the Last Place God Made (v5)

by Jack Higgins

  'Well, that's okay then,' I said.

  'What are you going to do?'

  'Go home - what else.'

  'What about money? Can you manage?'

  'Just about.' I patted my wallet. 'I won't be taking home any pot of gold, but I'll be back in one piece and that's all that counts. There's a hard time coming from what I read of events in Europe. They're going to need men with my kind of flying experience, the way things are looking.'

  'The Nazis, you mean?' he nodded. 'You could be right. A bunch of bastards, from what I hear. You should meet my maintenance eingineer, Mannie Sterne. Now he's a German. Was a professor of engineering at one of their universities or something. They arrested him because he was a Jew. Put him in some kind of hell-hole they call a concentration camp. He was lucky to get out with a whole skin. Came off a freighter right here in Manaus without a penny in his pocket.'

  'Which was when you met him?'

  'Best day's work of my life. Where aero engines are concerned the guy's the original genius.' He re-filled my glass. 'What kind of stuff were you flying with the R.A.F. then?'

  'Wapitis mainly. The Auxiliaries get the oldest aircraft.'

  'The stuff the regulars don't want?'

  'That's right. I've even flown Bristols. There were still one or two around on some stations. And then there was the Mark One Fury. I got about thirty hours in one those just before I left.'

  'What's that - a fighter?' I nodded and he sighed and shook his head. 'Christ, but I envy you, kid, going back to all that. I used to be Ace-of-Aces, did you know that? Knocked out four Fockers in one morning before I went down in flames. That was my last show. Captain Samuel B. Hannah, all of twenty-three and everything but the Congressional Medal of Honour.'

  'I thought that was Eddie Rickenbacker?' I said. 'Ace-of-Aces, I mean.'

  'I spent the last six months of the war in hospital,' he answered.

  Those blue eyes stared vacantly into the past, caught for a moment by some ancient hurt, and then he seemed to pull himself back to reality, gave me that crooked grin and raised his glass.

  'Happy landings.'

  The wine had ceased to effect me or so it seemed for it went down in one single easy swallow. The final bottle was empty. He called for more, then lurched across to the sliding door and pulled it back.

  The music was like a blow in the face, frenetic, exciting, filling the night, mingling with the laughter, voices singing. The girl in the red satin dress moved up the steps to join him and he pulled her into his arms and she kissed him passionately. I sat there feeling curiously detached as the waiter refilled my glass and Hannah, surfacing, grinned across at me.

  The girl who slid into the opposite seat was part Indian to judge by the eyes that slanted up above high cheekbones. The face itself was calm and remote, framed by dark, shoulder-length hair and she wore a plain white cotton dress which buttoned down the front.

  She helped herself to an empty glass and I reached for the newly opened bottle of wine and filled it for her. Hannah came across, put a hand under her chin and tilted her face. She didn't like that, I could tell by the way her eyes changed.

  He said, 'You're new around here, aren't you? What's your name?'

  'Maria, senhor.'

  'Maria of the Angels, eh? I like that. You know me?'

  'Everyone along the river knows you, senhor.'

  He patted her cheek. 'Good girl. Senhor Mallory is a friend of mine - a good friend. You look after him. I'll see you're all right.'

  'I would have thought the senhor well able to look after himself.'

  He laughed harshly. 'You may be right, at that.' He turned and went back to the girl in the satin dress and took her down to the dance floor.

  Maria of the Angels toasted me without a word and sipped a little of her wine. I emptied my glass in return, stood up and went to the rail. My head seemed to swell like a balloon. I tried breathing deeply and leaned out over the rail, letting the rain blow against my face.

  I hadn't heard her move, but she was there behind me and when I turned, she put her hands lightly on my shoulders. 'You would like to dance, senhor?'

  I shook my head. 'Too crowded in there.'

  She turned without a word, crossed to the sliding door and closed it. The music was suddenly muted, yet plain enough a slow, sad samba with something of the night in it.

  She came back to the rail and melted into me, one arm sliding behind my neck. Her body started to move against mine, easing me into the rhythm and I was lost, utterly and completely. A name like Maria and the face of a madonna to go with it perhaps, but the rest of her...

  *

  I wasn't completely certain of the sequence of things after that. The plain truth was that I was so drunk, I didn't really know what I was doing.

  There was a point when I surfaced to find myself on some other part of the deck with her tight in my arms and then she was pulling away from me, telling me this was no good, that there were too many people.

  She must have made the obvious suggestion - that we go to her place - because the next thing I recall is being led across that swaying catwalk to the pier.

  The rain was falling harder than ever now and when we went up the steps to the pier, we ran into the full force of it. The thin cotton dress was soaked within seconds, clinging to her body, the nipples blossoming on her breasts, filling me with excitement.

  I reached out for her, pulling all that ripeness into me, my hands fastening over the firm buttocks. The sap was rising with a vengeance. I kissed her pretty savagely and after a while she pushed me away and patted my face.

  'God, but you're beautiful,' I said and leaned back against a stack of packing cases.

  She smiled, for the first and only time I could recall in our acquaintance as if truly delighted at the compliment, a lamp turning on inside her. Then she lifted her right knee into my crotch with all her force.

  *

  I was so drunk, that I was not immediately conscious of pain, only of being down on the boardwalk, knees up to my chest.

  I rolled over on my back, was aware of her on her knees beside me, hands busy in my pockets. Some basic instinct of self-preservation tried to bring me back to life when I saw the wallet in her hands, a knowledge that it contained everything of importance to me, not only material things, but my present future.

  As she stood up, I reached for her ankle and got the heel of her shoe squarely in the centre of my palm. She kicked out again, sending me rolling towards the edge of the pier.

  I was saved from going over by some sort of raised edging, and hung there, scrabbling for a hold frantically, no strength in me at all. She started towards me presumably to finish it off and then several things seemed to happen at once.

  I heard my name, clear through the rain, saw three men halfway across the catwalk, Hannah in the lead. He had that .45 automatic in his hand and a shot echoed flatly through the rain.

  Too late, for Maria of the Angels was already long gone into the darkness.

  THREE

  The Immelmann Turn

  The stern-wheeler left on time the following morning, but without me. At high noon when she must have been thirty or forty miles down-river, I was sitting outside the comandante's office again for the second time in two days, listening to the voices droning away inside.

  After a while, the outside door opened and Hannah came in. He was wearing flying clothes and looked tired, his face unshaven, the eyes hollow from lack of sleep. He'd had a contract run to make at ten o'clock, only a short hop of fifty miles or so down-river for one of the mining companies, but something that couldn't be avoided.

  He sat on the edge of the sergeant's desk and lit a cigarette, regarding me anxiously. 'How do you feel?'

  'About two hundred years old.'

  'God damn that bitch.' He got to his feet and paced restlessly back and forth across the room. 'If there was only something I could do.' He turned to face me, really looking his age for the first time since I'd known him. 'I might
as well level with you, kid. Every damn thing I buy round here from fuel to booze is on credit. The Bristol ate up all the ready cash I had. When my government contract is up in another three months, I'm due a reasonable enough bonus, but until then...'

  'Look, forget about it,' I said.

  'I took you to the bloody place, didn't I?'

  He genuinely felt responsible, I could see that, and couldn't do much about it, a hard thing for a man like him to accept, for his position in other people's eyes, their opinion was important to him.

  'I'm free, white and twenty-one, isn't that what you say in the States?' I said. 'Anything I got, I asked for, so have a decent cigarette for a change and shut up.'

  I held out the tin of Balkan Sobranie and the door to the comandante's office opened and the sergeant appeared.

  'You will come in now, Senhor Malllory?'

  I stood up and walked into the room rather slowly which was understandable under the circumstances. Hannah simply followed me inside without asking anyone's permission.

  The comandante nodded to him. 'Senhor Hannah.'

  'Maybe there's something I can do,' Hannah said.

  The comandante managed to look as sorrowful as only a Latin can and shook his head. 'A bad business, Senhor Mallory. You say there was a thousand cruzieros in the wallet besides your passport?'

  I sank into the nearest chair. 'Nearer to eleven hundred.'

  'You could have had her for the night for five, senhor. To carry that kind of money on your person was extremely foolish.'

  'No sign of her at all, then?' Hannah put in. 'Surely to God somebody must know the bitch.'

  'You know the type, senhor. Working the river, moving from town to town. No one at The Little Boat had ever seen her before. She rented a room at a house near the waterfront, but had only been there three days.'

  'What you're trying to say is that she's well away from Manaus by now and the chances of catching her are remote,' I said.

  'Exactly, senhor. The truth is always painful. She was three-quarters Indian. She will probably go back to her people for a while. All she has to do is take off her dress. They all look the same.' He helped himself to a long black cigar from a box on his desk. 'None of which helps you. I am sensible of this. Have you funds that you can draw on?'

  'Not a penny.'

  'So?' He frowned. 'The passport is not so difficult. An application to the British Consul in Belem backed by a letter from me should remedy that situation within a week or two, but as the law stands at present, all foreign nationals are required to produce evidence of employment if they do not possess private means.'

  I knew exactly what he meant. There were public work gangs for people like me.

  Hannah moved round to the other end of the room where he could look at me and nodded briefly. He said calmly, 'No difficulty there. Senhor Mallory was considering coming to work for me anyway.'

  'As a pilot?' The comandante's eyes went up and he turned to me. 'This is so, senhor?'

  'Quite true,' I said.

  Hannah grinned slightly and the comandante looked distinctly relieved 'All is in order then.' He stood up and held out his hand. 'If anything of interest does materialise in connection with this unfortunate affair, senhor, I'll know where to find you.'

  I shook hands - it would have seemed churlish not to - and shuffled outside. I kept right on going and had reached the pillared entrance hall before Hannah caught up with me. I sat down on a marble bench in a patch of sunlight and he stood in front of me looking genuinely uncertain.

  'Did I do right, back there?'

  I nodded wearily. 'I'm obliged to you - really, but what about this Portuguese you were expecting?'

  'He loses, that's all.' He sat down beside me. 'Look, I know you wanted to get home, but it could be worse. You can move in with Mannie at Landro and a room at the Palace on me between trips. Your keep and a hundred dollars American a week.'

  The terms were generous by any standards. I said, 'That's fine by me.'

  'There's just one snag. Like I said, I'm living on credit at the moment. That means I won't have the cash to pay you till I get that government bonus at the end of my contract which means sticking out this last three months with me. Can you face that?'

  'I don't have much choice, do I?'

  I got up and walked out into the entrance. He said, with what sounded like genuine admiration in his voice, 'By God but you're a cool one, Mallory. Doesn't anything ever throw you?'

  'Last night was last night,' I told him. 'Today's something else again. Do we fly up to Landro this afternoon?'

  He stared at me, a slight frown on his face, seemed about to make some sort of comment, then obviously changed his mind.

  'We ought to,' he said. 'There's the fortnightly run to the mission station at Santa Helena, to make tomorrow. There's only one thing. The Bristol ought to go, too. I want Mannie to check that engine out as soon as possible. That means both of us will have to fly. Do you feel up to it?'

  'That's what I'm getting paid for,' I said and shuffled down the steps towards the cab waiting at the bottom.

  *

  The airstrip Hannah was using at Manaus at that time wasn't much. A wooden administration hut with a small tower and a row of decrepit hangar sheds backed on to the river, roofed with rusting corrugated iron. It was a derelict sort of place and the Hayley, the only aircraft on view, looked strangely out of place, its scarlet and silver trim gleaming in the afternoon sun.

  It was siesta so there was no one around. I dropped my canvas grip on the ground beside the Hayley. It was so hot that I took off my flying jacket - and very still except for an occasional roar from a bull-throated howler monkey in the trees at the river's edge.

  There was a sudden rumble behind and when I turned, Hannah was pushing back the sliding door on one of the sheds.

  'Well, here she is,' he said.

  *

  The Bristol fighter was one of the really great combat aircraft of the war and it served overseas with the R.A.F. until well into the thirties. As I've said, there were still one or two around on odd stations in England when I was learning to fly and I'd had seven or eight hours in them.

  But this one was an original - a veritable museum piece. She had a fuselage which had been patched so many times it was ridiculous and in one place, it was still possible to detect the faded rondel of the R.A.F.

  Before I could make any kind of comment, Hannah said, 'Don't be put off by the state of the fuselage. She's a lot better than she looks. Structurally as sound as a bell and I don't think there's much wrong with the engine. The guy I bought it from had her for fifteen years and didn't use her all that much. God knows what her history was before that. The log book's missing.'

  'Have you flown her much?' I asked.

  'Just over a hundred miles. She handled well. Didn't give me any kind of trouble at all.'

  The Bristol was a two-seater. I climbed up on the lower port wing and peered into the pilot's cockpit. It had exactly the right kind of smell - a compound of leather, oil and petrol - something that had never yet failed to excite me and I reached out to touch the stick in a kind of reluctant admiration. The only modern addition was a radio which must have been fitted when the new law made them mandatory in Brazil.

  'It really must be an original. Basket seat and leather cushions. All the comforts of home.'

  'They were a great plane,' Hannah said soberly.

  I dropped to the ground. 'Didn't I read somewhere that van Richthofen shot down four in one day?'

  'There were reasons for that. The pilot had a fixed machine-gun up front - a Vickers. The observer usually carried one or two free-mounting Lewis guns in the rear. At first, they used the usual two-seater technique.'

  'Which meant the man in the rear cockpit did all the shooting?'

  'Exactly, and that was no good. They sustained pretty heavy losses at first until pilots discovered she was so manoeuvrable you could fly her like a single-seater.'

  'With the fixed machi
ne-gun as the main weapon?'

  'That's right. The observer's Lewis just became a useful extra. They used to carry a couple of bombs. Not much - around two hundred and forty pounds - but it means you can take a reasonable pay load. If you look, you'll see the rear cockpit has been extended at some time.'

  I peered over. 'You could get a couple of passengers in there now.'

  'I suppose so, but it isn't necessary. The Hayley can handle that end of things. Let's get her outside.'

  We took a wing each and pushed her out into the bright sunshine. In spite of her shabby appearance, she looked strangely menacing and exactly what she was supposed to be - a formidable fighting machine, waiting for something to happen.

  'I've known people who love horses - any horse - with every fibre of their being, an instinctive response that simply cannot be denied. Aeroplanes have always affected me in exactly the same way and this was an aeroplane and a half in spite of her shabby appearance and comparatively slow speed by modern standards. There was something indefinable here that could not be stated. Of one thing I was certain - it was me she was waiting for.

  Hannah said, 'You can take the Hayley. I'll follow on in this.'

  I shook my head. 'No, thanks. This is what you hired me to fly.'

  He looked a little dubious. 'You're sure about that?' I didn't bother to reply, simply went and got my canvas grip and threw it into the rear cockpit. There was a parachute in there, but I didn't bother to get it out, just pulled on my flying jacket, helmet and goggles.

  He unfolded a map on the ground and we crouched beside it. The Rio das Mortes branched out of the Negro to the north-east about a hundred and fifty miles farther on. There was a military post called Forte Franco at its mouth and Landro was another fifty miles upstream.

  'Stick to the river all the way,' Hannah said. 'Don't try cutting across the jungle whatever you do. Go down there and you're finished. It's Huna country all the way up the Mortes. They make those Indians you mentioned along the Xingu look like Sunday-school stuff and there's nothing they like better than getting their hands on a white man.'