by John Buchan
She found Archie and Castor outside the mess-hut.
“Do you still maintain your invulnerability?” the Gobernador asked, but Archie did not hear. He was engaged in a passionate soliloquy.
“There’s only one fellow in the world who could do that trick,” he exclaimed. “I’ve seen him do it a dozen times. Who? A Frenchman called D’Ingraville. He used to go gunning for Lensch, and would have got him too, if Peter Pienaar hadn’t chipped in first. But D’Ingraville died long ago.”
“I think you are mistaken,” said Castor quietly. “Captain Jacques D’Ingraville has been for several years a member of my staff.”
V
The new Administration Packard, which a little before midnight on the 18th of July carried six men beyond the northern barricades of the Gran Seco city, did not continue more than a few miles on the road which ran to Fort Castor. Suvorin, who drove — he had in the early days of motoring won the Grand Prix in the race from Paris to Marseilles — did not know the country, but there were men with him who did. Obedient to their instructions, he turned to the right at the San Pedro calvary, and for three hours bumped and skidded along sandy tracks and over stony barrens.
It was apparent to one who kept an eye on the stars that he was bending south in a wide circuit, and presently the party came to the main highway between the city and the Mines. Since the defence was not holding a continuous line, but only two sectors, the party were no longer in the battle zone. They did not cross the road till it had been carefully reconnoitred, and once beyond it the car was again in a moraine of boulders and banks of shale. The moon had long set, and the headlights were working feebly, so that it was more by good fortune than by skill that it came at last to the respectable road which ran from the Universum Mine to the railway-sidings south of the city. Here it turned west and made better speed, till the dancing pencils of the searchlights revealed the proximity of General Lossberg’s army. The travellers were in fact very near the General’s advanced headquarters, and a rifle-shot over their heads presently brought them to a halt. Among them they must have had adequate passports, for an hour later they were partaking of the General’s hospitality. He was in a good humour, for he had just had word of the evacuation of the city, and believed that now he was pressing hard on the heels of the fleeing and broken rebels.
Of the six occupants of the car only one accompanied the General on his triumphant entry. This was the driver of the car, Peter Suvorin, a tall man with a bony face and skin like old parchment, and hair so pale that he seemed almost an albino. The others prepared to go down country.
General Lossberg entertained him and Pasquali to breakfast, and had an interview thereafter with the others in the extremest privacy. They formed a curious contrast to the trim Olifa staff. The General was very neat in his field-grey uniform, a well-set-up figure which did not look its fifty-eight years, square, tanned face, brisk, grey moustache, steady, competent grey eyes — the whole a little marred by a stupid mouth and a heavy, rather brutal chin. The motor-car party compared to him seemed like a wandering theatrical troupe. Pasquali, he who played Scriabin, was indeed sprucely dressed and wore an expensive fur-coat, but his prognathous jaw was blue and unshaven, and his dark eyes so opaque with weariness that he looked like a sick negro.
Radin was a tall fellow, whose high cheek-bones suggested Indian blood, and who carried a recent scar above his right eye. Daniel Judson, short, thick, with rabbit teeth and a broken nose, looked like a damaged prize-fighter, and thick black eyebrows above a sallow face gave Laschallas the air of a provincial actor imperfectly made up. Trompetter, a Javanese Dutchman with a touch of the tar brush, had a broad, wedge-shaped face as yellow as a guinea, and little sharp pig’s eyes. All, except Pasquali and Suvorin, were dressed in oddments, and, having been in close hiding, looked as unwholesome as the blanched insects below an upturned flower-pot.
Another joined the conference, a man with a light-cavalry figure, wearing a suit of thin tweeds which had been made not a month before in London. He shook hands with Pasquali and Suvorin, bowed to the General, and nodded to the others. Lossberg spoke to him at length, and he appeared to assent.
“You, Senor Romanes,” said Lossberg, “and also Senor Suvorin enter the city with me. I will have you attached to my Intelligence section. These other gentlemen return in half an hour to Olifa, in the charge of Senor Pasquali. They will report to General Bianca and put themselves under his instructions. I must bid you good-bye, gentlemen, for time presses.” And the brisk general not unwillingly left the group to an aide-de-camp.
So the party of five travelled in comfort that day down country, and, after many delays owing to freight trains reached the city of Olifa on the following morning. The duly reported to General Bianca, but they did not take his instructions. They seemed to be concerned with urgent business of their own, for they disappeared into the under world of Olifa, meeting every evening at a certain café in a back street. Yet there was nothing clandestine about their activity, for not a day passed without one or more of the five being closeted with high officials of the Army, the Marine, or the Police.
VI
It was on the evening of the 9th day of August that D’Ingraville paid his brief visit to the Courts of the Morning.
Archie departed at once to report, and returned next day of order certain precautionary measures. Two of their best fighting scouts, with Roger Grayne in charge, were stationed here, and arrangements were made for early notice of any future visitors from the air. By this time the camp at Loa was known to Lossberg and his next advance would be in that direction. But it was from the sea that the immediate danger was feared. Provision was made for losing the sea-ravine by explosions which would hurl down a thousand tons of rock and strip part of the gully as bare as the face of a wall. Since their communications with the outer world would thus come to an end, such action as to be taken only in the last resort, and it was anticipated that any ordinary attempt at landing could be repelled by the garrison of the ravine. Only if Olifa made an assault in force would heroic measures become necessary. The thing had to be faced, for D’Ingraville must have given Lossberg the exact position of their base, and, since it was obvious that it must be replenished by sea, it would be easy to discover the point of access to the shore. Plans had long been settled for evacuating the Courts of the Morning in case of need, and it was essential that an assault from the sea should be obstructed long enough to enable the plans to be methodically carried out. The one thing to guard against was surprise. A post was stationed on the shore, two others respectively a third and a half of the way up, and a strong garrison at the summit to guard the precipitous final section. All were connected by telephone with main headquarters and with each other, and there were numerous small mines laid which could be used in the detailed defence of each part of the route.
The incident, however, had shattered the peace of the plateau. The place was no more a sanctuary, for its secret had been laid bare. Barbara, busy with her hospital stores, seemed to be unconscious of the change, but Janet fell a prey to a perpetual apprehension. She tried to laugh at herself, but the ghost would not be laid. The shelf of mountain, which had seemed so secure and homelike, was now but a narrow ledge on a great cliff, and she herself a climber sick with vertigo...The enemy was down below in the woody shelves, slowly creeping nearer, and the army of defence was apparently at the other side of the Gran Seco. He was out on the broad seas, waiting for the dark of night to swoop in upon the coast. She would stare down into the green depths of the ravine, and imagine it peopled with fierce faces, and horrible with smoke and blood. In the coverts of wildwood on the plateau enemy spies might be lurking — even far up on the grim face of Choharua. She pictured the enemy — men with evil, pallid faces, such as she had caught a glimpse of in the streets in her visit with Archie to the Gran Seco, and at the picture she thrilled with horror.
Her fears were worst at night, when she would awake at the slightest sound and lie for a space listening, with
every nerve tense...In the daytime she forced herself to cheerfulness, and managed to fill up every minute with duties. The weather was changing, and the spring rains were beginning. The sky, which for weeks had been an arch of crystal by day and by night a velvet canopy ablaze with stars, was now perpetually clouded, and often the plateau would be shrouded in a fine mist. This obscurity did not help her spirits. It seemed to offer cover for infinite chances of surprise by land, water, and air.
One thing only gave her comfort. She had decided weeks before to make herself a good pistol shot, and now she assiduously practised, under Roger Grayne’s tuition. Grayne, large, rugged, shaggy, and imperturbable, was a fortunate companion for a nervous girl. Janet had always been a fine rifle shot, and now she became a very fair marksman with a revolver, and learned to shoot in any position.
“That’s fine!” Grayne would say. “I shouldn’t like to be up against you in a rough-house, Lady Roylance. Say, you’re not worrying about this little business? It’s all as right as rain.” And when, moved by his friendliness, she confided to him her doubts, he laughingly disposed of them. The weather was far worse for Lossberg than for them. Supposing his planes arrived on a compass course, they were morally certain to come to grief, for the plateau was tricky in a dead calm, and certain death in foul weather to anyone who did not know it...An attack from Loa! It would take weeks for the enemy to fight his way through the most difficult country on God’s earth, and there were roads by which every ounce of supplies could be got off before Lossberg was within thirty miles...The sea! He admitted that there was a risk there, but there could be no surprise. There was just the one narrow avenue of approach, and that could be held against the whole darned Olifa navy long enough to give them ample time to move.
“You see,” he concluded, “we’re so fixed that we can’t be surprised. Olifa’s got to come in force to take our sea approach, and coming in force means early notice. We’re it worrying about stray guardacostas. It’s not as if one man could wriggle through and bomb us in our beds. That’s the kind of game I don’t fancy, but it’s about as likely here for an army corps to come over Choharua.”
But if Grayne was a solid comfort to the girl, the Gobernador was very much the reverse. He, like her, seemed to be the victim of nerves ever since D’Ingraville’s plane had vanished seaward. He was no longer friendly in forthcoming, a pleasant companion indoors and abroad. He had become silent and preoccupied, and meals were Trappist — like banquets. Nor did he, as at the beginning his sojourn on the plateau, spend much of his time in own room. He seemed to dislike to be alone, and to have nothing on which he could fix his mind. From morning till night he roamed about the settlement, constantly turning eyes to the sky, always intent and listening. There were no restrictions on his movements, so he went many times to the sea-ravine, and sat on the rocks at the top of it staring downward and seaward.
Once Janet found him sitting huddled there in a water-proof coat, when a shower had passed and a watery sun was trying to shine. The air was stuffily raw, oppressive to the walker, but chilly when movement ceased. He was squatting like a figure of Buddha, and his eyes seemed trying to pierce the clouds which drooped low over the sea.
“You are looking for your deliverers, Excellency?” the girl asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I told you,” he said, “that folly is always punished. But its punishment may be also a foolish business. This holiday camp seems to be coming to an end.”
“Perhaps. Do you know, your voice sounds as if you were rather sorry?”
He did not reply, but unbuttoned the collar of his water-proof as if the weather choked him.
“I have seen you shooting at a target,” he said at last. “You can use a pistol?”
“Pretty well. I’m improving every day.”
“Then you have the ultimate safeguard. You need not fear the worst.”
“I hope for the best,” she said with enforced gaiety. “Perhaps I may shoot General Lossberg.”
“Lossberg!” he repeated almost bitterly. “You need not fear Lossberg. I was thinking of something very different, and I am glad to know that in the last resort you will be safe...Most women are afraid of pistols, but you are different from most women. After all, it is a merciful death.”
Janet shivered, for the eyes which the Gobernador turned upon her had that in them which she had never seen before There was anxiety in them, and something which was almost tenderness. She understood that if she feared the coming of his deliverers, so also did he — and not for his own sake “I’m afraid we are giving you a miserable time,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “We have dragged you out of your comfortable groove into an anxious place.”
“You have upset the work of my life,” he said gravely. Then he added, as if by an afterthought, “and the foundations.”
“The foundations?”
“Yes. I had a clear course marked out, like a chart. Now the chart is overboard, and the rudder is swinging loose.”
“There may be other charts,” she said gently.
Then she averted her face and began to talk nonsense rapidly, for she realised that she herself must be the chart-maker.
VII
On the evening of August 19th the rain, which had fallen all day, ceased, and a thin fog oozed out of the ground. By six o’clock night had fallen and a small wind had risen, and, since the sky was heavily overcast, the darkness was soon like the bottom of a cellar...The moon would not rise for an hour or two, and, unless the weather changed, it would give little light.
At the foot of the sea-ravine, in a log hut above the jetty, the coast garrison was preparing supper. Behind was a short space of flat ground, much of which had been feared, but a grove of dead fan-palms remained, whose withered leaves rustled and creaked in the wind. It was in noisy spot, for the torrent after its breakneck descent drove through the boulders of the beach in a fury of loud white waters. In that sheltered bay the sea was calm, but the stream made a perpetual clamour as of beating surf.
The garrison consisted of six Indians of the hills, four of Luis’s haciendados, whom he specially trusted, and two of Grayne’s ex-marines. The whole was in charge of one of the Alhuema engineers, a gnarled Ulsterman called Corbett, who had come to the Gran Seco from Rhodesia, and whose experiences went back to the Matabele wars. There was a small stove in the hut, and, since supper had just been cooked, the air in that tropical spot on the sea-level was like an orchid-house. A lantern stood on the trestled table, but windows and door were closed so that from the sea no light could have been observed. Only the white men and the mestizos sat at the table; the Indians ate their meal of boiled millet and syrup in their own circle apart.
Corbett mopped his brow. He had begun to fill a pipe and had stopped as if in a sudden distaste. “I can’t smoke in this blasted conservatory,” he said “Shade the light, Bill. I’m for a little fresh air.”
He unbarred one of the windows and let in a current of steamy wind which stirred but did not cool the thick atmosphere of the hut. Outside the night was hot, noisy, and impenetrably dark. He stuck head and shoulders out, and promptly drew them back.
“Bill,” he whispered, “come here! First stick the lantern under the table...Look straight ahead. D’you see a light?”
The man called Bill stared into the blackness and then shook his head.
“Nix,” he said.
“Funny,” said the other. “I could have sworn I caught a spark of something. It might have been on the water, or on the land across the channel. No, not at the seaward end — at the end under the big red rock...Here, Jones, you have a look-see. You’re like a cat and can see in the dark.”
The Indian addressed as Jones had a long look. “I see no light,” he said. “But I can hear something which is not the wind or the stream. Bid the others be quiet.” He remained motionless for several minutes, like a wild animal that has been alarmed. Then he too shook his head. “It has gone,” he said. “For a second I thought I h
eard a man’s voice and the noise of a ship.”
“But the whole damn place is full of noises,” said Corbett.
“This was a different noise. The wind is from the west and the sea carries sound.”
“Where might it have been?”
“I think near the rock beyond the water.”
“Same place as I thought I saw the light.” Corbett rubbed his bristly chin. “Can’t say I like that. Jones and me may be dreaming, but it’s the first time we’ve ever imagined anything like it. We’d better get the patrols out. Bill, you stay here, with Jones and his two mates. Keep your ears cocked and your eyes skinned. And you’d better call up Number One and tell ‘em that we’re a bit anxious. Kittredge will take the southern beat up to the head of the gulf — same three as last night — and I’ll go north. It’s the water’s edge we’ve got to watch, so there’s no call to go fossicking in the bush...Remember the drill, you all, if you hear a shot. We meet here again at midnight, hen Bill and his little lot turn out. No smoking for you boys. Keep your pipes in your pockets till you get back.”
We are concerned only with the doings of Kittredge and his party of three, whose beat lay south along the shore of the little gulf to where the land swung round in a horn of cliff to form the breakwater which separated the inlet from the ocean. He had with him one Indian and two of Luis’s mestizos. Beyond the jetty the trees descended almost to the water’s edge, high timber trees festooned with lianas, but for a yard or two on the seaward side the western winds had thinned the covert a little, and the track zigzagged among bare boles. Beyond, the hill dropped almost sheer, so that the traveller was wet by the tides, but farther on there was a space of treeless ground, covered with light grass and thorn bushes, and at the water’s edge, where other stream entered the sea, a reed-swamp, haunted by wildfowl.
