Special Deliverance

by Special Deliverance (retail) (epub)

  ‘Leave right away?’

  ‘There won’t be any better time.’

  ‘But if you were caught with us, Tom—’

  ‘Doing Admiral Diaz’s daughter a favour?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘Anyway’ — Strobie pointed the stick at him — ‘I’m an old man, Andy. A very old man, and what there is of me is — well, you’ve got eyes… But for the first time in years I have a chance to do something really useful — d’you see?’

  He nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wake ’em up, tell ’em to get ready. They can go back to sleep when they’re in the truck. I’ll get it loaded, and snow-chains on.’

  15

  The Ford rumbled southeastward, the slapping of snow-chains on its worn tyres replacing other road-noise which the snow was muffling. It wasn’t snowing now, and there were several hours of daylight left: this stretched the nerves and raised a question mark against the decision to start right away instead of waiting for the night. Except the old man did have good reason to be out in his pickup; and short of being stopped and searched there was no way anyone could know four men were hidden in the back of it.

  An hour ago they’d left the Hermansens’ estancia, Buena Ventura, their second stop. Strobie was navigating by the fence-lines; roads and tracks were hidden under snow but the quebracho posts were all you needed as long as you kept the right distance from them; which, having spent nearly thirty winters here, he knew all about… Alone in the cab, hunched behind the thin, vibrating wheel, his thick body wrapped in sheepskin under a poncho and with a balaclava under his cap so that only his eyes were exposed. He’d told them, ‘My standard rig for visiting. So the girls don’t scream.’

  They’d been about ready to start, then, having loaded the pickup with their own gear plus the guanaco-skin rugs for extra warmth, and at the last minute Cloudsley had surprised Strobie with a request to be allowed to take along four bedsheets. Andy had thought it was a joke until he’d added, ‘For camouflage, in the snow.’

  The back of the pickup looked solid with bales of fodder, but behind the cab there was a space for passengers. In the front passenger seat Strobie had stowed a jerrycan of petrol and two of the big LPG cylinders that fuelled his cooking and water-heating. This would give him an excuse for being out on the road after visiting the MacEwan estancia, he’d explained — changing them for full ones.

  ‘Better than nothing. Little bull goes a long way, don’t it.’ Then he’d asked Cloudsley — having spread a road map on the kitchen table — ‘Want to show me where you’re heading? Not that I’m curious — only a matter of where I’d best drop you off.’

  Cloudsley didn’t touch the map. He told him, ‘We just need to get to the coast, Tom.’

  Strobie mimicked him: ‘The coast, Tom…’ Pointing… ‘See how much of it there is, along the edge of this bloody country?’

  ‘Say the nearer part of it. Roughly southeast from here would be fine. But you’ll need to get back here within a few hours, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You’re talking about a two-hundred mile hike, realise that?’

  ‘Tom, we’re certainly not asking you to—’

  ‘Two hundred miles on foot in this weather — with half the security forces on your tails?‘

  ‘Well, you see, we’re trained for it. And we won’t be carrying much, nothing like the weight we’re used to.’

  His tone was patient. Everyone being patient with everyone else, because they were all tired enough to bite heads off, if they let go. Strobie, the octogenarian and physically handicapped, was the only member of the party who didn’t seem dog-tired. Andy wished he’d slept a lot longer than he had, and the SBS men, who’d spent several days living on their nerves and in holes in the ground, and had just been woken out of the beginnings of deep sleep, looked like bearded spooks, grouped round Strobie as he ran a stubby forefinger across the map.

  ‘I could cover myself by buying gas cylinders in — well, here at FitzRoy, say. Or Jaramillo, or—’

  ‘But by the time we were that far, Tom, it’d be early morning!’

  ‘So I’ll knock ’em up. If the buggers want my custom, let ’em work for it… Or, we could fork down this way. Any of those benighted little holes’d do me. And you’d be a hell of a lot closer, wouldn’t you? Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know – but how’d it suit you if I let you off about here?’

  ‘Why would you go that far for gas, Tom? If they stopped and questioned you — when you could get it a lot nearer home?’

  Strobie glared at him. ‘Simple answer. Anywhere around here, my credit’s shot.’ Hosegood chuckled, and the old man told him, ‘No joke, Geoff. They could check up, if they wanted.’

  ‘And’ — Cloudsley asked, looking at the map — ‘What speed would you think you’d average?’

  ‘Not more than twenty, I should guess.’ He folded the map. ‘Come on, we’re wasting time!’

  He’d declined Andy’s offer to share the driving. In the back of the pick-up, ploughing through snow towards the MacEwan estancia, Cloudsley had muttered, ‘This old guy’s eighty? And every movement hurts him, but he reckons to drive a hundred miles and back, in this?’

  Andy said, ‘He told me yesterday that driving’s no effort to him. On a horse he’s limited, in agony after more than three or four hours, but — anyway, don’t bother to argue, you won’t put him off.’

  Francisca was the only one who’d ever been able to change his mind for him. She’d had a way of laughing him out of his own strong-headedness… But it was peculiar, now, thinking about that girl: it was as if there were two Franciscas, the one he’d known and the one who was now in BA…

  ‘OK, Tom?’

  Talking through the rectangular hole that had once had glass in it, in the back of the cab. It had a canvas flap on it now. Strobie answered gruffly that of course he was OK. Tobacco-smoke seeped through: he’d pushed the pipe’s stem through the wool of his balaclava. ‘We were thinking, Tom. Hell of a long stretch to the FitzRoy area. Harry reckons even a quarter of that distance would be a better start than any of them would have hoped for. How about we settle for that?’

  ‘Gate coming up, Andy. Your job — right?’

  At the estancia La Madrugada the passengers had kept still and quiet while dogs barked and peóns crowded round. Andy heard one of them telling Strobie, ‘His body was in the carniceria, Don Tomás. Butchered like a sheep… Before you go to see her, I’ll tell you this — the mayordomo didn’t like for Paco to be courting that young lady, he wanted a better match for him, a rich one. They had many arguments. Even then, it seems small cause for such a catastrophe, such—’

  ‘I’ll go and see her.’

  ‘She may not admit you, Don Tomás. You must excuse her, she’s half out of her mind…’

  ‘Have the police been notified?’

  ‘Si, señor, and they are coming here. But not the patrón, as yet it has not been possible—’

  ‘I know. Señora MacEwan told me.’

  They were there about half an hour. Andy had to wake Hosegood because his snoring became a danger. Strobie told them after they’d started driving south, Peóns found a store-room locked, key missing, blood running under the door. They smashed it open, and there was Huyez with a meathook through his gullet. Seems pretty obvious the boy did it and then scarpered. His mother’s in shock, of course. I promised I’d call in at the Hermansens’ and tip them off, in case he shows up there. Their radio’s out of action; and there can’t be so many places he’d have run to… Anyway, from there we can carry on down to the river road and turn east. Waste of time, making another stop, but it’ll look good… Snow’s easing, notice?’

  On this track they were driving straight into it, but it was definitely thinning. Strobie called again: ‘Forgot to say, Andy — Paco took the nochero, last night, and it was back first light this morning, trailing a bust rein. He can’t have gone far.’

  And if the snow wasn’t really setting in yet, it mightn’t be
long before they found him…

  The Hermansen call took only a few minutes. Strobie stayed in his seat, sent a child to fetch Piet Hermansen. Paco Huyez certainly hadn’t been there, the Dane said. If he did show up, he’d try to hold him… ‘But how are you now, Tom?’

  ‘Never better.’ He jerked a thumb towards the load of fodder. ‘Have to get along, though. Need to buy some gas, and dump this lot on my way home. Your south gate open?’

  By the time he’d swung the pickup on to the south road between the Hermansen boundary fence and the river, stopping to wait while Andy shut the gate and climbed back in, the snow had stopped falling. Heading east now, noses towards the South Atlantic. Compressed between the side of the truck and the heap of slumbering SBS men, Andy remembered that until quite a short time ago he’d doubted whether they’d be taking him out with them; and here he was, heading for home.

  London was home now. No more ambivalence.

  What the hell was he going to tell her — where he’d been, why he hadn’t written?

  No answers came to mind. Except maybe take advice from her father. It was more than just the Official Secrets Act — although that was prohibition enough — it was the importance the SBS attached to secrecy. Which was absolutely reasonable, and binding. He shut his eyes, trying to relax in his right corner, having failed to enlarge the small space they’d left him. Lisa wouldn’t put up with total silence, he knew that much. She’d had to put up with quite a lot already. In fact she might not even care where he’d been…

  He slept. Maybe for ten minutes, maybe half an hour. Struggling out of what felt like a strait-jacket, he swivelled to get his face to the opening behind Strobie’s head. The truck’s motion was the same: lurching, rumbling over snow. Surprisingly, it was still daylight: he was looking out at a black-and-white moving picture divided by the old man’s bulk. Fenceposts on the left, river on the right. Over Tom’s shoulder he saw the old man’s gloved hands vibrating on the wheel as if it was a pneumatic drill.

  ‘All right, Tom?’

  Pipe still leaking fumes; Strobie removed it from the balaclava. ‘I’m all right. How are the nightmares?’

  ‘No more. That was just a reflex.’ He hoped… ‘Tom — while I have the chance to say it, you’ve been bloody fantastic.’

  ‘Enjoying meself, lad. I don’t want thanks.’

  ‘You’re getting them, anyway. You’ve done a hell of a lot for us.’

  ‘Do some more, if this old crash-wagon keeps going. Tyres aren’t up to much and the chains’ll be knocking hell out of ’em… Tell me this, now. How’ll you handle it — Francisca being your partner, if Robert is kaput?’

  ‘I haven’t really thought it out. But as it looks to me now, I can’t see I could do anything except get shot of it all. Put it in lawyers’ hands — in due course… Even if Robert’s alive I’d want out — even more so, in fact.’

  Strobie didn’t comment, for a while. The pickup rumbling on, chains beating the snow with a sound like muffled drums… Then he growled, ‘Clean sweep, then. No MacEwans, and pretty damn soon no Strobie.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll have a few years yet, Tom. A man who can drink whisky all night and then drive miles through a blizzard—’

  ‘Blizzard’s finished, and I had enough sleep. And I’m not so sure I’d want your “few years”, either. Give me one good reason I should?’

  ‘Well, as long as a man’s reasonably fit and in his right mind—’

  ‘Balls… Andy, you and I know each other pretty well. Better than we did before, even. So we can skip the bullshit… No, I’ll peg out soon enough, and my place‘ll revert to the old trollops…’

  They were spinsters, distant cousins, younger than Tom although he’d always referred to them as ‘old’. Old trollops, old lesbians… They’d either given or sold him a life interest in the sheep-station, after he’d been beached with his George Medal and precious little else. He’d made a living out of it, in an environment that suited his requirements, although when there’d been profits the cousins had had most of them.

  ‘When I kick the bucket they’ll most likely sell out, too. They’d never get a manager worth his salt for the pittance I’ve taken out of it. Alejandro Diaz might pick it up, shouldn’t be surprised. For peanuts… Mind you, if they lose this little war of theirs — which they will — Diaz could be out of a job. Could end up behind bars. If they lose, the Junta’ll go under, bet your boots.’

  ‘Have you considered how it might be if they won?’

  ‘Sure, I have. No stopping ’em. Military dictatorship till kingdom come. Detention camps springing up like mushrooms, and no one’d dare shake a stick at ’em. The buggers’d have a go at Chile next, over the Beagle Channel.’ Tom puffed smoke faster and thicker as he thought about it. ‘Chile, then Brazil. They have big ideas, always did have. The military, I mean. No accomplishments, just ideas. The rest of ’em should be bloody grateful to us — specially to Mrs T — for saving ’em from all that. Mind you I don’t suppose they will be, they’ll still be hankering after the bloody Malvinas…’

  He’d muttered something else. Snatching at his pipe, leaning forward to peer up through the windscreen…

  ‘Hear what I said?’ The pipe-stem stabbed upward. ‘Helicopter?’

  Andy heard it, at that moment. Right over them.

  ‘Harry! Helo, hovering overhead!’

  Sudden stirring of large bodies, awkward in the confined space… Hosegood muttering, ‘Bloody hell, where are we, what’s—’ Andy was back at the hole behind Tom, thinking that this manner of withdrawal had seemed a bit too easy, quick and comfortable… The truck was slowing, he realised. ‘Stopping, Tom?’

  Cloudsley woke up to it too. ‘Tom, God’s sake keep—’

  ‘Village here.’ Strobie gestured towards the right. ‘If you can flatter it by calling it a village. Over the bridge. I’ll buy my gas, then start back. Be dark in about half an hour; then we’ll turn round again. All right with you, Harry?’

  ‘I’d say you’re a genius.’

  ‘Bit late to have that recognised.’ Strobie swung the pickup into the right fork that led over a stone bridge. There was rising ground on the other side, then from the crest they were rattling downhill towards a cluster of adobe buildings. A sick-looking dog lay in the middle of the road: it bared its teeth at the oncoming truck. Strobie hooted, swerved round it, braked to stop outside a primitive-looking general store.

  ‘Sit tight.’ He banged his palm on the horn. The helo noise was loud, vertically overhead where you couldn’t see it. Loud enough to be coming down; and there’d be plenty of room for it to land, Andy guessed, in this dirt square. Cloudsley warned, ‘We don’t want trouble if we can avoid it, Tom. If the helo lands, for Christ’s sake smile at it.’

  ‘The pilot’d faint.’ Strobie watched a boy in a tattered poncho come shuffling out of the store, not looking where he was going, staring up at the helicopter. He wound down the window: ‘Buenas! D’you have gas cylinders, the big ones? I have two empties here, want to change them.’

  ‘Si. We have them…’

  Still open-mouthed, gazing up. Nearly falling over the dog, then aiming a kick at it… Strobie murmured, ‘Not quite Harrods, is it?’ Then he shouted over the helo noise, ‘Round the other side, take ’em out, will you?’ He pushed his head out of the left-side window for a look up at the helo; he was right to do it, it would have seemed unnatural if he’d shown no interest. Andy said, ‘Tom — here…’ Pushing a roll of pesos through the aperture. ‘It’s your money. Meant to give it to you before, we owe you at least that much.’ The wad of notes fell beside him; Strobie sang in a surprisingly tuneful voice ‘Pesos from heaven…’ and leant over, pushing the passenger door open so the boy could lift out the first cylinder.

  Five minutes later the pickup was on the road again, passing over the bridge and then swinging left, back the way they’d come. Strobie pushed his pipe-stem in through the hole in the balaclava, mumbled, ‘Stroke of luck, being the right sid
e of that crabby little dump. Wouldn’t have been another in forty miles.’

  ‘Smart thinking, besides luck.’

  Hosegood agreed, yawning. ‘Been up the creek, wouldn’t we?‘

  ‘And we’ll learn our lesson from it. Won’t push our luck any farther, Tom.’ Andy was looking out under a raised flap of the tarpaulin, watching the helo — which looked like a giant wasp, and Beale had just said was a Lynx — still close, Argie eyes still checking on them, so that the argument starting now between Cloudsley and the old man seemed premature. Strobie had observed that the light was already fading, adding that as soon as it was dark he’d turn and head east again; Cloudsley, crouching at the aperture in the back of the cab, rejecting this, telling him, ‘Soon as either it’s dark or that helo’s out of sight, we’ll drop off and start yomping. Thanks for bringing us this far, and I can’t thank you even half enough for everything else you’ve done for us. But truly, Tom, this is it.’

  ‘Want to walk when you could ride?’

  ‘Not from preference, no. In fact you might slow down a bit — no need to take us farther back than you have to… Tom, there are sound reasons for us to drop off now. D’you want to hear them?’

  Strobie grunted. Starting the wipers as another snow-shower came down. He pointed, ‘Bugger’s pushing off, see?’

  The helo did seem to be departing. Either it had seen enough, or snow didn’t suit it. Cloudsley explained to Strobie, ‘First look at your own situation, Tom. You’ve made your courtesy calls, you’ve got your gas cylinders, you’re in the clear and all you have to do is drive on home, dropping the feed off as you planned… Then our angle; and first, yomping’s no hardship to us. The trip ought to take four nights — we’re travelling light, and the nights are long, and you’ve saved us a good bit already. Lying up by day in scrape-holes is also something we’re used to. OK, Andy, something you’ll soon get used to… But no problems, you see, if there’s a trouble spot we skirt round it, we aren’t restricted to using roads, and — above all — we get there… In the long run that’s the only thing that counts. If we took advantage of your kindness, though, we could very well run into a lot of trouble. Helos, road patrols, whatever. One single incident, Tom, and this truck would be identified; you’d have had it!’