Authors: Geoffrey Household
It was his daughter, Lady McMurtrie, who entered.
‘God, what a stink!’ she exclaimed. ‘How ever can you work in here?’
(To increase the feeling of hopeless degradation, the prisoner had been given no receptacle for his dung.)
I am sorry, my dear,’ he replied. ‘I had a touch of dysentery this morning, and I was not expecting any visitors.’
‘Mamma said that she had news that you had captured that criminal Hawkins. She didn’t know whether it was true or not but thought you should be told.’
‘I have captured him, but whether he will talk is of course a matter for the judiciary. Who the devil has been feeding your mother up with such stories?’
‘I don’t know. But the call came all the way round from Jumilla this morning. She managed to worry herself about it and thought you should too. It was probably one of those girls who
phoned.’
‘Well, tell Juana there is nothing to worry about and that I cannot appear in public this morning.’
‘Any news of the Punchao?’
‘No. But we shall get it. Where is Hector?’
‘I don’t know. He was away last night and hasn’t come back yet.’
I cannot remember whether they were speaking English or Spanish. I do remember that the mention of Jumilla called up a vision of peace. Hector – what had he to do with this shrinking jelly
of flesh? Something. I could not clearly remember what. Hadn’t he told me that, up to a point, I could count on him? What point?
But hope, or something resembling hope, began for the crippled parrot. It was obvious that someone – presumably the driver of the banana truck – had raced back to Jumilla from the
port and that one of Mayne’s girls had telephoned Juana who did not know what to do about the message and had appealed to her unsympathetic daughter to ask the boss. God, they were all
muddled in my mind! What orders had the truck driver received from Mayne? Presumably to hurry back to Jumilla with the news of what had happened at the port. With or without orders, one of the
little mestiza beauties putting on a show of sweet innocence had telephoned kind auntie Juana with the news. Almost at once Hector had got hold of it, had borrowed a presidential car and driven
hell for leather to Jumilla through the night. That was as far as I could muddle my way.
Somebody knew. Something must turn up. They all believed that torture would break me and that the Punchao would become the swastika of Malpelo. My fate was in my own hands, for I could not be
allowed to die until I confessed the hiding place of the Punchao. After that was confirmed, I should be allowed to go home by sea where a regrettable accident would be so much easier to
arrange.
As soon as I heard Carlota leave her father and the professional had restored the room to its original appearance of a quiet study with a peaceful view of the sea, the roots of the toe were
efficiently bandaged and I was put back in my agonising overnight position. In the distance I heard bugles sounding the stand-to and the roar of trucks starting and taking position on the far side
of the palace. The sounds were evidence that somewhere there was life and in my efforts to translate them I must have lost consciousness.
The door was smashed down. The confidential guard lay dead from silent cold steel. I was cut loose and lifted to the President’s yacht, laid in the President’s stateroom and given
first aid by (I presume) a horrified surgeon of the Retadores. We were out to sea within ten minutes of the rescue. Recognising their faces, I could see that we were partly manned by refugees from
the car-park, who had taken the opportunity to get clear away. Half the normal crew who were naturally on the side of their employer were thrown overboard; the rest stuck to their normal
duties.
Mayne appeared at my bedside and told me to sleep and have absolute trust.
‘But the navy will catch you.’
‘The navy is under the impression that the President is on board. His flag is flying.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Going round to Jumilla by land.’
‘But your people?’
I was appalled by the thought of the peaceful little city being raped by Heredia’s troops.
‘Don’t bother. He will have turned back before he gets there. He will have got the news, but he will not be sure yet that I am the enemy. He knows I have no troops.’
‘But you will all be slaughtered for my sake.’
‘Don’t you believe it! He has already driven the cowards over the frontier, but the rest of us remain in arms. Have you forgotten Teresa?’
‘Is she alive?’
‘Alive and marching west. Look straight ahead of you out of the window and you will see our standard at the fore.’
I could make out a round object like a red football.
‘That, my Hawkins, is the head of your torturer.’
It took me some days to resume the normal shape and mentality of a human being. I expected to be shot out of the water as soon as the navy could call up the hands who were on
shore, get steam up and give chase. But Mayne had been cunning; he had set out from Jumilla on horseback with a dozen heavily armed communist guards, picked up a truck where he hit the main road,
frightened the life out of the villagers and driven straight for Puerto Santa Maria while Heredia and the garrison were on their way to Jumilla by the long route. He had then stormed the palace,
unproteced except for the servants huddled in the basement, and hijacked the President’s motor yacht. There were only two frigates in the port and both had been immobilised by limpet mines,
so that we had a start of at least two hours. A false crew had come racing out from the car-park and blown the coast road behind us. The yacht was now hard aground on the edge of the forest. I was
lifted carefully ashore as the only person on board or anywhere else who knew the hiding place of the Punchao.
Mayne, pouring sweat, now found time to see me.
‘And how’s that for the efficient organisation of the working class?’ he said proudly.
‘Working class, my arse!’
‘I see you are getting better.’
‘What about the Malpelo airforce?’
‘When they can get into the air they will knock down a lot of trees and report that we are decimated. The trouble is: can we mobilise our supporters in time? Heredia will be back home by
now and he is a good general. What shall I deal with first?’
‘To judge by what I have seen in the villages the south will come over to you as soon as they see that you have the power to win.’
‘That means the Punchao,’ he said. ‘Will you give it to me?’
‘On condition it remains in Teresa Molinos’ keeping. Yes.’
‘Good Lord! You don’t want her stuck with it for life, do you?’
‘All right, then my condition is that it returns to the museum with a guard of honour. Where is Sir Hector?’
‘Ridden off to collect a cook, his dog and the local witch. He thought they might know a bit more than any of the rest of us.’
That was a sound move of Hector’s when he could not know how much of me was still alive.
Mayne was quite right about the airforce of Malpelo. While I was still barely conscious they had bombed the hell out of the forest, set stands of trees on fire, knocked another hole in the
presidential yacht, but never discovered our tiny expeditionary force. All through this deadly little guerrilla action, the enemy had been some twenty minutes behind us.
Hector, throughout his ride, had given completely false information to police and the Heredista garrisons. According to him, he was galloping to protect his archaeological excavations from the
uncaring, barbarous attentions of the Retadores. He was believed. The trenches and pits which his labourers had dug had in fact no purpose whatever and were consequently a mystery of state.
He had run into Pepe in the
curandera’s
garden outside Ramales where Pepe was practising walking. Donna immediately attacked and was called off by Pepe who put matters right by
removing his hat and bowing to his former employer. The
curandera
emerged into the light from her underground kitchen dressed in her impressive black. Hector utterly failed to persuade her
to accompany him. If there were again to be war, she would, she said, stay where she was to care for any man who needed her.
When Hector and Pepe returned with Donna the scene was emotional and not only for Donna. She put her great paw on my chest as if to hold me down and licked my face and my dislocated shoulders
with little moans like those of a mother returning to her missing child. Pepe and the surgeon stood by amazed; if not gently prevented she would have had all the bandages off. Except for the
missing toe, her treatment, for all I know, may have been right.
To judge by the scrappy news which Hector brought back, Heredia, after calling in his garrisons from the frontier, did not know where to strike. His one outstanding victory did not seem to have
crushed the longings of his people, nor could he readily believe that so much damage could have been done – though only to his palace and his yacht – by apparently so few. Instead of
mopping up the small band of Retadores, he wasted time in reorganising his forces to meet and exterminate the untrained guerrillas on the march from the south-west. As soon as we had a somewhat
imaginary picture of their strength and speed, Mayne, who had assumed command without question, detached a miniature force to pick up the Punchao with orders to avoid all risks until reunited with
the main body. We hoped that by that time it could be called a main body and not a mere peasants’ revolt.
I still could not ride or march and was provided with a basket chair from the President’s yacht quickly fitted on to a couple of rollers which, I hoped, could not upset. It did upset twice
on the steep slopes as we moved nearer and nearer to the coast, the waterfall and the lightly buried Punchao.
We were completely isolated, for Heredia had cut the telephone lines to the east of the capital. Hector had not been arrested and questioned on his return from his dig as he was known to the
enemy officers as the President’s son-in-law and it was naturally assumed that he was holding some position on his staff. Mayne at once saw how that could be useful and left Hector behind in
nominal command – though he knew nothing of guerrilla or any other kind of warfare – while Pepe and Donna with a small party of his own men and me in my basket chair set off to recover
the Punchao. That could be done in a couple of days of hard riding, but it was impossible to estimate how long the journey would take if we did not succeed in avoiding patrols and had to move by
night. The beach had only the single road to it, so little used that it was half a mile wrong on the map. We took with us two machine-guns from the presidential yacht leaving Hector with rifles and
injunctions not to move from his position unless it became essential to split the party and take refuge in thick cover.
We met no opposition until the two hills which framed the beach were in sight. Very cautious reconnaissance showed that there was a heavily armed section on the beach, probably awaiting the
arrival of stores or reinforcements. An approach by night was impossible. Footsteps on loose pebbles would almost certainly be heard above the regular splashing of the fall and so would our retreat
with the Punchao.
‘What do we do now?’ I asked Mayne.
‘Simple!’ he replied. ‘We stage a mock battle. One of our two guns looses off from the top of the slope, and the other answers from near the top of the fall. If they
haven’t got a gun there, they ought to have. But maybe they (I mean, we) will only reply with rifle fire. The signal for you to go in, basket chair and all, will be when snipers join in and
the Heredistas on the beach charge up the hill. How long will it take to dig up the Punchao?’
‘It’s down little more than a foot.’
‘Then say a minute if anyone has a bayonet to dig with. Add two more minutes to cover up the hole and stamp it down. Everything will depend on how long the Heredistas can be
fooled.’
‘Won’t they have a searchlight on the beach?’ I asked.
‘They will until we shoot it out. By the way, can you sing out any commands in Russian?’
‘No. I can do you German.’
‘Good enough – no, on second thoughts it isn’t. We must be word perfect. Make it American! After all, they know what that sounds like from the cinema.’
I asked what ammunition we were using. I had noticed that our machine-guns were Russian.
‘Splendid! I take it back. We are Russian, secretly preparing a possible landing site. Try that on the morning papers when the news gets out. What a pity nobody reads them outside
Malpelo!’
‘Mayne, are you really a communist?’
‘Just to put the fear of God into anyone who wants to tinker with Malpelo.’
He pointed out that we had not the time or the energy to manhandle our two machine-guns downhill so we might as well leave them to be captured where they were or a little lower. The model for
our deceit would be the bullfight. Having provoked the charge, we sidestep it, dig up the Punchao and let them settle down after they retire from their gallant charge on nothing. They’ll
think that the Russians bolted in time for fear of being discovered and our way out will be clear.
‘How does that seem to you, comrades?’
‘It doesn’t sound to me a bit like Russians,’ said one of them. ‘Suppose the bull won’t charge?’
‘In that case we shall put a firework under his tail.’
But it couldn’t be much of a firework, for we had only a few belts of ammunition. Our first short burst from good cover scattered the section quietly lazing on the beach and they blazed
away with automatic rifle fire till we shot out their two searchlights. To persuade them that all the same they were on target we provided some groans and exclamations as of wounded. There was then
a moment of comparative silence punctuated by single snipers who thought they saw something moving. We had almost given up hope when some gallant officer led an attack up the path down which we had
all poured to the sea during the first battle. That was our last chance and we took it. In three minutes – I had prophesied correctly – we had dug up the Punchao and smoothed the
ground.