“Then I may send the guide?”
“I’ve told you I don’t know whether I’m going.”
The youth ignored him. “He will be here by eight,” he promised.
At the door, Dunnett stopped him. “Why are you so eager to see me catch Señor Muras?” he asked.
“He dismissed me,” the youth replied serenely. “Now that I am no longer working for him I naturally wish to make things difficult.”
After the youth had left him Dunnett for a time stared hard out of the window. “The train leaves at midnight “; “After the deal is over he will disappear.” The words kept drumming inside his brain. He had no doubt in his own mind what a man of action would do, how Mr. Verking, for example, would have handled the situation. And he had no doubts about himself either. He had at last got his teeth into Señor Muras again, and this time he did not intend to let go. It was with a feeling of firm resolve that he set off to inform Mr. Govern what risks he was proposing to take for the House.
The Post Office, he found, had survived the tremor almost unharmed. Two of its six plateglass windows were boarded up and the tessellated pavement had developed a curve like a gigantic bosom. But everything else seemed to be as usual. Dunnett removed a cable form and began to write, “HAVE LOCATED MISSING AGENT STOP DELAY FATAL STOP PROPOSE CATCHING TRAIN TO-NIGHT STOP UNWISE STATE DESTINATION STOP WILL KEEP EXPENSES STRICT MINIMUM STOP PLEASE AUTHORISE.”
The cable clerk bowed politely. “Unfortunately there are no cables to-day.”
“Why not?”
“It is because of the earthquake. The wire has snapped.”
“Is it being repaired?”
“That is out of my hands. It has been reported. Soon, no doubt, they will do something.”
“How long will it take?”
“Until they find where it is broken. Last time it took six weeks.”
“Can I sent a wireless message?”
“There is no wireless station.”
“Not even at Moliendo?”
“Moliendo is cut off too until the wire is repaired.”
“Isn’t there a ship in harbour with wireless?”
“There are only small ships in the harbour. The big ones, the liners, keep away when the Fiery Mountain comes into action.”
Dunnett drummed with his fingers on the counter. Then he crossed out the last two words and pushed the form back through the grille towards the clerk. “Send this as soon as the line is repaired,” he said.
The clerk bowed again. “It shall receive our prompt attention,” he promised.
Dunnett walked back to the hotel, past the now desiccated blooms in the Botanical Society’s flowerbeds, conscious of how much he had taken upon himself. At the very moment when he wanted Mr. Govern’s guidance it was no longer there. But Mr. Govern, he knew, would understand, would appreciate that the man whom he had chosen was not afraid of doing things unprompted. It was the measure of his difference that he was not afraid to go.
When he reached the Avenida he went across to the desk where Señorita Alvarez was sitting. “Have you got a map of Bolivia?” he asked.
“What part of it?”
“The whole thing; where it joins Paraguay. I want to find the name of a town out there in the Chaco somewhere.”
“There aren’t any towns in the Chaco.”
“Perhaps it’s only a village.”
She went into the little office and came back bringing a tourist map of the country. It showed the magnificent coast roads in red: they ran—a thick stretch of scarlet ribbon, right down from Panama to Santiago—3,000 miles of them. Evidently the cartographer had been a man of some imagination. But, inland, even he was defeated: the red roads soon stopped. They resolved themselves into second-class thoroughfares which in their turn became tracks which eventually were lost sight of altogether. The whole interior vastness of the country was simply left blank. It was rivers that took the place of roads: the map showed hundreds of them, an intricate tangle of meandering waterways.
“What’s it like, in this part?” He spread his finger in an arc across five hundred miles of vaguely charted land.
“It’s very wild,” she told him. “People don’t go there.”
“All the same,” he said, “I want to find Canagua.”
“Canagua,” she repeated. “I have never heard of it. It must be very small.”
She moved a lamp towards them, and together they bent over the map. The map was old, folded and obstinate. She spread out her fingers to flatten it. There was something in the action that distracted him, and he found that he was looking at her hand instead of at the map. It was a good hand, finely moulded and capable. The last hand that he had touched had been Carmel Muras’s: that was plump and full like a baby’s, with little pointed fingers. He remembered Kay’s hands; very white they were, with the veins showing as though she had been ill. The hand before him was stronger than either of those.
He bent forward to study the map, and the outlandish names danced up at him—chuquisca, cochambamba, inambari, abuna, itonana. Those names were people; each collection of letters meant living human beings, little scattered dots of inhabitation. Not just a few, but millions of them; millions of savage Indians whose lives were going on at this moment. But it wasn’t a map of anything in this century. It was a collection of relics of some faded, derelict civilisation: Canagua was a part of it, a fragment broken off and tossed aside somewhere amid this litter of forgotten history. And as he looked at the map he felt a sudden terror: the whole mystery seemed waiting to engulf him. One man more or less, what was it? That disordered wilderness wasn’t going suddenly to sort itself out for the sake of a travelling representative wild-goose chasing after a vanished agent.
And then Canagua itself caught his eye. There it lay, at the intersection of two rivers that he had never heard of. If a white man had chosen to sink himself somewhere where no other white man could ever find him he might have chosen Canagua. It had, even on a map, the hopeless look of being at the forgotten back of a lost beyond.
“There it is,” he showed her. “That’s Canagua.”
She regarded it sceptically. “You are not going there?” she asked.
“I am,” Dunnett replied. “I go to-night.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That would be foolish.”
“Why would it?”
“You might not come back.”
“That’s all right,” he said. “I’ll take care of myself.”
“No one can take care of himself in the Chaco,” she replied. “At any time it is dangerous, and now with the war on anything might happen. It is better not to attempt it.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
He held out his hand for the keys of his room and went upstairs. There was plenty to be done before midnight.
The thought of Kay waiting patiently for him at home had come like a memory from another life. It cast a shadow over the whole departure. She wouldn’t approve of what he was doing, would say that he was risking his head unnecessarily— he knew that. Women could never understand what loyalty to a firm really meant; it was outside their kind of reckoning. And here he was staking everything, perhaps even his life, on it. He wanted to explain to her that what he was doing was in an odd way for her sake too, because he didn’t want to come back as a man who had failed. But it was all so difficult and she was so far away.
The letter he finally wrote her was a long one; it told everything. When he had finished he felt calmer within himself. It was almost as though he had spoken to her. The fact that it would be a month before she could read it seemed comparatively unimportant. By then, in any case, he would be back from Canagua: when she came to read of the adventure, it would all be over, something done and marked up to his credit in the annals of the trade.
When he had finished the letter he started packing. It was a rushed, emergency affair, this packing for the jungle. But he performed it systematically and efficiently. In t
wenty minutes his case was filled and locked. And then he remembered Mr. Verking’s antiquated firearm: it lay where he had left it in the dressing-table drawer. There was no one in Amricante with whom he could leave it: you need to know a man well before you can confidently ask him to accommodate an illegal weapon. There was nothing for it therefore but to take it. He unlocked the case and with some misgiving thrust the gun inside. Out there in Canagua he could lose it all right. Or he could drop it overboard going down the river on the last part of the journey. It was only on the train that it was likely to be in the way. He had read yesterday morning in the last issue of the local paper, before the news of the eruption had chased everything else off the front page, that a new counter-espionage drive was in progress, and that the police were combing everyone for arms.
He looked at his watch. It showed 10 o’clock. The guide had not arrived and he began to wonder whether Señor Olivares’s confidential clerk was going to let him down: he was certainly cutting things pretty fine. At 10.15 he was convinced that something had gone wrong and at 10.30 he began turning over in his mind the possibility of going without him. Half-an-hour later he was still sitting there gloomily pondering whether he should unpack again or not. Then he heard the faltering step of the landlord, and it was announced that there were two gentlemen waiting to see him. He pushed his way past the landlord and went down the stairs at the double.
The little clerk was back, as spruce and girlish as ever, apparently not even conscious that he was late. And standing beside him was a figure in an old reefer coat and regulation trousers. He was wearing a pair of new shiny boots and a peaked cap pulled down so low over his ears that the top had come out into a crown almost like a bowler. The little clerk bowed politely and his companion gave Dunnett what was intended for a formal salute. It was not an entire success, however, for the man swayed a little as he raised his arm. And it was then that Dunnett noticed that most of his fingers of his right hand were missing and knew where he had seen the man before. He was the broken-down sailor who had borrowed the price of a meal. Dunnett stopped dead.
“Do you mean to say that you’re the guide?” he said in amazement.
The man came forward. “Captain Leach is the name, sir,” he said. “You can rely on me.” He appeared more than a little dazed as he stood there, and kept rocking backwards and forwards on his heels.
“But what do you know about up-country?” Dunnett asked.
The little clerk interrupted him before he could reply: he seemed proud of his friend.
“Very reliable man,” he said. “He accompanies expeditions.”
“Well, he doesn’t accompany this one,” Dunnett told him.
“Please?”
“I said he doesn’t accompany this one.”
Captain Leach turned to Dunnett. “I think I understand, sir,” he said. “I’ve had one or two. I didn’t know then that any gentleman would be requiring me. I only take my drinks when I’m on holiday.”
“Well, this isn’t a holiday. This is business.”
“I’ll see you through, sir,” Captain Leach replied. “I’m steady.” He began to sway again as he spoke and placed his hand on the back of a chair to support himself.
The little clerk brightened up again.
“Please not to spend time talking,” he said. “The train goes away in fifty minutes.”
Dunnett’s answer was interrupted by the landlord. He came over with a cable envelope in his hand. “With the compliments of the company,” he said, as proudly as though he had done something creditable himself. “It was the last cable to be received before the disaster. It has been telephoned specially from Arica.”
Dunnett turned his back and read. The wording was terse and to the point. “ON NO ACCOUNT GO CHACO,” it ran. “RETURN NEXT BOAT STOP AM MAKING OTHER ARRANGEMENTS. GOVERN.”
Dunnett did not move for a minute after he had read it. He stood so still, in fact, that the little clerk plucked at his sleeve. “The train. Do not forget the train,” he pleaded. “It is your last chance to catch him. By next week he will have gone.”
Dunnett folded the cable and put it in his pocket. A wave of rebellion swept over him. If Mr. Govern had blundered Wasn’t it up to him to put matters right? He was the man on the spot who alone knew how things really were. To go against Mr. Govern’s wishes was something pretty serious. But it was the only way if anything was to be saved. He knew that, once Mr. Govern understood, it was exactly what he would have wished. It was, in fact, the Nelson touch.
“All right,” he said abruptly. “I’m coming.”
Captain Leach smiled delightedly, a toothless, expansive smile. He stooped down awkwardly to pick up the bag and the three of them tramped noisily through the deserted lounge and out towards the station. Captain Leach kept lifting his feet high as though stepping over invisible obstructions.
Book III
Portrait of an Englishman Against a Tropic Background
Chapter VIII
The Railway from Amricante to Sandar is not a trifling affair. Despite its narrow gauge there is nothing about it to provide cheap amusement for foreigners. Not that it is primarily a passenger line: it was laid for a richer and more stable kind of transport, namely coca. Thanks to its existence, wealth—solid, undeniable wealth—in the form of those tender, indispensable leaves flowed steadily seawards from the inexhaustible interior. .
Captain Leach was seen at his best at the railway station. He had insisted on their travelling first-class, and succeeded in commandeering a carriage. He held it, moreover, against all comers; and with Sandar halfway to the front there were plenty of these. Even the magnificent Bolivian officers were turned away at the door. He just hung there, his shoulders blocking the centre window, spitting copiously on to the platform. And he combined truculence with expectoration. He waved an imaginary pass under the noses of the railway officials and dared them to take his rightful property away from him. At intervals he would turn and wink a yellow, viscous eye in Dunnett’s direction. It was obvious now to what extent the man had been drinking.
The journey to Sandar was not long but slow. Between Amricante and the distant goal there lay the immense ramparts of the Andes, and the train had somehow to get over them. Every stop that it made was higher than the last. And from the moment it reached the foothills the whole nature of the journey changed: it became civil engineering and not travelling. The train was no longer an elongated vehicle that trundled sedately along a set of rails, but something that took dizzy leaps across filigree bridges and ran along hillsides which a goat would have avoided. Dunnett found himself gradually growing accustomed to seeing bare rock one side and bare sky on the other. At Carpos, where the train stopped for water, even the sensation of breathing had changed. And still the big work of the climb lay ahead. It was a divide eleven thousand feet up for which the train was making, It reached it by means of a series of crazy loops so that, looking down and seeing a strip of gleaming track halfway into the valley you could not say for certain in which direction the train had gone along it. The air, too, had grown thinner, so thin that Dunnett could feel waves of sick dizziness sweeping over him and could hear bells ringing in his ears.
Outside, the night was magnificent. The moon was at its height and its rays fell on the lofty fields of everlasting snow with the all-revealing brightness of a frozen sun. The snow seemed to respond and glow as if the whole mountainside were alight. So far as the eye could see a regiment of snowy peaks marched away into space. The skyline was simply a procession of frigid, desperate summits set higher than the imagination could reach. They rested there like icebergs in some aetherial floe. Captain Leach, however, was not moved by scenery. He lay on his back on the seat with his eyes closed. At intervals, he would remove a small silver flask from his pocket and put it to his lips. The action had about it the beautiful precision that comes of a lifetime of practice: despite the motion of the train he spilt nothing.
They reached the divide and passed through it while eve
ryone slept—the whole of the train, that is, with the exception of the three front carriages. These were filled with soldiers going up to the front. They were herded in, fifty men to a coach. They did not seem to sleep at all, and spent most of the night singing. There was something a little melancholy about it. Snatches of song reached Dunnett’s ears, like that of men cheerfully intoning their own dirges.
Next morning when he woke, the train was running across the face of an endless plateau. It was still crossing the plateau when it was time to turn in again at night.
The following day was spent escaping from that bleak wilderness above the clouds. The soldiers continued to sing, a little wearily by now, and Captain Leach, his flask exhausted, was conscientiously sleeping oif a six-months’ hang-over.
By the time evening came, they were in cultivated country again, with terraced crops and villages, and the air had lost its oxygenated tang. They had gone upstairs to the Arctic and come down on the other side into the Tropics again.
Forests appeared and began to close in on them, and the narrow gauge seemed to have been carved out of the landscape. There were rivers, too, tiny sections of that network he had seen on the map. One quite large one, a broad highroad of rolling nutbrown water, ran for several miles beside the train, and Dunnett saw two Indians armed with spears preposterously fishing. The sight of the dark bodies and their black, unkempt hair cut into a straight bang across their foreheads somehow shocked him; it was more primitive than he had bargained for. He wondered for a moment if perhaps Mr. Govern had not been right all the time. And he was uncomfortably aware again of faint, insinuating doubts. Perhaps Señor Muras would prove too spry for him after all; for all Dunnett knew he might already be on his way to Buenos Aires, or wherever it was, with his colossal riches. Perhaps Señor Olivares’s confidential clerk was even now not entirely to be trusted. Perhaps, after all this, Dunnett would have to go back again, his tail between his legs, admitting that in this, too, he had failed.
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