The Three Sentinels

by Geoffrey Household

  ‘I wish to Jesus they had been!’

  ‘More lies from Birenfield and the Union?’

  ‘Not from them, friend Rafael. From your Catalina and my wife.’

  ‘I am listening.’

  Rafael heard the story in a turmoil of emotion. The Company not to blame? But it doubled the blame and smeared filth over the lot!

  ‘Did you know this, Don Manuel?’

  ‘Not I, Rafael! Nobody knows it.’

  ‘And you believe it?’

  ‘Man, from anyone else I wouldn’t. But neither of the Thorpes would invent what Catalina said.’

  Yes, that was true. Though there was no echo at all of Catalina in Thorpe’s words, this must be what she had heard from the women. Rafael asked whether González knew.

  ‘Of course not! No idea of discipline! He never knows a thing about his men and is full of information about everyone else.’

  ‘And Don Mateo?’

  ‘I told him long ago. Now do you see? Your poor martyrs were a lot of dirty whores!’

  There was no end to disillusion. The murder of Lorenzo, Gil Delgado, the money and now this. Don Mateo had been right to say nothing. He at least saw that this sordid story made no difference to the reason for the boycott and that the only effect would be to send widowers like Antón running wild with knives among guilty and innocent. The police deserved it. They might still get it. That depended on whether bloodshed could bring about the defeat of Delgado and the Company or not. But nothing mattered except that the oil should never flow again. All that remained clean was his own determination that it should be never.

  ‘Look, Rafael!’ Thorpe said reasonably. ‘You are alone. You have no support beyond a bunch of toughs without a brain in their heads. Even Chepe doesn’t approve of you.’

  ‘Take care!’

  ‘No dramatics, friend! It’s nothing serious. Only some sort of doll he has which he gave to Don Mateo.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘God knows. My wife didn’t tell me. Just affection, I suppose. Perhaps it was all he had to give.’

  ‘Then there is nothing left to me at all.’

  ‘Well, you may think that, but no one else does. How about that bit of land and a home you need never worry about and watching your strip of the corn grow while the rest of us are sweating it out for the shareholders?’

  ‘Don Manuel, may I go to the house and see how my potted plant is doing?’

  ‘Here is the key, Rafael. The Superintendent and I are going down to the edge of the beach where the water gate needs repair.’

  Chapter Twelve

  Rafael opened the trap door, savagely wishing that he had brought the automatic instead of leaving it on the rafters of his house, safely out of Chepe’s reach. If there were anyone who was useless, it was El Vicario. But the man had advanced beyond the symmetry of a chess board and laid out in lime and soot a silhouette of Cabo Desierto, at once recognisable from the exaggeration of the tank farm, the refinery and the Three Sentinels. Such humanity disarmed the gun that wasn’t there. He must have had long practice in cell art.

  ‘Any time you want to get rid of me, mate,’ he said, ‘I would prefer some other death to starvation.’

  ‘You think this is a restaurant?’

  ‘If it is, it’s a long way from the kitchen.’

  Uriarte had concealed a fresh loaf and slices of meat in a locker. Rafael tossed them down to his prisoner and sat on the edge of the hatch silently watching him eat.

  ‘You are not careful enough,’ El Vicario said with his mouth full. ‘One jump and I could catch your feet and pull you down.’

  ‘A lot of good that would do you!’

  ‘One never knows. Something might present itself. I presume you would be missed. The trouble is: I don’t know by whom.’

  ‘Nor do I.’

  ‘Depressed this morning, mate? I have observed that the usual cause is being deprived of all possibility of action.’

  ‘You are right. Everything would be simpler if I had you killed.’

  ‘Short and sharp never cures anything.’

  ‘It does not take long to dig a grave.’

  ‘But what a waste!’

  ‘How a waste?’

  ‘All that gelignite. Why not blow up the General Manager?’

  ‘Give me something else to serve for him!’

  ‘I believe I mentioned the Sentinels.’

  ‘And I told you it was impossible.’

  ‘When you watched me open up those boxes, did you see me put one by itself? That was my personal property, not the Union’s.’

  ‘Your clothes? I saw a belt in it and some socks.’

  ‘Not clothes, mate. That is what we call a necklace and I know of no neck it will not cut.’

  ‘There would be no more oil ever?’

  ‘I should imagine not. Frankly I have no idea what would happen, but I should take care to be far away at the time.’

  ‘Far away? You can’t! One match and Pouf!’

  ‘Friend Rafael—I believe that is your name?—things go off when I tell them to and not before.’

  ‘How do I know that you will not escape?’

  ‘Two good reasons. One is that you will be holding my gun—yourself, please, not one of your more excitable assistants. The other is that I should enjoy the job. The crown, perhaps, of a career. But there is a difficulty.’

  ‘You have only to tell me.’

  ‘How can I know that you will not shoot me when all is ready for you?’

  ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Well, you seem to be a man of honour, but appearances are deceptive. I tell you what. I will lay the charges and you can all of you watch me at work. However, I shall not teach you how to set them off safely until I am in a boat alone with the engine running.’

  ‘And if your stuff does not go up?’

  ‘It will, mate, it will. And without risk to any of you. I tell you that as one craftsman to another. And then there will be one oil company the less.’

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘My part of it? Half an hour for each well perhaps. But I must see the problem on the ground.’

  ‘If I can arrange everything I will come for you after dark.’

  Rafael shut him up, locked the door of the potting shed and walked back to town. Problems which, when they were vague, had seemed perplexing at once became simplified now that there was a definite objective. To lay hands on a boat and observe El Vicario’s conditions were both easy. The lifeless refinery, unlit and picketed by his own men, had a small basin of its own within the breakwater where two boats were moored, out of sight of the port offices and the police barracks in the customs shed. El Vicario could safely be embarked. He might or might not be challenged as he ran for the harbour mouth, but by the time the harbourmaster had been hauled out of bed—or, more probably, given orders from the window—El Vicario should be well away, close under the desert coast and unlikely to be caught or even spotted.

  Rafael ate something and slept a little, with a worrying dream that he instead of El Vicario was alone on the ocean, only there was no boat, and sea and sky were of the same illimitable darkness. Then he wrote out in large capital letters a note for Chepe to find when he returned from school, telling him that he would be out all night and that there was nothing, nothing—a passionate NADA, NADA—to be afraid of.

  He collected Antón and gave him his instructions. The guards on the Sentinels were to be reinforced, but casually, one by one, so that Delgado and his people would notice nothing. The refinery picket was to see that the better of the two boats had a full tank and plenty of food and water on board.

  ‘Don’t tell me that you are letting him go, Chief!’

  ‘Yes. No one else can win for us.’

  ‘And how?’

  ‘Not a word to anyone! Not even to think of it!’

  ‘You can trust my mouth, Rafael, when I am not angry.’

  ‘He is going to blow up the Sentinels for us.’


  ‘Christ! There will be nothing left of Cabo Desierto. Three volcanoes!’

  ‘Nonsense! We have all seen wells out of hand. This will be the same but a higher fountain. With luck the Sentinels will burn for months till there is no more oil in the ground.’

  ‘As you wish, Chief. But you won’t catch me within a mile of them.’

  ‘El Vicario can arrange for them to go up while we are all eating our breakfast in peace. He has his own secret methods.’

  ‘You have that much confidence in him?’

  ‘I have none, Antón, and he will have a pistol at his back. But I think he will do what he promises. I shall take him up to 32 soon after nine. Have the boxes ready for us by the side of the hole.’

  ‘And Lorenzo?’

  ‘Put him back afterwards. There is no better place. When you have done it, go across the golf course to 97 and bring the men back with you. We shall need them to carry the boxes.’

  At dusk Rafael went down to the refinery to check that the boat was ready and seaworthy. He then set out for the Company Farm, picking up on his way the two guards who had just come on duty at the Charca. He left them in the darkness outside the gate of Uriarte’s house, went up the path and knocked at the door. Uriarte answered after some delay and quickly put his fingers to his lips to indicate that he was not alone in the curtained house.

  ‘But I have come to take away your prisoner.’

  ‘Thank God for that! It’s all right if you are quick.’

  He unlocked the potting shed for Rafael and helped him to lower the ladder. El Vicario came up without a word, giving a cheerful wink to Uriarte as if he were not covered all the way by his own gun in Rafael’s hand. Outside the gate the Farm Manager saw two large shadows close in on his prisoner. It was a shock. In spite of the relentless boycott he had never connected his gentle and interested Rafael with fire-arms and what was surely going to be an execution.

  As soon as they were clear of the farm, Rafael offered El Vicario a bottle.

  ‘Thank you, but no! On these delicate operations I do not drink.’

  ‘We have two long walks ahead of us.’

  ‘In my time I have walked and run and crawled far enough to reach the moon, friend Rafael, and always there were the rifles of the police not far behind. See if you can keep up with me!’

  He doubled the pace with a long, loping stride that was half a run. His body seemed to have no more weight than the cage of rusty wire which it resembled.

  As a matter of pride the three accepted his pace along the flat. At the bottom of the rough path which cut across the hairpins of the road Rafael called enough, pointing out that there was a steep climb ahead and that it should be taken slowly and silently. At the top he waited to see if there were any lights moving on the road to the old field. It was deserted as usual. All activity was confined to the pools of shaded illumination in the executive quarter below and to their left, and the naked bulbs of the labour lines behind them.

  At 32 they found Antón with the four men of the picket from 97. He had stacked the boxes at some distance from the abandoned well, and there was nothing to show where they had been. The planks were back in position with scrap and rubbish scattered over them.

  ‘From now on I command under friend Rafael,’ El Vicario said, ‘who should keep me covered in order to inspire confidence in the rest of you. This box—’ he picked up the one he had called his own—‘holds the detonators and the tools of my trade. I shall carry it myself. Should you think it necessary to shoot, mate, be careful to hit some part of me and not the box.’

  The other ten boxes of fifteen kilos each were distributed among the party. Antón, with El Vicario at his side and Rafael immediately behind, led the way through the field, across the golf course and up to the Sentinels.

  Inside the hut which housed 97 El Vicario examined the Christmas Tree with casual interest, remarking that a child could break it, that half a kilo would cut any pipe or valve they choose. Rafael, who had been told again and again by men of the drilling crews that no bomb or blowtorch would have any permanent effect on oil production, was disappointed. He had assumed that El Vicario appreciated exactly what he was up against.

  ‘He knows nothing!’ one of the skilled workers exclaimed contemptuously. ‘I will show him what he must cut—and God help us all if he can do it!’

  He beckoned to a mate. The pair lifted the heavy flooring over the well cellar, revealing the base of the Christmas Tree and, below it, the massive valve clamped to the well head. Between the two flanges of base and valve was a steel gate five feet in circumference shaped like a neck and not much longer. El Vicario stroked and measured it with respect.

  ‘One would have thought they made it for me,’ he said. ‘But how thick that steel is I cannot tell. It’s as well we have fifty kilos for each.’

  They sat round in silence, watching him work and directing the beams of torches as he ordered. The socks which Rafael thought he had seen were indeed socks, slung closely together, feet downwards, from a canvas belt. The belt went barely half way round the column, and El Vicario extended it with a second belt and more socks. When the circle was complete he filled each sock with four sticks of gelignite and ran a band round the lot so that the charge was in continuous contact with the steel.

  ‘That is the necklace, mates. I shall now set the jewels in it—plenty to make sure.’

  He inserted detonators round the ring, connecting them with the fuse and leaving a long tail of it free.

  ‘The final task is dangerous,’ he said. ‘I recommend that you all go out and stand at a safe distance. I might, it’s true, escape in the darkness, but why should I after all this work and two more wells to do? Besides, I do not know what arrangements you have made to get me clear of Cabo Desierto.’

  None of them thought of refusing. It was not so much that El Vicario had imposed himself as that they were awed by his meticulous handling of destruction and the sheer monstrosity of his objective.

  Whatever he was doing did not take long. He opened the door of the hut just far enough to squeeze through and out, and shut it again.

  ‘That one is now doomed,’ he said. ‘Do not go near it on any account until I tell you exactly what precautions you must take!’

  So on along the ridge to 98 and 98A. El Vicario had no more ready-made belts or bands in his box and demanded string with which to tie his circle of gelignite between the flanges. They had none. Old wire was found but the exacting craftsman rejected it; wire was not pliable enough to hold the sticks in firm contact with each other and the steel. One of the men remarked diffidently that he had some fishing line at home, and El Vicario told him to run and get it. Rafael could not protest. There was no hurry. But what an absurdity to have material of every kind within reach except a simple ball of string!

  El Vicario was unworried. He said little, never adding anything of his own to the blast of exasperated curses whispered into the dark whenever the strain of waiting became unbearable. Once he appeared to be dozing; once he accepted a pull at Rafael’s bottle to pass the time. When the fishing line at last arrived, he took much longer than before to fit 98 and 98A with their necklaces, needing the hands of another man on the opposite side of the Christmas Tree. At both wells he insisted on adding his finishing touch alone, then slid out through the door of the hut and shut it behind him.

  ‘And when will this go off?’

  ‘Patience! Patience! When you like, Rafael, and not before. You have only to leave a couple of men outside each hut to see that no one comes near it.’

  ‘How far away should they be?’

  ‘Near enough to keep off strangers. I tell you there is no risk.’

  ‘Do not forget that you must say clearly what we are to do if you want to get away alive!’ Antón warned him.

  ‘Mate, as I see it, Rafael will have my automatic in one hand and the boat’s painter in the other. If he is not content with my very simple instructions, he can hardly miss me at that range.’<
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  It was now nearly four in the morning. The operation had taken far longer than El Vicario’s estimate. Both the search for wire and the wait for the fishing line had run away with time, and movement in the dark had been slow. The men of the pickets on the Sentinels, except for those left on guard, went home by the usual road along the ridge while Rafael and Antón hurried El Vicario straight down the pipe line to the refinery. The dark labyrinth of tubes and cylinders, vertical and horizontal, linked by coils and bulbs of steel, dwarfed the three as if they were grubs in the viscera of a dead body and appealed to El Vicario’s similar instinct for disintegration.

  ‘Would not this have done, friend Rafael? And to think it is all full of gasses and liquids!’

  Rafael was tired and for the first time more exasperated by El Vicario’s character than admiring.

  ‘No!’ he replied angrily. This? This is a toy! The wealth of the Company is in the ground. Keep moving if you want to be clear of the land by dawn!’

  Up in the shacks behind the refinery cocks were already crowing. The boat was in the still basin, floating on polished night. El Vicario dropped into it and took stock of his food, water and fuel.

  ‘Now start the engine, but do not throw the clutch or I fire!’

  ‘Agreed, mate, agreed! Here is all you have to do. Throw open the door of a hut. You had better open all three simultaneously. This will break a small tube of acid—but you do not need a lecture on chemistry. Let me assure you that in ten minutes the acid will have eaten its way to other interesting substances which will then ignite, producing the same effect upon an end of fuse as—shall we say?—a lighted cigarette. Since the fuse is instantaneous, the result will also be so.’

  ‘So we have ten minutes only?’

  ‘That is ample, friend Rafael. By then you will be too far away for the shock to affect you. But the concrete of the sheds might fly some distance, so take cover!’

  ‘Good luck, Vicario! And thank you.’

  ‘A last favour. Might I have my pistol? Without it in such circumstances I am naked.’

  Rafael tossed it on to the floor boards as the propellor swirled and the boat moved away. He watched it slide over the water of the port from streak to streak of light and turn for the entrance at full speed. The last seen of it was a scatter of foam as El Vicario met and mounted the first long roller of the Pacific.