The second reason was to dissuade Teresa from being murdered by one side or the other. To do that I had to win her trust – and how the hell was ‘the bastard’ to do that when nobody would believe that I was not firmly on the side of the Heredistas or at least a neutral like Hector? The only person to have doubts about that was Heredia himself.
In the morning my former cook came to me, wanting to know if Hector and I intended to continue the dig, in which case he would lay in some food and drink. I told him that we had decided to abandon the present excavation and try elsewhere, but that I needed him that evening and, if he were free, till further notice. I also told him that in my absence somebody had been at my tent and a shirt was missing. He looked startled. Was I sure, he asked. Nobody had been up at my tent while I was away.
‘The police were here the night I arrived.’
‘Yes, we knew that, but it was when Your Mercy first came.’
‘If you knew, you did not tell me.’
‘Not worth telling. The swine are everywhere.’
‘Someone is suspect?’
‘We are all suspect,’ he replied, and spat.
‘And I will show you a more recent footprint. Come with me!’
I led him to the tree where I had hidden the Punchao and watched his face. The footprint was still visible in the patch of damp close under the leaves. It was obviously made by the same alpagatas as he was wearing.
‘I did not take your shirt,’ he replied nervously.
‘I have not accused you. But what did you take from an old vulture’s nest? A putrid egg?’
‘I took nothing. I wanted to see if the nest was still occupied.’
‘And was the vulture wearing a shirt?’
‘The nest. The nest needs a lining sometimes. Yes, Yes. That must be it.’
‘So you did take the shirt?’
‘Yes, yes. I will climb up and wash it and give it back.’
‘Friend, you must be an honest man to be such a bad liar. Now go back and speak to the Señorita Molina secretly. Tell her that I know she has the Punchao and that the President, too, will be delighted to know it. I shall be here below the tree after the sun has set.’
‘For the love of God, Don Edmondo, do not harm her.’
‘I shall not harm her. You may come with her, if she wishes it.’
Of all the idiotic remarks I have ever made in my life that was the most half-witted. I meant it to give both of them confidence, but what I had done was to put my life in his hands. All I knew of him was that he was a passionate supporter of the Retadores and all he knew of me was that I was a friend of Hector and therefore of Heredia.
I passed the afternoon in my tent resting from my long walk and dividing my time between dozing and wondering what line I should take with Teresa and whether I should tell Hector what had really happened. I could come to no decision except to talk to her and the cook from hiding and let the game play itself.
When the sun had set, I climbed the tree which was next to that which had held the Punchao, and settled down where the leaves hid me completely from the ground. If Teresa or the cook were to fire at the nest they would miss me by miles and reveal their intention. The sun set in its usual streak of fireworks, and I was almost at once in twilight that for half an hour gorgeously lit the western sky while the land of forested hills to the east sullenly prepared for night. Teresa appeared, stepping daintily like a fawn, and then vanished. I heard her steps wandering about. She had evidently forgotten the exact bearing of the camp. The cook was not with her; it might be that he was too loyal to be trusted and likely to fire at a raised voice. She had decided to face me alone.
I lost patience and sang out, ‘Over here, señorita!’
Even so she had trouble. The right tree was a mass of black set against dark grey. If the great leaves had not swayed in the light breeze I should have been uncertain myself.
She stood below me, a slim, unreal figure in the gathering darkness.
‘Now, Mr Hawkins,’ she said. ‘Will you torture me to find out where it is? I shall only tell you lies and you will never find it.’
I have the impression that all heroic women are masochists and look forward to resisting pain.
‘Dear Teresa, I am here to talk business. Will you please realise that “the bastard” and you are both on the same side? I want to deliver the Punchao to the general of the Retadores, and a male can carry it across country undetected whereas a female cannot.’
‘You know where to find the general?’
‘No. But you do.’
‘I do not yet.’
‘Then where were you going to take the Punchao?’
‘We will find out his present headquarters on the way.’
‘Very well. And this time it is I who will be the stable boy and carry the Punchao, always riding behind you.’
‘To ensure your safety, I suppose.’
‘Quite right. At that range you could hardly miss.’
‘The only objection to your excellent plan is that I have not got the Punchao,’ she replied.
‘Then who has?’
‘Carlota? Hector? What is the point of all this planning when all you know is that it is no longer where you hid it?’
‘Why should you lie?’ I asked her.
‘And you? I believed that you really meant to give it to the Heredistas hoping for a reward.’
‘If they have it, why haven’t they shown it to the people? Why is there complete silence about their success? And remember, I would have got a bigger reward from President Heredia than from that bunch of ragged patriots. No, nobody knows that I have the Punchao but you.’
I was fairly sure of that. If Heredia had it, why hadn’t he exhibited it with drums and trumpets? Why had Carlota preserved complete silence about her father’s success?
‘Show me where you hid it?’
I led her to the tree. Even the one print of Pepe’s alpagatas on the one damp patch was now only recognisable as a shapeless dent. Teresa bent down and circled the trunk.
‘What can this be?’ she asked, drawing my attention to little patterns of parallel strips on the bark.
I supposed they were made by the vulture returning to its nest, but birds flew up; they didn’t walk up. I wished I had the use of an African tracker from the Father of his Country. Myself, I had never learned the skill. The shallow scratches faintly reminded me of the mess that a dog can make of furniture coverings.
A dog. Pepe’s precious dog. My shirt. Pepe’s guilty air. They all fitted. And he wouldn’t have had the faintest notion what to do with the Punchao even if he recognised it for what it was.
The dog had nearly always remained out of sight of the camp. Hector, who considered all dogs filthy beasts unless they were born or bred in Scotland, would not allow her to enter the camp, insisting that she would give us worms if she touched our food, hydrophobia if she slobbered on us and fleas in any case. Fleas were likely. Worms were swiftly dealt with by Pepe, and hydrophobia – well, you risk that anyway in a tropical country if you do not immediately disinfect any breaking of the skin by a dog’s tooth.
So Donna had been exiled from the main party. She was an engaging beast with a home of her own hollowed out by Pepe from a thick clump of bushes a short walk from the camp. She was delighted to be talked to and petted whenever I passed, for no doubt I carried with me half a dozen scents connected with Pepe who had bought her from an Italian immigrant when she was half-grown.
‘Come with me,’ I told Teresa. ‘I know now that Pepe gave the Punchao to a friend to take care of.’
She followed me through the undergrowth to Donna’s private enclosure. As soon as the bitch received my scent she started to give her little yelps of welcome. She was at home, and by her side was my missing shirt folded neatly around the Punchao. I was received with a grumble of protest when I picked it up – only a grumble, for the shirt obviously belonged to me after five days of pouring sweat into it. What had led to Donna’s clawing at the
tree? Scent, nothing but scent. Did she expect to find me inside the shirt? Teresa was not allowed to touch it.
‘She’ll be useful on the march,’ I said, ‘provided Pepe comes too.’
‘What march?’
‘To the present headquarters of the Retadores.’
I folded back the shirt. Moonlight revealed a new glory of the Punchao. The golden disk displayed a ghost of the moon’s silver. I dreamed of telling Hector that he should arrange special visits to the museum on the nights of full moon and take the Punchao from its case to receive the curious reflection.
‘Will Pepe come with us? I hardly know him.’
‘Of course. He is as passionate a Retadore as you. But I must wait here till he turns up to give Donna her breakfast.’
‘What shall we give her to eat on the march?’
‘She will look after that. Partridges will find themselves in the pot before they know it. Now if you come here with three horses early in the morning, Pepe and I will be ready for you.’
‘But the police will miss the horses and follow our tracks to make sure where they have gone. If I don’t turn up it will mean that I have been arrested and shut up in the house. You and Pepe must then go on alone.’
She slipped away into the trees. I wanted to catch Pepe at his first appearance, so I lay down across the entrance to Donna’s hollow and dozed the rest of the night away.
At dawn I was woken up by Donna’s special greeting to Pepe, between a low bark and an almost human speech of greeting. Her nose was magnificently sensitive. It was some time before he actually arrived. On seeing me, his hand dropped to his knife.
‘Put that away, friend,’ I said, ‘and tell Donna that as soon as all three of us have had breakfast, you, the Señorita Molina and I start the march to take the Punchao to the general of the Retadores.’
‘Then this is the Punchao?’ he asked in a voice which showed that he thought it possible, but couldn’t believe in the dream.
I raised it clear of the shirt so that it took the first light of the rising sun. Pepe dropped to his knees and lifted his hands in adoration. The first was his Christian response; the second an unconscious obeisance to some remnant of the old religion underlining, for me, Heredia’s brilliance in choosing the Punchao for his emblem of government.
I told Pepe of Teresa’s intention of securing it for the Retadores. He was even more enthusiastic than I had anticipated and begged me to let him accompany us.
‘I shall be counting on you and Donna too, but are you married?’
‘Not yet. But after this she will know that I am a man worthy of her.’
We heard a horse approaching, but only one, and Teresa’s head and shoulders appeared above the screen of bushes.
‘I could only get away with one,’ she said. ‘The same horse as before. I think the police were suspicious. There was a guard on the stables.’
‘Well, you and I will walk with Donna,’ I said to Pepe, ‘and God be with us!’
‘We will take turns to ride,’ Teresa ordered.
We struck inland to the heart of the mountains and that was the last we saw of the sea. Progress was slow. It took us three days to reach the camp of the Retadores from which they had launched their attack on the capital and then had set out, after evacuating the women and children, on that gruelling march to the sea. Our own tracks were plain enough. Donna, faced by unfamiliar scents, was no help apart from showing us that the refugees had divided into three parties. We chose the wrong third, which appeared to be heading for the northern frontier. I could see why Heredia in spite of continual reported victories found it hard to pin down any concentration of Retadores, who attacked, disengaged and bolted to their villages leaving a scatter of dead and wounded behind them. Prisoners were his only hope of gaining useful intelligence, and they were few.
We let it be known that the daughter of the executed General Molinos was with us and at last came upon one of his supporters who recognised her. Till then, avoiding large villages, we had fallen in with foresters and field workers who would not talk and were useless. This fellow had been a corporal in the palace guard – one of the few who had vanished into the hills after the capture of General Molinos – and rejoiced to see that Teresa was alive. He told us that all the provincial police had been warned to look out for a party, two on foot and one on a horse, who were to be instantly arrested and searched. One was believed to be a Russian who must be interrogated until he died. That was cheerful. It was, of course, inevitable that any foreigner in arms should be reported as Russian. That suited Heredia, whether he believed it or not, and ensured a further supply of American arms.
‘Are you Russian?’ the ex-corporal asked me.
‘As much as you.’
‘I thought so, for it is known that all Russians wear fur hats.’
The rumour was enough to send us during the night as far from the village as we could reasonably get, aiming vaguely at the north-western frontier which gave us some hope of escape if we were caught. Our friend replenished our supplies, including a fat chipmunk for Donna. We found that she had killed a hen being short of meat, for which we paid generously and would not allow her to share in spite of her mild protests. Pepe interpreted her remarks as: (a) reproach; I intended this for you; (b) a louder, sharp bark: ‘You’re a bunch of shits’; (c) with downcast brown eyes: ‘Well, I know I am only a dog.’
It did not seem a time for discipline, so while Pepe was portioning out the bird with his back to us, I secreted a wing from my plate. She had the sense to make no remarks and vanished with it out of hearing.
Chapter Six
We could get no certain information of where the main body of the Retadores was. If Heredia had heard of us at all, we must also have been a puzzle to him. Since he did not know that we had the Punchao, Teresa’s escape from her family home must have appeared to him merely a wild attempt to join the insurgents. As for me, I was nothing more than an enigmatic nuisance who should be promptly expelled from the country as soon as captured, for he wanted no complications with the British. I doubt if Pepe was even missed.
Hector? Well, he would be embarrassed by my disappearance but would no doubt devise some archaeological explanation for it. Much later I heard that he had invented an appointment with a historical society in Panama whom he described as useless people who had got their dates wrong and, like all romantic amateurs, leaped upon impossible theories. As nobody knew my writing, except for my signature on permits, Hector forged a note from me explaining that I had received reliable news that the Punchao was being offered for sale in Mexico. I could imagine that Carlota had asked emphatically why the devil I had not said so before.
Meanwhile we were pretty well hidden in a cave which was wide enough to provide quarters for Teresa’s horse and opened into a passage for us. Pepe volunteered to return to Ramales and get the latest news. He left Donna behind for she was his only connection with us. Pepe was away most of the day singing the praises of Heredia in the local café, and between silences and enthusiasm had managed to sort out the supporters of both parties. He had left with a party of Heredistas for their favourite taverna but had learned no more than that a strong force of Retadores was up against the frontier and that the government was trying to pin them there and destroy them.
Teresa changed her clothes and reappeared as a woman. We decided that she should ride the horse with Donna at heel as protection, keeping her distance from us until after dark. The change of sex seemed to me premature for we knew nothing of the intentions of the Heredista command, and with a supposed Russian in our party we should not be given time for conversation.
‘Nothing is going to be easy,’ she reminded me, ‘unless I am recognised by the Retadores as my father’s daughter. And that is impossible unless I am dressed as a woman.’
In the morning we had a stroke of luck; we crossed the line of a ragged column moving towards the northern frontier, and the tracks of their boots, and even of bare feet, showed that they were Retado
res. Teresa considered me the military expert, and it was agreed that I should take the horse and try to find out whether this party were marching to join their main body.
So I rode off on their tracks which were easy to follow and aimed steadily north-west; but all I could find out was that they were certainly those of Retadores. At one point where the ground was boggy I got mixed up and travelled on some miles before I realised that the line of march had doubled in width and that I must be following the vanguard of pursuing Heredistas. Well, that information was valuable too, if they were bound for the position of their own troops. So I followed in case the rising ground gave me a chance of seeing them. It did. They were bivouacked on dry ground, and beyond them was the gleam of a little river in the last of the setting sun. Not a bad position, I thought, if they expected to be attacked, but probably it was only the end of a hard day’s march.
I rode on keeping the river on my left and wondering where their rearguard was. The answer came almost immediately, and my horse and I galloped out of there at the first shot. They could have had a valuable prisoner if they had waited a little longer. At any rate, I had discovered enough to make the journey worthwhile.
I returned at first light with at least one good bit of news. I had found a truck bogged down, abandoned and possibly waiting for dawn to be recovered. It was carrying supplies – very welcome to us – and the crew must have left it to be hauled out in the morning. The engine started at the second pull, so we unloaded it and shoved its cargo of boxes and sacks under the back wheels. Then with the help of my weary horse we managed to coax it up the last little slope which had beaten it. There was still no sight of the enemy, but we could look down on the river and knew more or less where the command post of the Retadores would be. All we had were four rifles from the abandoned truck, so we had nothing to gain by joining the coming battle. I had some difficulty in convincing Teresa of that. All we needed was a clear run to the nearest command post and instructions of where to deliver the Punchao.
Face to the Sun Page 8
