Complete Fictional Works of John Buchan (Illustrated)

by John Buchan

  San Luca put up a better fight, but by midnight it was overpowered, and an ammunition train, standing in its siding, was captured. Before the dawn broke there was another huge rent in the bridge, and both abutments were held in force, with a wicked chain of machine-gun nests commanding their approaches from north and south. A big breach had been made, and, what was more, the breach was held, and might be held for days against a considerable army.

  The news found Lossberg on the Wednesday morning about to push forward troops to support Olivarez in his last thrust. Already he saw himself in the Olifa plains approaching the capital. He had had no news except Indian rumours, but he had by this time realised that the rebels in the Gran Seco were only a vanguard and that El Obro was now in Olifa. He had beaten the enemy in the Gran Seco, and his place was now in the lowlands. But the news from San Luca made him pause. Part of a mechanised battalion which he had sent back hastily was checked and beaten by Peters at the Devil’s Ear. Lossberg halted in deep perplexity. He must explore the situation behind him, before he could support Olivarez with an easy mind. So instead of concentrating in an immediate assault on Post C, which would have given him Santa Ana, he pushed more troops back towards San Luca and ordered Olivarez to postpone his main attack for twelve hours.

  It was at this point that Sandy entered the game. He had arrived at Santa Ana during the course of the Tuesday night, and had had his Indians there before ten o’clock on the Wednesday morning. The reports from Melville at Post C were not reassuring. Olivarez was in great force, and once he had his field guns up not all the natural advantages of the place could keep it from destruction. The defence had already tried a night sally, which had been driven back without effecting much. Melville asked for nothing in the way of reinforcements, for he knew that there was nothing to send, since Pecos and Santa Ana were already bare. Feverish efforts were being made to strengthen Post D, the ultimate position, but everyone realised that, if C fell, D would follow.

  When Sandy arrived he asked for the last air reports. It was believed that Lossberg was at a point thirty-seven miles south of Gabones, and that a gap of at least fifteen miles separated him from Olivarez and his van. Sandy shrugged his shoulders and turned to Rogerson. “We’re getting implicated in a field action,” he said in the mild voice which he reserved for extreme emergencies. “It won’t do. If I join Melville, we shall still be outnumbered and outgunned. Latimer had better keep his planes in touch with Melville. I’m going to get to that fifteen-mile gap. Please God, Lossberg is in no hurry this morning. He must be cocksure of success after yesterday, so if I know my man he’ll take his time.”

  Lossberg, as we know, was compelled to delay, but of this Sandy was not aware, and as soon as the Indians had broken bread he had them in the saddle. The eastern side of the railway valley was not practicable for horses, scarcely even for cragsmen, but he had some hopes of the western side.

  His expectations were all but doomed to defeat. The total distance of the circuit proposed was some thirty miles, but, after the first twenty, horses became impossible. The local guides were useless, for they led him into a network of barren ravines too far to the west — a route no doubt to Gabones, but separated from the crucial part of the line by an increasing width of rocky mountains. Presently the horses had to be left behind, and under the heat of a tropical sun the way had to be pursued on foot up and down moraines of shale and crumbling precipices and sand-choked hollows. Not all the Indians lasted the course, for many were horsemen by habit and no mountaineers. Of the white men only Sandy and five others found themselves that afternoon looking down upon the railway, with aching limbs, and eyes filmed with weariness, and heads that throbbed and swam in incipient heatstroke. But that part of the railway valley which they saw was empty except for a small body of pioneers repairing the road. They were in time. Lossberg had not yet closed the gap which separated him from his Chief of Staff.

  The time was now about four o’clock on the Wednesday afternoon. San Luca was in the hands of Peters and Escrick, Lossberg’s first attempt to oust them had failed, and that general, much perplexed, was beginning to move troops northward again. Melville, to his surprise, was managing to hold his own at Post C, since Olivarez, under Lossberg’s orders, was not pressing too hard. Blenkiron, Luis, and Archie were sitting in Olifa in their futile conference.

  The events which followed have become famous in Olifa history, and they are told fully in the work which young Campanillo has published. Staggering with weariness but goaded on by a sense of the shortness of their time and the magnitude of their chance, Sandy’s blear-eyed following descended from the rocks and took possession of the segment of valley. He had dragged explosives with him across the hills, and with him were men from the Mines who understood their use. Before the hot night descended they had contrived a great destruction, and the early darkness was lit with flame and loud with earthquakes.

  Between the cliffs which rimmed the place they achieved a desolation which for days no troops could traverse, except painfully, in single file, on foot. Presently the remainder of his men straggled in, and after a short rest Sandy led his force southward, to where Olivarez’s guns could be heard at their noisy bombardment.

  The charge of that wild commando at dawn is a tale not for dull prose but for some swinging ballad. The surprise was complete, and most of the batteries were taken in the rear. Olivarez was a stout soldier, and he rallied gallantly, but he was caught between two fires, whose magnitude he could not guess. Melville had heard the explosions of the night and knew what had happened, and he flung every ounce he possessed into the struggle. The defence became in attack, and C was no longer a beleaguered post but the base of a furious offensive. A little after midday Lossberg’s van was huddled into a rocky gut, with its own batteries turned on it, and the enemy secure on the circumference. Then came one of those moments of sudden quiet which mean the realisation of defeat on one side and incontestable victory on the other.

  Olivarez, like a wise and humane man, surrendered. But his surprise his surrender was received not by Melville, of whom his Intelligence scouts had fully informed him, but by a slight figure with a begrimed face and clothes in rags, who addressed him in perfect Spanish and seemed more embarrassed than himself. He learned with amazement that this was the notorious El Obro. When the guerrillero recalled a former meeting in a Moroccan town, Olivarez stared in bewilderment. “I was called Arbuthnot then,” the other said pleasantly. Then recollection awoke the general, and his face lightened. He had heard too much about this man to feel any shame in accepting defeat his hands.

  VIII

  At night, as we know, Sandy dispatched Olivarez in company with Don Alejandro Gedd to Olifa city. The owing day was spent by the ambassadors in Olifa, and Sandy at Pecos, in adjusting their plans to the new situation. There was an immense amount of work to be accomplished in the minimum of time. The great concentration at Alcorta Junction, which was now pushed up to the defence lines of the city, had to be regulated, throughout the republic a stop-gap military Government had to be extemporised. Between the revolution and the ultimate settlement a difficult interregnum must intervene. Manuel Martinez came into the city to consult with Luis, but Castor remained at Veiro, whence he issued orders to the different provinces. So far as possible the work was left in the hands of the Olifero leaders themselves.

  Luis was the chief executive officer, and it was Martinez who became temporary governor of Olifa city, and old Ramirez of Cardanio and one of the Zarranigas of Alcorta who were his lieutenants, while young Miguel de Campanillo carried to Lossberg the instructions of General Bianca. It was wise to keep the foreign element in the background, that Olifa might believe that her redemption had come from herself.

  It was a torrid day with thunderstorms grumbling on the horizon, and Sandy, having received reports from the city which announced that all was quiet and orderly, and from Gabones, which told of young Campanillo’s arrival on his way to Lossberg’s headquarters, flung himself on a bed in th
e Pecos hotel, and tried to sleep. But sleep he could not, though every bone and muscle cried out for it. It may have been the weather, or it may have been the strain of the past days, but his mind refused to be composed and his thoughts beat a weary treadmill. He had none of the exultation of a victor, none even of the comfort which comes from a task accomplished. He laboured under a heavy sense of oppression, out of which anxiety stood like jags of rock in a stream. He could not believe that the end had been reached, not even when his reason approved that conclusion. Therefore he could not sleep.

  An aide-de-camp made a timid appearance, for he was afraid to break in on the siesta of his chief. But it appeared that the occasion was urgent. A man wanted to speak with the General. He had given his name. Sandy looked at the card proffered him, and read “Mr T. S. Lariarty.” “Bring him here,” he said, “and see that we are not disturbed. Wait...don’t be far away, in case I want you.” He smoothed his ruffled hair, and sat on the bed awaiting his visitor, and as he waited a ridiculous memory kept recurring — the Eton Beagles in the fields beyond Slough, and himself and Lariarty, both newly become uppers, struggling desperately to keep up with the field, each determined not to be outdone by the other. Much water had passed over Cuckoo Weir since then. The man who presently stood before him would have made no figure in running over English ploughfields.

  Lariarty was no more the dapper and inscrutable Conquistador, armoured against a world which he despised. Some spring had broken within him, for he looked like one mortally sick in mind and body. But his eyes were no longer opaque. There was light in them, broken lights, like the eyes of a sick dog.

  “You’re looking ill, Tim,” said Sandy gently.

  “I think I am dying...But that does not matter...I must speak to you, Arbuthnot. You have behaved to me like a gentleman, and I pay my debts...You think you have won, but you are wrong...unless...” The man seemed to gulp. “Veiro,” he croaked. “The women are at Veiro — and the Gobernador...They will be dead before midnight unless you can save them.”

  Sandy was on his feet, his lethargy gone. He shouted for his aide-de-camp. “Get through to Veiro,” he told the boy, “and to Olifa — to the Ministry of War. Ask for General de Marzaniga...Get a whisky and soda, too — a stiff one.”

  The drink was brought by an orderly. “Swallow that, Timmy,” he said. “You’re all out, and it will buck you up.”

  But the other refused it. “It would kill me,” he said. “Never mind my health, Arbuthnot. You won’t get through to Veiro...nor to Olifa...My colleagues have made their plans. Veiro will be isolated...Why in the name of God did you leave your friends in that lonely place? They should have been in the midst of an army. When men are desperate, they think only of revenge.”

  “Who are ‘they’? The Conquistadors?”

  Lariarty nodded.

  “D’Ingraville is there, and Pasquali, and Suvorin, and Romanes — Romanes above all. Larbert is dead, and I haw not heard of Calvo. But Romanes—” He choked again “And there are some of the others too...Judson and Radin and Martel, and, I think, Laschallas...They have all death before them, the rope for some and for others a slower torture. Therefore they are mad...Oh, what in God’s name are you waiting for? I tell you...”

  The aide-de-camp returned. “We cannot get through to Veiro, sir,” he said. “There seems to be some break-down on the line. And there is no answer from Olifa.”

  “So,” said Sandy. The grimness had gone out of his face, and he was smiling again. “I want the Rolls, Truelove,” he said, “at once. Captain Zarraniga will come with me. Tell him to pick four troopers, with a hundred rounds apiece...I want the two big Daimlers to follow: with eight troopers in each. At once. There is not a moment to lose. Let General Melville know.”

  Lariarty had drawn himself erect.

  “Can I come with you, Arbuthnot?” he stammered.

  Sandy looked in his eyes, and he seemed to see behind the sickness and fever and the wreckage of the tragic years a shadow of the boy he remembered.

  “Most certainly you are coming with me, Tim.” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “It is now a quarter to nine. We shall be at Veiro by ten. God grant we are in time!”

  The night was warm and still, for the thunder had now gone out of the air, though it still grumbled on the horizon It was a slow business clearing the environs of Pecos, for the roads were congested with transport, owing to the moving of troops from Alcorta Junction. But once the Vulpas valley was left behind, the car swung briskly along the hard, broad roads of the plateau called the Marpas, which is one of Olifa’s chief horse-breeding areas. There was only a finger-nail of moon, but the stars were like harbour-lights. Far behind could be seen the broad glow of the head-lamps of the following Daimlers. Sandy at the wheel did not slacken speed at the patches where the road had been ruffled by the winter rains. He drove like a man possessed, looking every now and then at his wrist-watch.

  “Half-way,” he announced to the young Zarraniga as they passed a farm in a clump of chestnuts. Then the road climbed to a greater elevation and the light of the Daimlers behind seemed to come out of a trough. “Ten miles more,” he whispered, and Lariarty, who was jammed among the troopers behind, muttered something that sounded the a prayer. Still the road rose, and then came a long downward incline, and far away on the left a light twinkled.

  “Veiro,” said young Zarraniga. “Presently the good road will end, and we shall have Don Mario’s cart-track. We must be near the ravine of St Paul and the iron bridge.”

  Three minutes later there was a jarring of brakes and the car came to a stop. A deep narrow cleft lay before em, and where had once been a bridge there hung only drunken girder.

  “They have planned it well,” said Lariarty.

  The men tumbled out of the car, for the great Rolls is as useless as a child’s go-cart.

  “There are yet four miles,” said Zarraniga, as he lowed Sandy down the side of the ravine and the steep overhang of the far bank. “Four miles, and my men are not long-distance runners.”

  Sandy had squared his shoulders for the race, when Zarraniga halted him. “Half a mile on the right is the home of Pedro Aguilar. He has young horses.”

  Pedro, who was a tenant of Don Mario’s, was roused him his sleep by the sight of seven armed men demanding mounts. Zarraniga he knew, and he trotted obediently towards his stables. “I have not saddles for so many, senor,” he explained.

  “Saddles be hanged! Give us bridles. Rope halters if in have nothing better.” Sandy was already delving furiously among the debris of Pedro’s harness-room.

  “Two are young beasts and scarcely broken,” said the man.

  “So much the better,” said Sandy. “I will take one and Senor Zarraniga the other.”

  Within five minutes two scared and angry colts were being hustled out of the corrals by the help of two pairs of Pedro’s long-rowelled spurs. Once in the open they found their heads turned firmly to the east, and fled like scared deer they knew not whither. They led by at least a hundred yards, flying the deep sandy scaurs, spuming the ant-heaps, slipping, stumbling, recovering, while the troopers on their more manageable mounts pounded heavily behind. When after the first mile Sandy had his animal under control, he found to his surprise that Lariarty was beside him.

  Now they were on the edge of the alfalfa fields and the water-furrows, and before them was the dark loom of trees. They swung to the left, avoiding the road which ran from the railway-station, and making for the line of poplars which hedged the garden. A light twinkled beyond the trees, a light which suddenly went out. And then, with a cry, Lariarty swung round his horse’s head and set the beast capering and plunging. He had all but ridden down a woman — a tall girl in black, wearing pink roses at her breast.

  The same evening about half past seven Don Alejandro Gedd was taking the air in that part of the Avenida de Paz which adjoined the Parliament House. He had had a busy day. For hours he had sat in consultation in the great Council Chamber, for he had two kind
s of knowledge invaluable at the moment — a wide acquaintance with the organisation of the revolution in the provinces, and considerable insight into the psychology of the capital city. He had been of great value to Luis and Blenkiron and Martinez, while they worked out the next moves — the proclamation to the people of Olifa, the demobilisation of the levies, and the preparations for a presidential election. He had also been constantly on the telephone with Castor at Veiro, who was busy with the draft of the new constitution, which was to be embodied in the proclamation. Don Alejandro was contented, exhilarated, but also very weary. He decided that he owed himself a short spell leisure, and resolved to dine alone at the club. But his hopes of a little rest were frustrated. He found himself accosted by a villainous-looking peasant, whose left wrist was bound tip in a dirty handkerchief, and whose mahogany face showed a long shallow scar from right temple to chin, which must have been done recently, for the blood was scarcely dry on it. Also the man appeared to be drunk, for as he clutched his arm he swayed.

  “Maister Gedd,” came a hoarse whisper, “Maister Gedd! Haud on, for God’s sake! Ye ken me? Ye saw me at Charcillo? Hamilton’s my name. I was wi’ Sir Erchibald. Ye ken Sir Erchibald?...” The scarecrow tottered, and would have fallen had he not leaned heavily against the wall.

  Recognition broke in on Don Alejandro’s mind. He remembered the square Scots soldier who had been with Lady Roylance in her escape from the Tronos del Rey and who had been Archie’s special henchman at Charcillo. He had heard that he had been in Olifa before the city surrendered. Don Alejandro was a man of action. There was a small cafe at hand in a retired side street, and thither the led him. He compelled him to drink a claret glass of liqueur brandy. Obviously there was some story worth hearing. He was just about to begin a leisurely cross-examination, when the soldier seemed to recover his dazed wits and forestalled him.