by Jack Higgins
The light up at the altar was very dim now. The Holy Mother seemed to float out of the darkness bathed in a soft white light and Sister Maria Teresa's voice in prayer was a quiet murmur. It was all very peaceful.
Something rattled on the roof above my head. As I glanced up a Huna swung in through one of the upper windows, poised on the sill, the light glistening on his ochre-painted body, then jumped with a cry like a soul in torment, a machete ready in his right hand.
I gave him a full burst from the Thompson, driving him back against the wall. Joanna screamed, I was aware of Avila cursing savagely as he worked the lever of his old carbine, pumping bullet after bullet into another Huna who had dropped in on his side.
I moved to help him, Joanna screamed again and I turned, too late, to meet the new threat. The Thompson gun was knocked from my hand, I went down in a tangle of flying limbs, aware of the stink of that ochre-painted body, slippery with sweat, the machete raised to strike.
I got a hand to his wrist and planted an elbow solidly in the gaping mouth. God, but he was strong, muscles like iron as with most forest Indians. Stronger than I was. Suddenly his face was very close, the pressure too much for me. The end of things and the muzzle of a rifle jabbed against the side of his head, the top of his skull disintegrated, his body jumped to one side.
Joanna Martin backed away clutching her rifle, horror on her face. Beyond her, Sister Maria Teresa turned and a black wraith dropped from the shadows above her, landing in front of the altar. I grabbed for the Thompson, already too late and Avila shot him through the head.
He was gasping for breath, the sound of it hoarse in the silence as he feverishly reloaded his carbine. 'Maybe some more on the roof, eh, senhor?'
'I hope not,' I said. 'We can't take much of this. Cover me and I'll take a look.'
I rammed a fresh clip into the Thompson, opened the door and slipped outside. I ran some little distance away, turned and raked the roof with a long burst, ran to the other side and repeated the performance. There was no response - not even from the forest and I went back inside.
Sister Maria Teresa was on her knees again, prayers for the dead from what I could make out. Joanna had slumped down against the wall. I dropped to one knee beside her.
'You were pretty good in there. Thanks.'
She smiled wanly. 'I'd rather do it on Stage 6 at M.G.M. any day.'
There was a sudden crackling over the loudspeaker, a familiar voice sounded harsh and clear. 'This is Hannah calling Mallory! This is Hannah calling Mallory! Are you receiving me?'
*
I was at the mike in an instant and switched over. 'I hear you, Sam, loud and clear. Where are you?'
'About five minutes away down-river if my night navigation's anything like as brilliant as it used to be.'
'In the Bristol?'
'That's it, kid, just like old times.'
There was something different in his voice, something I'd never heard before. A kind of joy, if you like, although I know that sounds absurd.
'I'm going to try and land on that big sandbank in the middle of the river. The one directly in front of the jetty, but I'm going to need some light on the situation.'
'What do you suggest?'
'Hell, I don't know. What about setting fire to the bloody place?'
I glanced at Avila. He nodded. I said, 'Okay, Sam, we're on our way.'
His voice crackled back sharply, 'Just one thing, kid. I can squeeze two in the observer's cockpit - no more. That means you and Avila lose out.'
'I came floating down-river once,' I said. 'I can do it again.'
But there was no hope of that. I knew it and so did Joanna Martin. She put a hand on my sleeve and I straightened. 'Neil, there must be a way. There's got to be.'
It was Avila who answered for me. 'If we don't go out now, senhor, there is no point in going at all.'
*
There was a can of paraffin for the lantern in the vestry. I spilled some on the floor and ran a trail out to the front door. Avila slung his carbine over his shoulder, turned down the storm lantern and held it under his jacket. I opened the door and he slipped out into the darkness, making for the bungalows.
I gave him a moment, then went out myself, the can of paraffin in one hand, the Thompson in the other, my target, the hospital and administrative building.
Somewhere quite close at hand as if from nowhere, there was the drone of the Bristol's engine. Time was running out. Of the Huna there was no sign. It was as if they had never existed. The door into the hospital was open. I unscrewed the cap of the can, splashed paraffin inside, then moved back out and flung the rest up over the roof.
On the other side of the compound, flames flowered in the night as one of the bungalows started to burn. I saw Avila quite clearly running to the next one, a burning brand in one hand, reaching up to touch the thatch.
I struck a match, dropped it into the entrance and jumped back hurriedly as a line of flames raced across the floor. With a sudden whoof and a kind of minor explosion, it broke through to the roof.
And then all hell broke loose. Those shrill Huna voices buzzed angrily over there in the forest like bees disturbed in the hive. They burst out in a ragged line, I loosed off a long burst, turned and ran towards the church as the arrows started to hum.
Avila was on a converging course. I heard him cry out, was aware, out of the corner of my eye, that he had stumbled. He kept on running for a while, then pitched on his face a few feet away from the church steps, an arrow in his back under the left shoulder blade.
I turned, dropping to one knee and emptied the magazine in a wide arc across the compound and yet there was nothing to see. Only the voices crying shrilly beyond the flames, the occasional arrow curving through the smoke.
Avila was hauling himself painfully up the steps, Joanna already had the door open. I took him by the collar and dragged him inside, kicking the door shut behind me. I rammed home the bolt and when I turned, Sister Maria Teresa was on her knees beside him, trying to examine the wound. He turned over, snapping the shaft. There was blood on his mouth. He pushed her away violently and reached a hand out to me.
I dropped to one knee beside him. He said, 'Maybe you can still make it, senhor. Torch the church and run for it. God won't mind.' His other hand groped in his jacket pocket, came out clutching a small linen bag. 'Have a drink on me, my friend. Good luck.'
And then he brought up more blood than I would have thought possible and lay still.
*
Hannah's voice boomed over the speaker. 'Beautiful, kid, just beautiful. What a show. Are you getting this?'
I reached for the mike. 'Loud and clear, Sam. Avila just bought it. I'm bringing the women out now.'
'Wait on the bank and don't cross till I'm down,' he said. 'I've got the other Thompson with me. I'll give you covering fire. Christ, I wish I'd a couple of Vickers on this thing. I'd give the bastards something to remember.' He laughed out loud. 'I'll be seeing you, kid.'
Sister Maria Teresa was on her knees beside Avila, lips moving in prayer. I dragged her up roughly. 'No time for that now. We'll leave by the vestry door. Once you're outside run for the river and don't look back. And I'd get that habit off if I were you, Sister, unless you want to drown.'
She seemed dazed as if not understanding what was happening, her mind, I think, temporarily rejecting the terrible reality. Joanna took charge then, literally tearing the habit off her, turning her within seconds to another person entirely. A small, frail woman in a cotton shift with iron-grey hair close-cropped to the head.
I hustled them into the vestry, opened the door cautiously and peered out. The Bristol was very close now, circling somewhere overhead. The river was perhaps sixty or seventy yards away.
I pushed them out into the darkness, struck a match, dropped it into the pool of paraffin I had left earlier. Flames roared across the floor into the church. I had a final glimpse of the altar, the Holy Mother standing above it, the Child in her arms, a symbol of so
mething surely, then I turned and ran.
*
I slid down the bank to join Joanna and Sister Maria Teresa in the shallows below. Flames danced in the dark waters, smoke drifted across in a billowing cloud, a scene from hell.
I could not hear the Huna for there was only one sound then, the roaring of the engine as the Bristol came in low. And suddenly he was there, bursting out of the smoke a hundred feet above the river, the Black Baron coming in for his last show.
It needed a genius and there was one on hand that night. He judged the landing with absolute perfection, his wheels touched down at the very ultimate tip of the sandbank, giving himself the whole two-hundred-yard length to pull up in.
He rushed past, water spraying up from the wheels in two great waves and I saw him clearly, the black leather helmet, the goggles, white scarf streaming out behind him.
I shoved the women out into the water, held the Thompson over my head and went after them. It wasn't particularly deep, four or five feet at the most, but the current was strong and it was taking them all their time to force a passage.
Hannah was already taxing back to the other end of the sandbank. He turned into the wind, ready for take-off, and then the engine cut. Out of the night behind us, voices lifted high above the flames, the Huna in full cry.
Hannah was out of the Bristol now, standing at the edge of the sandbank, firing his Thompson gun across the channel. I didn't look back, I had other things on my mind. Sister Maria Teresa slipped sideways, caught by the current. I flung myself forward getting a hand to her just in time, another to Joanna. For a moment things hung in the balance, the current pushing against us and then we were ploughing through the shallows and up on to the sandbank.
*
There must have been a hundred Huna at least on the river-bank, outlined clearly against the flames. At that distance most of their arrows were falling short, but already some were sliding down into the water.
When the Thompson emptied, he slipped in another magazine and commenced firing again. I gave Joanna a leg up into the observer's cockpit, then shoved Sister Maria Teresa up after her.
Hannah backed up to join me. 'Better get in and get this thing started, kid.'
'What about you?'
'Can you turn that prop on your own?'
There was no argument there. I climbed up into the cockpit and made ready to go. He emptied the Thompson gun at the dark line now halfway across the channel, then dropped it to the sand and ran round to the front of the machine.
'Ready,' he yelled.
I nodded and wound the starting magneto. He heaved on the propeller. The engine roared into life. Hannah jumped to one side.
I leaned out of the cockpit. 'The wing,' I cried. 'Get on the wing.'
He waved, ducked under the lower port wing and flung himself across it, grasping the leading edge with his gloved hands. There was a chance, just a chance that it might work.
I thrust the throttle open and started down the sandbank as the first of the Huna came up out of the water. Fifty or sixty yards and I had the tail up, but that was going to be all for the drag from his body was too much to take. I knew it and so did he - he was too good a pilot not to.
One moment he was there, the next he had gone, releasing his grip on the leading edge, sliding back to the sand. The Bristol seemed to leap forward, I pulled the stick back and we lifted off.
I had time for one quick glance over my shoulder. He had got to his feet, was standing, feet apart facing them, firing his automatic coolly.
And then the dark wave rolled over him like the tide covering the shore.
SIXTEEN
Downriver
'The comandante will not keep you waiting long, senhor. Please to be seated. A cigarette, perhaps?'
The sergeant was very obviously putting himself out considerably on my behalf so I met him halfway and accepted the cigarette.
So, once again I found myself outside the comandante's office in Manaus and for one wild and uncertain moment, I wondered if it was then or now and whether anything had really happened.
A fly buzzed in the quiet, there were voices. The door opened and the comandante ushered Sister Maria Teresa out. She was conventionally attired again in a habit of tropical white, obtained as I understood it, from some local nuns of another Order.
Her smile faded slightly at the sight of me. The comandante shook hands formally. 'Entirely at your service, as always, Sister.'
She murmured something and went out. He turned to me beaming, the hand outstretched again. 'My dear Senhor Mallory, so sorry to have kept you waiting.'
'That's all right,' I said. 'My boat doesn't leave for an hour.'
He gave me a seat, offered me a cigar which I refused, then sat down himself behind the desk. 'I have your passport and travel permit ready for you. All is in order. I also have two letters, both a long time in arriving, I fear.' He pushed everything across to me in a little pile. 'I was not aware that you held a commission in your Royal Air Force.'
'Just in the Reserve,' I said. 'There's a difference.'
'Not for much longer, my friend, if the newspapers have it right.'
I put the passport and travel permit in my breast pocket and examined the letters, both of which had been originally posted to my old address in Lima. One was from my father and mother, I knew by the writing. The other was from the Air Ministry and referred to me as Pilot Officer N. G. Mallory. They could wait, both of them.
The comandante said, 'So, you go home to England at last and Senhor Sterne also. I understand his visa has come through?
'That's right.'
There was a slight pause and he was obviously somewhat embarrassed as if not quite knowing what to say next. So he did the obvious thing, jumped up and came round the desk.
'Well, I must not detain you.'
We moved to the door, he opened it and held out his hand. As I took it, his smile faded. It was as if he had decided it was necessary to make some comment and perhaps, for him, it was.
He said, 'In spite of everything, I am proud to have been his friend. He was a brave man. We must remember him as he was at the end, not by what went before.'
I didn't say a word. What could I say? I simply shook hands and his door closed behind me for the last time.
*
As I walked across the pillared entrance hall my name was called. I turned and found Sister Maria Teresa moving towards me.
'Oh, Mr Mallory,' she said. 'I was waiting for you. I just wanted the chance to say goodbye.'
She seemed quite her old self again. Crisp white linen, the cheeks rosy, the same look of calm eager joy about her as when we first met.
'That's kind of you.'
She said, 'In some ways I feel that we never really understood each other and for that, I'm sorry.'
'That's all right,' I said. 'It takes all sorts. I understand you're staying on here?'
'That's right. Others will be arriving from America to join me shortly.'
'To go back up-river?'
'That's right.'
'Why don't you leave them alone?' I said. 'Why doesn't everybody leave them alone? They don't need us - any of us - and they obviously don't need what we've got to offer.'
'I don't think you quite understand,' she said.
I was wasting my time, I realised that suddenly and completely. 'Then I'm glad I don't, Sister,' I told her.
I think in that final moment, I actually got through to her. There was something in the eyes that was different, something undefinable, but perhaps that was simply wishful thinking. She turned and walked out.
I watched her go down the steps to the line of horse-drawn cabs whose drivers dozed in the hot sun. Nothing had changed and yet everything was different.
I never saw her again.
*
Standing at the rail of the stern-wheeler in the evening light and half an hour out of Manaus, I remembered my letters. As I was reading the one from the Air Ministry, Mannie found me.
; 'Anything interesting?'
'I've been put on the active service list,' I said. 'Should have reported two months ago. This thing's been chasing me since Peru.'
'So?' He nodded gravely. 'The news from Europe seems to get worse each day.'
'One thing's certain,' I said. 'They're going to need pilots back home. All they can get.'
'I suppose so. What happens in Belem? Will you apply to your consul for passage home?'
I shook my head, took the small linen bag Avila had given me in the church at Santa Helena and handed it to him. He opened it and poured a dozen fair-sized uncut diamonds into his palm.
'Avila's parting present. I know it's illegal, but we should get two or three thousand pounds for them in Belem with no trouble. I'll go halves with you and we'll go home in style.'
He replaced them carefully. 'Strange,' he said. 'To live as he did and in the end, to die so bravely.'
I thought he might take it further, attempt to touch on what had remained unspoken between us, but he obviously thought better of it.
'I've got a letter to write. I'll see you later.' He patted me on the arm awkwardly and slipped away.
*
I had not heard her approach and yet she was there behind me, like a presence sensed.
She said, 'I've just been talking to the captain. He tells me there's a boat due out of Belem for New York the day after we get in.'
'That's good,' I said. 'You'll be able to fly to California from there. Still make that test of yours at M.G.M. on time.'
The horizon was purple and gold, touched with fire. She said, 'I've just seen Mannie. He tells me you've had a letter drafting you into the R.A.F.'
'That's right.'
'Are you pleased?'
I shrugged. 'If there's going to be a war, and it looks pretty certain, then it's the place to be.'
'Can I write to you? Have you got an address?'
'If you like. I've been posted to a place called Biggin Hill. A fighter squadron. And my mother would always pass letters on.'
