Authors: Geoffrey Household
Then I must reach Puerto Santa Maria very quickly before Heredia could piece together his confusing intelligence report. My only hope would be that improbable fishing-boat or a permanent
disguise in the city slums. A car then? There must be a number of them just asking to be stolen, but I was pretty sure to be stopped anywhere on the road which must still be picketed by police on
the look-out for Retadores escaping from the destruction of their army. Horse, bicycle and foot were all too slow.
Wandering cautiously parallel to the river I came upon the ration truck with the remains of its cargo strewn about the grass, lopsided, abandoned, desolate as any other detritus of war.
Evidently, the Heredistas had left it to be recovered later on when all military waste had been buried or collected. It looked abandoned among its scattered boxes and sacks and the deep muddy
footprints of men and the straining horse. I let it slide down the hill and then started the engine. Perfect. Not a hiccup. I took the cap, tunic and papers of a dead Heredista who should have been
buried much deeper and we were away on the road to Nueva Beria and the capital.
I was waved through the first two road controls without difficulty; speaking as little as possible since my accent – as unmistakeable as that of the North American in England – could
have led to questioning. My troubles began outside Puerto Santa Maria when I was ordered to get out and show my papers at the bridge over a river. I handed them over and before the corporal had a
chance to look at them said that I was bursting for a shit and bolted for the latrine which, as a notice informed me, was just round the corner.
The luck of the Hawkins was in. The arrangements were primitive. I jumped into the first compartment, locked the door, scaled the dividing partition into the next stall and was away. I really do
not know what an escaping criminal would do without public lavatories. I reckoned I would have a couple of minutes before the corporal got tired of waiting, hammered on the door, got no reply and
suspected that he had been tricked. By that time I was back in the cab of my truck and over the bridge. I even recovered my papers which the corporal had left on his desk while hammering at the
door. I threw cap and tunic into the river and walked away a free civilian looking as scruffy as any other.
Now where to go? It had to be one of the poorest districts, and while looking for it I arrived at the fishing quay. Every group of two or three boats had a police guard. To get on board
clandestinely was impossible. I was amazed at the efficiency with which the landing of fish seemed to be controlled. Heredia had obviously disciplined the fish market. An inspector accompanied by
two assistants was going from boat to boat checking invoices and taking notes of approximate catch. However, he might have his price if I could get him alone and I had enough money. I watched him
talking to a fishing captain who was evidently alarmed at the presence of such a high-powered inspector looking as if he had just bought his uniform from an expensive naval outfitter.
I walked a little way up the quay and saw that this was the only boat in the group which had finished discharging and was ready for sea. I tried to recall a thought which had flickered through
my head and been ignored as fanciful comment: that the inspector looked as if he had just bought his uniform from an expensive outfitter. He had, by God! I took a close look at the naval beard.
I asked the cop on duty who he was. He replied that he was an officer from the Ministry of Marine. Started to interfere with honest seamen they had now! He had been down there three times since
the morning on quick visits to inspect the ship’s papers.
‘Can I go on board and talk to him? I’m a skilled fisherman and want a job.’
‘You can, but stay in sight,’ he replied.
I went aboard and touched my forelock to the inspector.
‘Got a job, captain?’
Close to and only because I suspected it, I saw that the beard was false.
‘You are a Spaniard?’ he asked.
I recognised his voice, for I had once listened to it with considerable anxiety.
‘I am an Englishman and we met in London. The Señorita Teresa may have mentioned my name.’
He showed no surprise. That, I think, was his greatest asset as an undercover operator.
‘Are we ready for sea?’ he asked one of his two companions.
‘Nearly.’
‘Nearly is not enough. We have given the game away.’
An armed cutter was just turning across the entrance to the dock.
‘I should not have risked that third inspection,’ he said. ‘Now follow us and do whatever we do,’ he added to me.
The three went ashore, again saluted by the policeman, and strolled casually towards the town.
‘Late as usual. Why can’t this damned country do anything on time?’ the officer complained.
He did not hurry and the other two kept to his pace. It would have been inconceivable for the harbour police to think that the distant shouts were meant to alert them as the inspector and his
assistants strolled so casually to a waiting car. They circled around fish vans and into the car-park. Cap, uniform coat and neat beard were swiftly discarded. We were transformed into three
respectable, shirt-sleeved civilians plus one dirt-stained labourer – me. The smart naval lieutenant turned out to be Felipe Montes, the polite and dashing polo player who had interrogated me
in London. On the face of it, all appeared so simple; but one must not consider the populace of Puerto Santa Maria as law-abiding and ready to expose a criminal. The sympathies of at least half of
the labouring classes of the capital were against Heredia and, given any sort of chance, formed an unorganised conspiracy of silence. More they dared not offer.
We stopped and parked in a space left empty, then walked a little way to a line of cars crammed so closely together against the wall that it seemed nearly impossible to extract one without
knocking some paint off its neighbour. Felipe put two pads under the knees of his trousers and crawled under a caravan. At the touch of a switch or button, the floor slid back revealing a flight of
narrow steps, which led down to what, at first sight, appeared to be the floor of a nightclub.
‘Simple really,’ Felipe explained, switching to his English, faultless except for the accent. ‘It
was
a nightclub, and when Heredia closed it down we converted it into
two dormitories, one for men and another for women. All we have to do is change the caravan which closes the entrance every three or four days. It would make a perfect club for active Retadores if
we did not have to take extreme care in leaving or entering. There is always a sentry up top to signal when the coast is clear. And if it isn’t clear, all that can be seen is a chap emerging
from doing a job under the bonnet.’
‘Teresa Molinos is here?’
‘No. But safe, I hope. She has told me everything up to handing over the Punchao to you.’
‘And now it is yours if you can get away with it.’
‘That should not be difficult,’ he said. ‘McMurtrie can re-open the excavations.’
‘McMurtrie would hand it straight to Heredia or his wife and take a reward. You must go in force to be sure of capturing it and getting clear.’
‘This fellow, Pepe, knows where it is?’
‘He might guess, but I doubt it. Tell me honestly – after such a defeat have you any chance of overthrowing Heredia?’
‘Not unless one of his generals revolts. And none of them will while success is so uncertain. His army fought well by what you tell me.’
‘Can I see Teresa?’
‘Forgive me if I do not tell you where she is. If Heredia gets his hands on you or her, you will have told him everything you know by the time he lets you die.’
‘Cheerful! Forgive me, but for the same reason I have not told you where the Punchao is – not in McMurtrie’s excavations, I assure you.’
‘But will you lead us to it?’
‘Of course. Then my duty is over.’
‘Well, a bath, clean clothes and then a long night’s rest. Meanwhile I shall call a council of war.’
‘You command here?’
‘Yes. And possibly everywhere. I think our former commander has bolted over the frontier.’
‘You will take the presidency if Heredia is forced to resign?’
‘Not if I can help it. I am not fit for such power. I should get out of hand. You remember doubtless when I turned the Second Murderer on to you. I was as bad as Heredia. Honestly I
thanked God when you got away.’
‘And he?’
‘Good as new after a week in hospital patched up.’
It was luxury to sleep secure with no necessity to wake every hour and listen, and more luxury still to dream in clean clothes. When I got up – they had been careful to
let me sleep – the council of war was over, but a dozen of them remained round the table and very courteously rose to greet me as I walked into the central hall which, I swear, still held the
tenuous ghost of the perfumes of the sweating chorus. This council of the revolution let me eat my breakfast in peace and then Felipe Montes said that there was one point which it was essential for
a raiding party to know: was the Punchao hidden in the forest or buried in the open?
‘Near the edge of thickest forest,’ I replied, ‘and you will need a light ladder. While you are at work you cannot be seen from anywhere. The danger will be when the party is
escaping with the Punchao. I don’t know if there are any posts of Heredistas covering the edge of the forest, but there could be. Sir Hector’s former camp may be under suspicion and the
Punchao is only about half a kilometre from there.’
They were so obsessed by the tactics of recovering the Punchao that they had not considered the difficulty of holding it. Back it would go into darkness when it should be flashing its message of
peace to all Malpelo. Well, until the Retadores entered the capital in triumph, the Punchao was safer where it was than anywhere else. That moment of triumph was, on the face of it, very far away,
for after so crushing a defeat, the struggle would be long until Heredia was overthrown.
I asked if I were entitled to speak to the council and was encouraged to go ahead.
‘Why not leave the Punchao where it is, safe from Heredia?’ I asked. ‘I will tell you where it is hidden, will show it to you if you wish. Then forget it till your last
victorious battle. I can imagine it being carried to the palace through the streets of Santa Maria by – well, why not Teresa Molinos?’
‘If we can see it and be sure that it is safe, you could be right,’ Felipe said.
‘But without the Punchao we cannot raise another army,’ one of them objected.
‘Why not? The people are with us and each one of us can raise a force in his own province.’
‘Arms?’
‘We have enough. Look at the raid which won back the Punchao. We only need artillery and we can buy that from the Russians. We shall have no difficulty in persuading them that we are
revolting against a dictatorship of the Right.’
‘Let us see the Punchao and then decide!’
They all agreed, but hated the idea of leaving the Punchao in the darkness of the trees with an aged vulture as its only guardian. So did I.
I remained underground in the car-park. Meanwhile, a chosen party slipped out singly or in pairs across the road bridge to Nueva Beria with the usual filthy and indecipherable papers. I came
last with Felipe, both stinking of cheap spirits and incontinence. The police post was only too glad to let us through.
The country between Hector’s first camp and the edge of the forest we found to be loosely patrolled by the army. At one point the beat of the piquet appeared to pass within a hundred yards
of Donna’s old den, but they had no interest in the Punchao, only in the approaches to Nueva Beria. Heredia’s intelligence could give him only one certainty: that the Punchao had
vanished from the battlefield and was either with me or still with Teresa.
That thought led me to another. I appreciated the extreme security with which Felipe had surrounded her, but now I held the whip hand.
‘Before I show you the Punchao,’ I said, ‘you must tell me where Teresa Molinos is.’
‘Man, I do not want to put you both in danger.’
‘But there is no reason why, if I am captured, it should lead to her.’
‘I do not think, dear comrade, that as a fortunate Englishman you have any experience of torture.’
‘As you will, then, but give me your word of honour that she is as safe as she can be.’
‘I give you my word of honour. She is the treasure of the Retadores and every one of us would willingly die in her service.’
It was not that somewhat exaggerated Latin rhetoric which impressed me but his fear that I might break under torture. He could be right. I had no means of telling.
‘Then come with me!’
They had not brought the ladder. It could have meant too much explanation to the police post on the bridge. So remembering my escape on Richmond Green I asked the tallest of them to support
himself against the tree trunk while I clambered on to his shoulders, and then up by way of the first little branch. Even so, access to the nest was a good deal safer than my former monkey act and
I brought down the Punchao still wrapped among dead leaves which showed flashes of bright gold set in the green and black.
How the devil I was to get it to the ground intact was a puzzle, for I had nothing now in which I could wrap it and my hands were fully occupied. I solved the problem by taking off all my
clothes and making a rope of them; once on the ground it seemed to me curiously right that I should be stark naked: the priest’s tribute to the sacred symbol. My companions remained oddly
silent, and I suspect that they too felt something of the sort.
The question now was whether to put it back in the charge of the vulture or to take it with us. I was in favour of taking it with us since twigs and leaves were no longer as secure as they had
been, and there were double the number of footprints around the tree. So the Punchao, now again a wanderer, returned to the vagabond home upon my chest. Where else were we to put it? The security
of the car-park could not be trusted. Any hiding place in the trees was desperately uncertain. A safe house was the only answer – not impossible, Felipe thought, but the risks of transport,
of police searches, of accident were too dangerous. Donna’s ‘small estate’ was close by, but as soon as there were any indication that it might have contained the Punchao as well
as the guard dog, it would be stripped above and below the surface.