Authors: Charlie Higson
James remembered the story of how she had been strafed by machine-gun fire. It had obviously raked across her head and left it creased and naked.
He felt sorry for her. She was a pathetic figure as she scurried among the guests looking for her hat. And the guests were starting to laugh and point.
These were not people with any shred of kindness in their hearts. They liked nothing more than to see a fellow human being in distress. They were bored too. Nothing ever happened on the island. This crazy, bald woman trying to find a lost hat was just about the funniest thing they had seen all year. A man snatched the hat up and held it out to her, and as she reached out to take it, he tossed it in the air. A second man caught it and played the same trick on her again. There now began a ghastly game of piggy in the middle, with Mrs Glass running sobbing from one laughing man to the next, as her hat was sent spinning in all directions. One man even patted her on her bald lumpy dome, which sent up a great guffaw of merriment.
Someone had tipped the band off and they started to play the jaunty Mexican hat dance. Men took up the gag and sang along.
James couldn’t stand it. He went over and joined the ring of men, and, when he got the chance, he caught the hat and passed it to Mrs Glass.
If she was grateful she didn’t show it. Too much damage had been done. She tried to compose herself and regain her defiant look. James saw, though, that she was broken. She had always seemed like a woman with no weaknesses, but in the end everyone is vulnerable.
She put the hat on, turned away from him and walked off without a word, followed by jeers and catcalls from the men who had gathered to mock her.
James found Precious sitting in the shadows near the band sipping a glass of iced soda water. He sat down next to her and gripped her hand.
‘Have you got everything?’ he asked and she nodded, showing him the two letters she was holding. Both folded as small as they would go.
James knew what the letters said; he had written one of them, after all.
One was signed by Precious.
Please help me. My name is Precious Stone. I am being held prisoner here on Lagrimas Negras. Take this note to my father, Mr Jack Stone of Tres Hermanas, Mexico. He is a rich man and will reward you for your help
. With the same message written underneath in Spanish.
The other was signed by James and was nearly identical.
They waited patiently for the band to take a break. They played tirelessly for an hour longer, one lively tune after another, until two waiters brought over trays of food and drink for them and they stopped for a rest.
James studied the musicians. They were all blind, just as El Huracán had said. They stayed apart from the guests, and talked quietly among themselves. When James got a moment he drifted over and slipped his note into a trumpeter’s pocket. Precious, meanwhile, was pretending to be a waitress. She moved among the band, picking up drinks and James saw her slip the second note to the singer.
When she returned with the glasses, James said simply, ‘That’s enough,’ and they moved off into the crowd. Finally they said goodnight to each other and went back to their separate dormitories.
The plan had been put into action. The ball had started rolling.
Now all they could do was wait and see if everything played out as expected.
James was too tightly wound to sleep at first. He lay in his bunk and stared at the ceiling.
All the events of recent days were coming back to him. The flood in Puente Nuevo when JJ had nearly drowned. The gruelling journey in the truck through the flooded lowlands. The battle with the soldiers. The time at the abandoned oilfield and the deaths of Whatzat and Garcia. He remembered Sakata taking JJ to safety and poor, crazy Manny with the hole in his head, and their time in the jungle. He remembered the
chicleros
. He still had the gum, stuck to the underside of his bed. If he ever made it out of here it would be a good souvenir.
And he thought about Precious, how she had changed. He thought about how different people were when you got to know them properly.
Around him he could hear the other men snoring, mumbling, turning in their bunks. He longed for home, for the little cottage in Kent. He longed for the luxury of cool, crisp sheets and lying in his own bed on a calm, safe English night.
Slowly sleep crept up on him, or something like sleep. He fell into a half-waking, half-dreaming state that was interrupted in the dead of night when three armed guards came bustling into the dormitory. The other men woke and cursed, but the guards ignored them. They went straight to James’s bed and hauled him out.
He just had time to put the gum in his mouth before they dragged him out of the dormitory.
It had begun.
‘I told you! You know the rules. You cannot escape. It was a foolish and a childish thing to do. But then, I was forgetting that you are mere children.’
James had never seen El Huracán show any emotion before, but now he seemed hurt and angry. Like a schoolteacher who had been let down by a favourite pupil, or a father let down by his son.
They were in El Huracán’s dining room. Precious was there, looking as tired and glassy-eyed as James felt.
‘Did you really think this would work?’ said El Huracán, tossing the two notes down on to the table. ‘Did you really think that a hundred men have not tried something similar before?’
James kept quiet. The simple answer was ‘no’. He had not seriously thought for one moment that the musicians would take the notes to Mr Stone. That wasn’t the point.
‘It was worth a try,’ said James.
El Huracán sighed. ‘You have disappointed me,’ he said. ‘I have been watching you, James. My men give me daily reports. You are a good worker, but you are clever also. I was thinking that you were wasted in the repair gang. But now this!’
He picked up the notes again and then threw them into James’s face. They fluttered harmlessly to the floor. He then turned to the window and looked out at the night. It was cloudy and the sky was pitch black.
‘What am I to do with you both?’ he said.
‘There’s only one thing you can do,’ said James.
‘What?’
‘You’ll have to put us into
La Avenida de la Muerte
.’
El Huracán’s eyes went wide and then he frowned and shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not that.’
‘I thought you had a rule,’ said James, ‘that anyone caught trying to escape must be punished.’
‘Not this way.’
‘Rules are rules,’ said James. ‘Without rules what do you have?’
‘I make the rules,’ said El Huracán angrily. ‘If I say you are not to be put into
La Avenida
, then you will not be put in there.’
‘Then we’ll tell everyone,’ said James. ‘Tell them that the great El Huracán has gone soft, that he changes his rules to suit his mood.’
‘Silence,’ El Huracán barked, and then he caught himself and smiled. He sat down at the table and poured himself a glass of rum.
‘Sit,’ he said.
James and Precious sat.
‘My plans for you need not change,’ said the old man softly. ‘I will make you an offer,’ he said, looking straight at James. ‘You are brave and resourceful and clever, and I see you have a streak of iron in your soul, like me, James. I will not punish the two of you. And I will not ask you to stay here as servants.’
‘Slaves, you mean,’ said Precious, and El Huracán chuckled.
‘I am a very busy man,’ he said. ‘I need good people around me. I need an assistant. Someone I can train. I will not be here forever and it would be good to know that I could pass Lagrimas Negras on to a reliable pair of hands. Who knows, perhaps those hands might belong to you.’
‘Are you saying I could grow up to take your place?’ said James.
‘I have sons, James,’ said El Huracán, ‘but they are lost to me. Part of another life I have left behind. I was never good at keeping a family together. You are an outsider. You are not a criminal like these other men. You could one day rule here, and rule well. What do you say?’
‘What do I say to becoming a jailer?’ said James. ‘To becoming the nursemaid to a lot of thugs and murderers? I say “no”. I am not what you think I am. You’ve lived here too long. You’ve forgotten how ordinary people think, how they behave. I won’t be your apprentice, and I’ll spend every minute of every day trying to escape from this hellish place. You have no choice, El Huracán. You have to put me and Precious into the rat run.’
El Huracán looked sad. His brown eyes moistened. ‘You do not know what you are saying.’
‘I do,’ said James. ‘Trial by ordeal. We go in the run, and if we make it to the end, then you have to let us go.’
‘Nobody has ever got to the end,’ said El Huracán.
‘There’s a first time for everything,’ said James. ‘We demand the right to go through the run, and if we make it, we demand that you let us go free.’
El Huracán’s face hardened. ‘I was wrong about you,’ he spat. ‘I thought you were clever. You are not. You are stupid. And you will die stupid.’
He called his guards back into the room. ‘Take them to the cells in the ruins. Let them sleep. Then feed them well. I want them to give us a good show. At noon they will go into the run.’
He paused and looked at each of them in turn.
‘
Adios
,’ he said.
It was eight hours later when the metal door slid open and James and Precious squinted into the bright light that was flooding into the rat run. James squeezed Precious’s hand.
‘Ready?’ he said, his mouth dry, the word sticking in his throat.
Precious nodded, too nervous to speak at all. Behind them two Indians stood waiting to prod them out into the run with their spears if they hesitated.
But they were not intending to linger. They had worked out that the best way to approach the run was to move through each obstacle as quickly as they could.
They walked out into the sunlight. There was a cheer from above, and a couple of gasps. There were about twenty men watching. They had obviously not been warned that today’s victims were going to be two children. This would test their cold-heartedness to its limits.
El Huracán had no doubt chosen these spectators carefully. The rat run was not just for their entertainment, it was also for their education. El Huracán wanted to show what would happen if any of them disobeyed his word. Maybe these men had been complaining, muttering rebellious thoughts, questioning El Huracán’s authority.
Well, today they would see what would happen to them of they didn’t settle down and toe the line. The lesson would be clear. If El Huracán could do this to mere children, what might he do to them?
Somewhere up there stood the man himself. He would be all smiles and politeness, behaving as if he was at a society horse race rather than a human sacrifice.
James tried not to think about the spectators. He had to focus on the challenges ahead one at a time and put all other thoughts out of his mind. He had to remember his training – all those long evenings on the beach with Precious – and keep a clear, level head.
There were animal droppings soiling the stone floor that began to slope downward into a pool of murky green water. They both knew that they would have to duck under a submerged arch and enter the chamber beyond.
And they both knew what had left the droppings.
The chamber contained a tank full of vicious, baby crocodiles.
The water stank, but James and Precious stank too. One of James’s recent jobs had been to help place animal repellent around the edges of some of the buildings. It was a noxious paste made of mint oil, garlic oil, putrescent eggs, thyme oil, salt and water.
It was designed to keep snakes and lizards away and some of the men rubbed it on to their legs when they were working in the jungle. The paste was kept in soft leather bags in the store shed.
James had had no trouble taking two of the bags and he and Precious had hidden them under their clothing the night before, strapped to their bodies. Before entering the rat run they had managed to smear their bodies all over with the foul- smelling stuff. They had no way of knowing if it would work on crocodiles, but it made them feel better thinking they had done something to prepare.
They waded down the slope into the water, which was blood temperature. James hoped that the repellent wouldn’t all be washed off. At least the water would help to spread the evil smell and warn the nasty little snappers that perhaps this wasn’t lunch swimming into their tank.
The water was up to their knees, their hips, their waists, their chests…
Their necks.
‘Now,’ said James. ‘Let’s go. Be quick.’
They held their breaths and ducked under the stone arch into the chamber. Once they were on the other side, they stood up and surged across the tank like dervishes, thrashing at the water with their palms and yelling in order to frighten off the baby crocodiles.
At one point James thought he felt something nip at his heel, but he could have been imagining it. When they reached the other side, they dived under the second arch and splashed up the slope to dry land.
There was a cheer from the watching men and a couple of encouraging shouts. James looked down at his body. There were no bite marks. A quick check of Precious showed that she, too, had come through unscathed.
James grinned. They had survived the first trial without a scratch. They
did
stand a chance. But they couldn’t hang about patting each other on the back. The pattern of tiny holes in the floor reminded them that, at any moment, sharp metal spikes would start stabbing up at them from below.
They faced one another, backed up until their heels were touching the outer walls, then leant forward, and locked themselves together, holding on to each other’s arms, as if they were opposing props in a rugby scrum. James’s head was tucked under Precious’s right shoulder, and her head was tucked under his.. They had formed a human arch across the alleyway, braced by the walls, their faces about 4 feet off the ground.
This was the trickiest manoeuvre they had rehearsed, and James saw that the alley was very slightly wider than the one they built by the beach to practise on. No matter, they would just have to try their best.
Holding firmly to Precious, he put one foot up so that it was flat against the wall. Precious did the same. They both now had to step up the wall in unison.
‘On three,’ said James. ‘One, two, three…’
They both lifted their other feet off the ground and placed them higher up the wall so that they were now completely suspended over the floor, each held in place by the pressure from the other.
‘Again,’ James grunted, and on the count of three they both took another step higher, and, as they did so, they saw the first of the spikes shoot out and stab vainly at the air.
They started to move down the alleyway, now, towards the next obstacle, sliding their feet sideways and keeping all their muscles tensed to stop their arch from collapsing. The effort required was immense and already James could feel a fiery pain down his legs, but slowly, ever so slowly, they shuffled along, their bodies trembling and shaking.
Crushed against Precious like this, the smell of the repellent was strong, but James barely noticed it. All his concentration was spent on crabbing along the wall and keeping hold of Precious. Below them they could see the cruel spikes popping out of their lairs. James prayed that they wouldn’t slip, because if either one of them lost their grip, the arch would collapse and they would both fall face downward on to the spikes.
At last, though, they reached the wall at the end of the alley. The next trial was scorpions. To get into their lair you were supposed to worm your way through a narrow gap at the base of the wall.
But James and Precious had no intention of crawling into the scorpions’ lair. Instead, they were going to go over the top of it.
First, though, they would have to climb up to the top of the den.
‘Are you OK?’ said James.
‘I think so,’ said Precious. ‘But I can’t hold on much longer, my neck is killing me.’
‘Come on, then, let’s go… one… two… three…’
On three they once more walked up the stonework together. Lifting their human arch another few inches. They carried on like this until they were high enough to shift sideways and perch on the top of the wall that bridged the alley.