Face to the Sun (16 page)

Now this policeman? What would he report? That I had said I was bound for Santa Maria and yet had turned the other way as if to join the guerrillas of the Retadores. An obvious case for
investigation that was, made more obvious still by stealing the horse standing ready to convey the local chief constable to the capital. The whole pack of hounds would be after me with strict
orders to bring me before Heredia in person. Well then, I would return to the capital – a very faint hope. They did not seem to make much use of horses any longer, using cars on the road and
their feet on the rough stuff. But this was mere guesswork.

Under cover of the first hillock with a good view of the road, I spotted a man lying comfortably on the grass in a sort of nest formed by long and frequent use. He was smoking a pipe. It was the
first I had seen in Malpelo where the populace smoked cigars if poor and cigarettes if poorer. By his side was a .303 rifle of old vintage but spotlessly clean. He had evidently been there for some
time.

‘And where are you off to?’ he asked in English with no sign of surprise at my sudden appearance.

‘
No comprendo
.’

‘Well, now – he doesn’t understand English! Yet he is wearing a suit which was once made in London. Much patched, of course. It looks to me as if you need some help. Where are
you going?’

‘The sea,’ I told him, giving up the useless pretence, ‘or as near as I can get.’

‘Ah, that explains the horse. He doesn’t look the kind which could possibly break his traces. I was just out for my usual evening stroll when I saw some excitement at the police
station. I gathered that a horse had broken away from the chief’s buggy. I also heard two shots. So putting two and two together I gathered that someone had been in danger of arrest.
It’s surprising how much one can pick up in an hour’s watching of the traffic and a few questions afterwards. By the way, do you really need that horse or can you lend it to
me?’

‘Lend it or give it?’ I replied with my eye on the rifle.

‘As you like. You seem to have stirred up the ants around here. I have stayed too long to satisfy my curiosity about you, and now I should like to get away while the going is good. Do you
think it would carry us both?’

‘Over this ground?’

‘If you come up a bit, you will see that there is a track. Or rather you won’t see there is a track because it is only twenty inches wide.’

I mounted behind him without any objection from the horse which asked nothing better than to take the narrow, worn path which he was expected to follow.

‘This is the only direct road to the rest of Malpelo,’ he told me. ‘It is seldom used, only if we need some reliable chap to get the news in an emergency.’

‘May I know your name?’

‘Mayne. Joseph Mayne. And yours?’

I told him and he said that he had heard of me.

‘Our link with civilisation,’ he explained, ‘runs to the Atlantic and three different systems of government – imitation Russian, imitation USA and perfectly good
democracy, all quite easy to accept so long as you know what the next one is going to be and pay your taxes without bothering about corruption. All politicians have to live.’

The sun was already low and we could now see in the distance miniature colonies of little white houses straggling over the lowlands, interspersed with small warehouses and factories. Lights
began to twinkle. Obviously there was no electricity.

‘But who did this?’

‘I did, and called it Jumilla.’

‘Why don’t you build on?’

‘Because it is more profitable not to. The House of Representatives voted the money and then – shall we say – forgot about it.’

‘You are not tempted to be – well, up to date?’

‘We are up to date. Say, 1850. I chose the site. I knew as soon as I saw it that this was where I wanted to live. The old game. My father made the money and I spent it.’

‘You are not lonely?’

Three quite adorable little Indians were hovering in welcome outside the door of a long, low white house a little bigger than the rest.

‘My daughters,’ he announced, rather to my surprise for their manners were perfect in Spanish and English. I said that he had made his house a palace.

‘How did you ever find a governess?’

‘The Presidenta Juana has been good enough to take an interest in them. No, not what you think. All different mothers. But she often telephones them when the boss is away.’

He kissed all three and led me into the house, telling me with Spanish courtesy that it was mine.

‘Wine or our local shot-in-the-arm?’ he asked.

‘Whichever you recommend after a hard day. And the horse? He needs a drink too.’

‘Poor old police horse! He can’t show his face until I have changed his colour. He now belongs to the people as you don’t want him.’

‘You are communists?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. On a very small scale the system works. So if I must have a name, that’s about it. You are talking to the ghost of Uncle Stalin himself.’

‘Don’t the police ever come here?’

‘Yes. After giving me notice.’

‘Are they reasonable?’

‘Only quite a small subvention monthly if the Treasury hasn’t spent it. But there are limits. They would not disobey if there is a direct order from the President. Is he likely to
give it?’

‘I am afraid he is.’

‘Then I shall have to set you on your way in the morning. I will let Juana know.’

‘For God’s sake, no!’

‘Well, if you think so. But she finds me very romantic. We’ll keep that in reserve then.’

I started my story with the raid of the Retadores on the capital and the capture of the Punchao from the watchmaker, for I was still too ashamed of London and my theft of the black bag. I told
him how I had rescued it and had intended to carry it to the commander of the Retadores in the second battle. After the defeat I escaped with it and I would, I said, show it to him when the time
came. It was the property of the people, not Heredia.

‘What are you doing in Malpelo anyway?’

‘I came over as a friend of Sir Hector McMurtrie.’

‘And of Carlota?’

‘I think she would gladly see me stuck up against a wall.’

‘And where does Teresa Molinos come in? I have three stories about her: (1) she brought the Punchao up from the bottom of the sea; (2) she nearly caused a revolution by walking with it
into the rearguard of the Heredistas; (3) she is protected by an enormous witch dog.’

I told him that Rumour No. 2 was correct and the other two were fairy stories – but important since they showed the legends which attached themselves to the Punchao.

‘Do you know where she is now?’

‘I wish I did.’

‘Yes. If it had been a man who held up the Punchao they would have rallied round it. Evidence of power without cruelty is what they want to see.’

I left him on foot early in the morning, heading for the Atlantic coast, a long way to walk but the road was good. The colony was part of Malpelo, but so isolated that there
was no through traffic. After a rather nervous march I was stopped by a lorry with a load of bananas on its way to the port. The driver told me to get in quickly and promptly hid me in an empty
crate of Canary bananas, left over from some experimental shipment. I had nothing to fear, he said, when he nailed me down.

We bumped along the gravelled road for about an hour and a half until I could hear the distant hoot of a ship. Soon afterwards another crate – rather to my alarm – was stacked on top
of me. Then the driver appeared to be counting the shipment in the presence of some official, and the side of my crate dropped down, leaving just enough space for me to crawl out.

‘There you are!’ the driver said. ‘Don’t move until the ship is well out to sea. Then ask for the third officer! Good luck, comrade!’

I moved too early and only realised it when I tried to get back into hiding and couldn’t. That left my backside wide open to a hearty kick.

‘Damn communist! Out you go!’

‘Hi, there! I am British.’

‘You should be ashamed of yourself with that nice queen of yours. Chuck him out!’

At least they did me the honour of lowering the gangplank. I had just time to tell them what they could do with their bananas before I was manhandled to the immigration office.

‘
Pasaporte, por favor
.’

I showed it.

‘Here’s the chap you want,’ the officer shouted over his shoulder.

Two military policemen jumped from a lightly armoured van behind him, flung me down on the floor and set off on the long way round to the capital through Nueva Beria avoiding Jumilla altogether.
They unloaded me at the central police station, from which I had been delivered by the raid of the Retadores.

‘The President will see your prisoner immediately,’ the duty officer said.

So I was taken at once to the palace and locked into a sound-proof room. There were a couple of unfamiliar machines in it which I did not like. I was left alone for half an hour, probably to
soften me for questioning. It did. I had heard enough of Heredia’s methods.

The President at last came in accompanied by a silent assistant. He appeared to be as cordial as the first time that I had been summoned to his presence.

‘Well, well, Mr Hawkins, and what were you running away from?’

‘I want to go home, Your Excellency.’

‘You believed I would not let you?’

‘Well, there have been misunderstandings. I admit I have been mixed up with some strange people against my will and in ignorance of Malpelo’s politics, Excellency.’

‘I am told you are a communist.’

‘I have no politics. I am an archaeologist.’

‘Ah, that would account for your interest in the Punchao. Then no doubt you can tell me where it has disappeared to since the Senorita Molinos paraded with it through Ramales.’

‘I do not know, Excellency.’

I was not going to give him the obvious answer that she had it when I could not know whether she was safely out of reach.

‘You mean that you do not remember, I think. I wonder if I can restore your memory.’

He gave a nod to his silent companion who stepped forward, bent back my arms and pinioned them behind my head.

‘A cigar?’ Heredia invited – a gratuitous touch of cruelty.

His torturer set up one of those unfamiliar machines which I had seen, and attached rings to my wrists and ankles. He then wound a wheel so that I was suspended in mid-air. I let out a squeal at
the savage pain and fiercely determined not to do so again. I flatter myself that I kept the vow but I cannot be sure.

The companion answered my silence by a touch more on the wheel, leaving my body in a straight line of agony which increased from moment to moment.

‘And how is the memory now?’ Heredia asked.

‘I cannot remember what I do not know.’

‘Perhaps another centimetre will improve his knowledge,’ Heredia suggested to the professional.

I heard my shoulder crack as it was dislocated. I was thankful for the cooling sweat which burst out all over me.

‘Are you perhaps now able to tell me where you hid the Punchao?’

I think I answered that I did not hide it. I must have said something. I am even vague by now which language we were speaking.

‘Why have we kept his clothes on all this time, my much appreciated specialist?’

The specialist slit my two garments and ripped them off. That was in a way the worst. It exaggerated my feeling of utter defencelessness. Also the act of tearing the clothes from a body
stretched like an iron bar was added agony. Somehow, I found enough pain or exasperation or whatever it was to stammer in English:

‘You bloody swine!’

‘Well, well! Now that reminds me! I have heard that swine will eat a man little by little.’

The much appreciated assistant handed him a pair of wide pincers. He began to pluck slowly at bunches of my body hairs with his own hands.

‘Unless my memory is at fault there won’t be much left for your little Teresa.’

Oddly enough, the mention of her name reinforced my determination to resist. At any rate the assistant had some reason to heave a bucket of cold water over me. I blame my big toe on which he had
just started to work, not Teresa.

A telephone rang and Heredia calmly answered it.

‘Patch him up,’ he ordered. ‘We will continue tomorrow.’

‘Shall I tighten?’

‘No. The pain will grow fiercer through the night without any help from us.’

‘But Your Excellency does not wish him to die?’

‘On no account,
chico
! On no account!’

They left me tied up, with only my bottom supported. Heredia was right. The pain did grow fiercer.

The pair returned late in the morning. Their first act was to screw up the wheel and straighten me. That may have been an experiment. If so, it was successful. That was the worst agony of the
lot.

‘Now it’s a lovely morning outside,’ Heredia said. ‘Just the time to tell me where the Punchao is.’

‘Where you won’t get it,’ I think I said.

Looking back on that hell, I am not amazed at my courage; indeed I am not sure that it existed. By this time I had no will left. I was a tortured parrot and my response was no more than my
training in the cage. I don’t know if I even had the sense to see that he could not let me die before I told him. I wished to God that he would let me die.

The assistant repeated his attention to my big toe. He had torn off the nail the previous night but had not severed the joint. He now began to twist it off, not in one merciful jerk but in a
series of turns and returns.

The telephone buzzed and the President picked it up himself. He had to be careful that this ultra-private office should remain only a rumour to terrify opponents. It was obviously not the first
time that his private pleasures had been interrupted.

‘Escort the caller to the door of my personal office. Knock twice and retire at once,’ he said.

The professional lowered two wooden screens cutting off a third of the room where I lay, heaving a rug over the bloodstains on the floor and converting the torture chamber into a private office
with books, files, chairs and a table. He retired behind the false walls, shoved a gag in my mouth and knocked out a tooth for good measure.