill maybe a dozen — demonstrating the technique. Then you find the carcases just rotting.’ He jumped a crack in the rock. ‘They love sheep’s tongues — that’s another charming habit. You can find sheep wandering around blind with pain, dying from a gash in the throat where the tongue’s been ripped out… Hey, look there!’
No tongueless sheep. The edge of the escarpment.
Distantly, the land continued, but two or three hundred feet lower and buff-coloured instead of grey. From here it was obvious, but from fifty yards back it hadn’t been. Slowing to a walk… Fifty yards ahead, the rock ended and the land fell away abruptly — if you’d gone on running, you’d have needed a parachute. He was anxious again now — because there was no certainty of Strobie’s people being down there. Tightness in the gut was fear of new disappointment: because without horses there’d be very little chance of getting there in time.
He’d let West pound on ahead of him. Heard him shout now, ‘Andy, you’re a bloody marvel!’
At the edge, he dropped on to all fours, beside the Marine. Seeing — like a dream come true — several hundred feet lower, a group of men round a fire, a wide scattering of greyish-white sheep like lice on a brown blanket, and — horses…
Ten, at a quick count. Apparently wandering loose, but he knew they’d be hobbled. Getting his breath back, enjoying the sight of what amounted to salvation, thinking Thank you, God and telling Jake West in a voice aimed at sounding matter-of-fact, ‘I knew old Tom wouldn’t let us down.’
There’d be about a hundred sheep down there, he guessed. Hearing their voices now in the thin, cold air. They were almost as important as the horses. The one way, he’d realised, back in London, when they’d been struggling for a way of doing this — the only way for a group of men to cover a biggish distance here in Patagonia, openly and in daylight without attracting undue notice and suspicion, would be if they were herding sheep. Especially at this time of year when flocks had to be brought down to lower pastures before the onslaught of winter. So he’d proposed it to the planners: to arrange to have horses to ride and sheep to drive — because otherwise you’d have been down to travelling on foot and by night only, and with so much gear it wouldn’t have been practicable.
Now here it was — a wild thought translated into reality. He could see the mojón too. There were three men, one of whom would be Monkey Start. It seemed almost too good to be true: as if he’d waved a magic wand and seen his wish materialise.
Thanks to Tom Strobie, of course. To whom he had a few debts already.
‘May as well find a way down, Jake.’
‘There.’ West pointed. ‘OK?’
Forty yards to the left, the start of an old sheep trail, slanting down. Not that there’d be any logical reason for sheep to want to come up here, where they’d find nothing at all to eat; but sheep had never been great on logic. It was a track anyway, would have been used by pumas as well as sheep, by the long-legged Patagonian foxes and by an occasional human too, and it would be negotiable by horses, all right. He counted them again as he followed Jake down the track; he’d been right at the first count — ten. Two would be mounts for Strobie’s peóns, the drovers who’d brought the sheep up here and would now be driving them back again, and Start and West would be taking another two. It left six for four men, so there’d be two that could be loaded with most of the gear.
The snag was still the lack of time. Sheep tended to move at their own pace, and you’d have to stay with them because you’d be conspicuous without them. There’d be no other reason for a gang of riders to be coming from nowhere, going somewhere, with a top-secret military installation not very far away.
They were halfway down when one of the three at the fire looked up and saw them. He jumped up, pointing. Then the others were on their feet too. Andy called, ‘Buenas!’ and drew answering shouts — one clearly audible, ‘Don Andrés!’ Then a gust of laughter and a kind of dance, a squat figure in a poncho hitting a taller one on the back… celebrating. Andy and Jake West trotting now, down on to t
he flat as the trio came to meet them; and that was Torres, Pepe Torres! ‘Squat’ was the word, all right: he was built like a tank but with a lower centre of gravity than most tanks; swarthy, four or five days’ growth of beard — most of it grey, Andy noticed, realising that Tom Strobie’s mayordomo couldn’t be much less than fifty now.
‘Don Andrés? Can it truly be Don Andrés?’
‘Believe it or not, Don Pepe, it is. And very glad indeed to see you, after so long!’
He’d have the scruffy looks of some puestero, of course, and he was glad not be easily recognisable as Andrew MacEwan. Torres had seized both his hands: ‘It has been a long time!‘
A glistening of tears, for God’s sake… And now the other one — Andy didn’t recognise him or remember his name, which was Félix — was bowing, while a smile twisted the craggy features: ‘Don Andrés, your return brings us much joy.’
Older than Torres. A Chino – mixed Indian and Chilean blood; and he did remember him now… Leaving one hand in the mayordomo’s grasp — mainly because it was trapped there — he gave the other to the old peón. Félix might not even be aware there was any fighting going on, but in any case he and Torres weren’t welcoming a Brit, they were greeting a young friend of their patrón. He asked them both, ‘How are things here? Your wives are well? Your children — how many now? And Don Tomás — his health is no worse?’ ‘Don Tomás’ meaning Tom Strobie, of course. But in the interests of politeness there was a lot of ground to cover, while behind him he heard Jake West say, ‘You made it then!’ and Start’s reply, ‘You look like someone just dug you up, Jake.’
As if he looked so immaculate…
Pepe Torres’ family were all well. Don Tomás was — the thick hands spread — a little older, a little — hands waggling, suggesting uncertainty, disability… ‘Don Tomás is a father to us. Don Andrés, a true father! Do you know what he has done for us, did you perhaps have an account of it from him?’
What he did appreciate was that Tom had sent the one man he could most completely rely on — and whom he could least spare — who could be trusted not only to carry out his instructions to the letter but also to keep his mouth shut and ensure Félix did the same. No peón would risk disobeying Pepe Torres. Andy got his hands back, finally. He said, ‘I’ve heard nothing from him for a long time. What is it he’s done?’
‘Don Tomás has given me, my wife and our children, his own house.’ Torres had pushed his face up close; the rank breath wasn’t easy to stand up to. ‘My own humble dwelling is now his residence. Because we are many and he is one man alone, he says, because he has no need of many rooms and no strength to climb stairs — as you will perhaps recall, Don Andrés, even before your own departure—’
‘I remember.’
It had been a long time since Tom had used the stairs. He could get on a horse — but that was different, something he had to do. Andy remembered him asking Francisca — she’d supposedly been staying with friends somewhere else, for yet another weekend – ‘How does it look up there? All dust and cobwebs?’ The upper floor, under the red-painted tin roof, had been theirs, Andy’s and Francisca’s, that summer.
Torres was shouting, ‘But imagine it, Don Andrés! What other patrón, other than Don Tomás, would display such generosity of the heart?’
‘But this also’ — Andy pointed at the horses and the sheep — ‘and your own help to us, Don Pepe, to have come yourself when all the work is already on your shoulders — this too is generosity—’
‘MacEwan’ — Start’s voice broke into the exchange of Spanish — ‘how was the jump?’
He meant the para drop into the sea. When they’d last met Andy had been just starting his short, sharp period of training for it. He said, ‘I managed to survive it, God knows how… No problems your end?’
‘None that lasted.’ The SBS lieutenant did look a bit like a monkey. He was tanned, like the rest of them — pre-tanned — and bearded, with small, round eyes now red-rimmed by the wind. ‘Some character, your old pal!’
‘No beauty, is he?’
‘Well.’ Start shrugged, and told Jake West, ‘Hadn’t been in his shack two minutes, he’d read the note, then asked what exactly did I want. I told him: horses, and some sheep — please. He sat blinking at me, not much enthusiasm around, and I thought Hell, he isn’t going to play… But he read the letter again, and said, “All right. Meanwhile I take it you drink Scotch?”’
Andy said, ‘Hasn’t changed much, then.’
‘No, he’s the man you said he was. But’ — Start checked the time — ‘on the subject of horses, now…’
Down to business: initially the question of how many horses to take up on the escarpment to bring down the loads. It was decided that Andy and Jake would go back up with four animals, and the whole party would then come down on foot, leading them. By that time, Torres said, he and Félix would have a meal ready. Two sheep had already been killed and butchered, and the fire was about right now. Two sheep seemed somewhat excessive, but Andy didn’t argue. For one thing, they were already dead and dismembered. For another, Cloudsley had ordained that as soon as contact was made with the home team, nearly all their Service-issue rations would be either eaten or discarded — because they were civilians now, locals, would have to be able to pass close inspection if the worst came to the worst. Another factor was that in these low temperatures the meat wouldn’t go off too quickly.
The mayordomo indicated Monkey Start with a jerk of one short, thick arm. ‘This señor has told me he and another will be travelling by some other route, to some other place. So those horses we may not see again?’
‘We have pesos in sufficiency, with which to pay Don Tomás.’
‘Ah.’ Torres beamed. ‘I would have assumed as much, Don Andrés. No one could have doubted.’ His relief was pretty obvious, all the same.
*
They could smell roasting mutton when they were coming down the track an hour later, leading four burdened horses. Cloudsley said, ‘That doesn’t smell too bad.’
‘It’ll take some chewing. Those sheep have had a lot of exercise lately.’
Strobie wouldn’t have been such a fool as to provide his best specimens, either.
‘Forty miles, did you say, to the old guy’s place?’
‘Forty to his boundary fence. Another six, roughly, from here to the estancia.’
‘Do we have to camp at night? Can’t push on through?’
‘Unfortunately we can’t. Sheep’d scatter during the night — if they hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion. We’ll ride as long as it’s light, then camp, start again at dawn. Cover a few miles today, then tomorrow dawn to dusk, then a second night and get there the day after.’
‘Don’t they use dogs in this country?’ Tony Beale was looking down at the camp — at sheep and horses, men close round the fire, a pile of saddles and other gear near it. ‘I mean sheepdogs?’
‘You don’t see many. Not around these parts anyway. It’s cheaper to use Chileans. And the locals couldn’t train a dog, they’re bloody awful with animals.’
‘D’you mean cruel?’
‘Tony, you wouldn’t believe it.’
Cloudsley said, ‘Andy. Bear in mind, please, we don’t want to hang around this camp any longer than we have to.’
‘I’ll tell Torres. I think he knows, anyway; Monkey was working on him. But we’ll have to redistribute the gear, won’t we? To only two horses – and our personal packs on the ones we’re riding?‘
‘One pack-horse is all we’ll have.’
‘But there are ten in all, so—’
‘Monkey and Jake will take three. One each, and one for the boat and the outboard.’
Silence, then, except for the plodding hooves, clattering sometimes on stone, the horses’ hard breathing. Andy absorbing this new angle: having assumed until now they’d be keeping the inflatable with them, that it would be their transport out to the submarine when the time came. He looked back at Cloudsley. ‘You certa
inly don’t let cats out of their bags before you have to, Harry.’
‘Come again?’
Knowing perfectly well what he’d said… Andy explained it, though, and the big man looked surprised. ‘Can’t see it concerns you or me, old chum, if Monkey needs a boat for something or other…?’
‘OK…’
They weren’t necessarily distrustful of him, he guessed. It was probably more a matter of not burdening him with information he didn’t need to have. That was the easiest way to explain it to yourself, anyway.
At the camp, following a round of introductions and courteous Anglo-Hispanic exchanges, Cloudsley gave Start and West the job of unloading the four horses and getting their own ready. He mustered the others round the fire, where Félix was already cutting meat, and told Andy, ‘Interpret this for me, please. First point — I want to move out as soon as we’ve eaten, if not sooner. Second — when we stop tomorrow evening, instead of spending that second night in camp I’d like to leave the sheep to these characters, and ride on, make it to Strobie’s place before daylight. This feasible, and OK with him?’
‘It’s feasible. By tomorrow evening we should be within a few hours’ ride of Tom’s estancia, without sheep to slow us down.’ He translated Cloudsley‘s proposal. Torres had no objection, but he pointed out that their route wouldn’t be a straight line from here to Strobie, since they’d need to reach water on both evenings, for the sheep and horses’ sake. Tonight he’d be aiming to reach Lago Perdido, the O’Higgins puesto there, and next evening another waterhole which had no shepherd’s house near it but did have an enclosure for the stock.
Andy explained this. ‘It’ll add a few miles, that’s all. Essential, anyway. And he agrees, he and Félix will bring the sheep along on the third day.’
Torres began to talk again, mostly with his mouth full, grease running down his chin. They were sitting now, a rough half-circle, back a little from the fire’s heat. He was suggesting that the six of them should split into two parties, each with roughly half the sheep, and put about a league between them. If they stayed in one group it wouldn’t look right, nobody would waste so many herdsmen on such a small flock. As well as making this division, he’d send Félix off on his own to ride around as if he was searching for more strays.
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