by Gavin Lyall
Luiz was fingering the end of the cable. ‘Why do you need this, my friend?’
“Thread it around the edge of the nets to take the weight.’ I held up the net itself: the edging was thick, rough string, stiff with creosote or something. ‘Each net’s to hold about five hundred pounds, remember.’
He looked at the cable doubtfully. ‘Five hundred pounds…’
‘Not so much. Just imagine four girls hanging on one end.’
‘What a remarkable imagination you have, my friend. But I shall try.’ He closed his eyes and smiled dreamily.
I said: ‘Oh God.’
He opened his eyes. ‘What is it?’
I’d just realised it might be more than 500 pounds – and also why bombers flew so sedately to the target, as if they were afraid of waking the air gunners. You’ve got a hook diat’ll take a 500-pounder – but then you do just a one-g turn and the pull on that hook doubles. In fighters, I’d done more than 6-gturns. If I’d been carrying a 500-pounder then, the pull on thehook would have topped 3,000 pounds…
‘I think it’ll work,’ I said. ‘But it’ll be a damn gentle ride.’
‘I am happy to hear it,’ he said. ‘Because I am comingalso.’
I glared. ‘Like hell you are.’
‘You recall I was once a gunner?’ He beckoned me over to the station-wagon and pointed in through the back window. On the floor lay a fat, heavy-looking rifle. After a moment, I remembered it as something the Americans had used in Korea: the BAR, Browning Automatic Rifle.
After a few more moments I said: ‘So you were an air gunner – and you want to bringthat on an air attack?’
He shrugged, nodded.
I said: ‘What is it – -30 calibre? And a cyclic rate of about five hundred rounds a minute?’
He nodded again.
‘I see. In Korea we were using Sabres armed with six -50 calibre guns firing 1,200 round a minute each. Thirty or forty times the punch of just that thing. And even then we’d have done better with twenty-millimetre cannons. Christ,you know all this, Luiz.’
He smiled deprecatingly. ‘My friend – I was good. And I might be lucky.’
‘You aren’t asking because you’re either good or lucky.’
He just said: ‘You are worried about the extra weight?’
‘Not so much…’ Him and the gun would only add 200 pounds or less, and that could be balanced by using him as copilot, to yank up the undercart the instant we broke ground. I’d prefer an extra 200 pounds than the extra seconds of drag from leaving the wheels down if I couldn’t spare a hand at the moment of takeoff.
I shrugged. ‘All right: you’ve re-enlisted.’
He nodded graciously – but still didn’t tell me why he was coming. It might be because he didn’t want just to stand by with Miss Jiminez looking on. Or perhaps as a political commissar, to make sure my resolution didn’t get a little weary in the wee small hours.
He picked up one of the nets. ‘Perhaps you will show me how I am to do this threading.’
It was a long, hard grind in the sun, and we had to invent the details by trial and error; there’s no manual of how to load a bomber with nets full of bricks.
In the end we doubled over the nets – I didn’t like cutting and weakening them – into palliasses the dimensions of the bay: about eight by three-and-a-bit. Then I started screwing big ringbolts in four layers, along the bomb rails and at each end of the bay. The cables would be threaded through them as well as the mesh, each end of each cable ending in a loop hooked into a shackle; it had suddenly become useful having two hooks on each shackle.
When I pressed the button, the cables would jump off the hooks, the weight of bricks would force down the net and pull the free cables back through the mesh and ringbolts, letting more and more of the net loose until the load spilled out. That was the theory, anyway.
I knew the cables would jam after a few feet – but all I needed was one end to stay free long enough to open enough net. And I’d have 500 pounds of bricks pulling on it for me.
It was crude and it wasn’t going to empty each net in one sudden jerk – but I didn’t want it to. I wanted to spill a steady stream of brkks over a whole line of Vampires, not four loads on just four of them.
‘But how do you know, my friend,’ Luiz asked, ‘that diey will be neatly lined up for you?’
‘We know they are normally, and if Ned doesn’t know we’re coming… Anyway, did you ever see a military airfield where the planes weren’t lined up?’
‘No-o. But I only saw training fields. There, they lined up even the potatoes at lunchtime.’
‘Well, there’s a good reason for lining up planes. You can run the refuelling bowsers and rearming trucks and servicing gang right down them, one-two-three-four. Commanders are always getting caught with their planes lined up because they like fast servicing better than dispersing the damn things all over the field.’
‘Let us hope so,’ he said solemnly, sucking a finger that had got stabbed on an end of cable.
We had a wash, several dabs of iodine, a couple of beers, and a light lunch at the Golden Head and were back with the Mitchell by two.
By then I had half the ringbolts in place and Luiz had got two cables cut to the right length and the ends spliced and bound into loops. But still no bricks. And no J.B.
We soldiered on. We h’ad the airstrip to ourselves and the afternoon sun. With its British traditions, Jamaica doesn’t have an official siesta – just that everybody goes to sleep in the afternoons.
The inside of the bomb-bay was like a Turkish bath gone critical. I ducked out, lay down under the shadow of the wing, and said: ‘Give me a cigarette, will you?’
He threw the pack across.
‘Thanks.’ I lit one, puffed smoke at die wing above, and asked: ‘How much chance does Jiminez stand – if we get die Vamps, I mean?’
He considered. Then: ‘Good, I would diink. Of course, he is taking a risk at this tune of year, widi the university on vacation.’
‘He’s what?’
‘The university students, my friend, are always a strong force in any liberal revolution. To make the move when they are on holiday, scattered all over die country, is to forgo valuable support. But die hurricane gives him a great chance to take Santo Bartolomeo. If he can dodiät, dien…’ He shrugged.
‘Then what? He won’t have the whole country. And die Army’ll roll home sometime – widi tanks and artillery and-‘
‘A revolution is not a war, my friend. It is not even truly a military affair. After all – who is the enemy? Just a few leaders, diat is all. Do army officers wish to be at war wim the civil servants? The soldiers widi die peasants? Does die whole Army wish to fight a colonial war in its own country, among its own homes and wives and children?
‘A revolution is an affair ofbelief. You have won whenenough people believe you have won. So if you hold the capital, if you name a new government, broadcast on the radio, reopen shops and businesses – and perhaps a foreign government recognises you – then people say “It is all over; it has happened.” Then, truly ithas happened. If Jiminez can do all these things before the Army can get home – then it will not come home shooting. To do so would be to start a civil war.’
I nodded thoughtfully – and painfully, since I’d forgotten my head was resting on the tarmac. ‘But if Jiminez can’t hold Santo Bartolomeo that long?’
There was a silence. Then he said quietly: ‘Then he has lost. Finished. That is the other side of the coin. People will never believe a man has won if he has once lost before. Until now, Jiminez has been fighting a guerrilla war: never trying to hold on to a position, dodging away into the hills – just keeping his cause alive. But now, he must hold Bartolomeo. Tonight he commits himself – for ever.’
‘You really have been listening to Miss Jiminez.’
He looked at me, and his dark eyes suddenly seemed very old. Then he smiled sadly. ‘My friend, I had no need. In the Repúblicaevery child learns reading,
writing – and revolution.’
The load arrived soon after four. Two small lorries, each stacked with dirty yellowish bricks. The driver of the first asked me who I was, consulted a paper, then nodded to his two mates to start unloading.
To keep from helping, he offered me a cigarette and asked: ‘What you building, man?’
I thought of saying something clever and cryptic like ‘a new country’, but settled for: ‘Shed where I can lock up tools without them getting pinched.’
He believed that. ‘Anything getting stolen in Jamaica, man.’. He told me about the number of times people had swiped his lorries, and spun it out until every brick was stacked beside the runway.
Luiz had faded quietly away into the Mitchell while this was going on. I suppose the sight of a film star getting hishands dirty might have been suspicious. When the lorries had gone, he came out.
I picked up a brick. Tm going to sneak this on to the luggage scales in the terminal hut to find out what they weigh. You can start threading up the first net.’
He just nodded, picked up a brick for himself, and bounced it thoughtfully in his hand. I left him to it.
A brick turned out to weigh five and a half pounds as near as dammit, which made 360 to a 2,000-pounds load, or ninety to a net. We got the first net strung – it had to be in place before loading – and started filling it up. It wasn’t particularly hard work, just long. We alternated between the one who hauled the bricks and the one who stood bent in the bomb-bay, slipping them in over the edge of the net.
We had forty or fifty in when a long black Cadillac-a film company car – whooshed up the runway. Miss Jiminez climbed out; alone.
She smiled at Luiz, then handed me an envelope. I ripped it open.
Dear Keith,
Sorry, but I’ve got to go down to Kingston on business with Walt. Anyhow, it wouldn’t look so good if we were all of us up there today. Suspicious.
Here’s your final shooting script: There are just ten, not eleven, jets now. According to a message from Miss J’s old man, they crashed another last week.
Sunrise in SB is at 5.22 tomorrow.
The weather there is supposed to be pretty cloudy. This is a good thing, isn’t it? Means you have somewhere to hide. Anyway, for God’s sake don’t take any risks. You hear me?
And when you get back, if I’m not around DON’T TALK to anyone. Stay under cover until I can tell you what to say.
Look after yourself, Keith
J.B.
I grinned. It was somehow a very J.B. letter.
Then I shrugged, stuffed it in my pocket, and looked around. Luiz and Miss Jiminez were talking quietly by the bomb-bay.
‘They aren’t coming down,’ I said.
Luiz nodded, as if he wasn’t surprised, then said:‘Juanitawould very much like to see if the nets work.’
‘I’d like to see myself. Climb in and pull the plug.’
‘Oh no, my friend.7 want to watch.’
We glared at each other.
He turned to Miss Jiminez.‘Juanita-perhaps you would care to press the very button which will, tomorrow, strike out such a blow for your father’s cause?’
Her eyes glittered. She’d justlove to.
‘You speak like snake, with forked tongue,’ I whispered, rememberinga Unefrom several Whitmore Westerns.
‘My own hands,’ he said grimly, ‘they loaded that net. I want tosee.’ He shunted her up through the forward hatch.
I shooed the company car away; this was a strictly private demonstration. Luiz dropped out of the hatch again. ‘I think she understands the idea. I told her to-‘
She understood it.
The net suddenly sagged below the bay, then poured bricks on to the tarmac in a clattering roar. Yellow dust exploded up around the plane.
I said: ‘About a half-second delay. That means I’d better drop at…’ I tried to think where.
Luiz said: ‘My God. It works.’
But we were working by the station-wagon’s headlights before we had all four nets strung and loaded, brick by filthy, heavy, sharpedged brick. Any time the Bricklayers’ Union wants to bar me from ever handling a brick again, I’ll come out and picket myself.
Miss Jiminez didn’t last the course: the dirty, slogging little details of war didn’t seem to be anything Qausewitóhad said much about. She pushed off at dusk.
It was eight o’clock by the time Luiz and I were cleaned upand sitting down at the long Spanish bar of the Plantation Inn.
He said thoughtfully: ‘You may have a drag problem, from those nets hanging down after the bricks are gone.’
I’d realised that already, but without seeing any way around it. ‘It may not be too bad. If it is, you can try hacking open the bomb-bay with the fire axe and cutting them loose.’
He seemed a little dubious about that, but just grunted and” looked at his watch. ‘At what time do we take off?’
I pulled J.B.‘s letter from my pocket and uncrumpled it. ‘Sunrise is at five twenty-two – so it’ll be light enough for an attack about fifteen minutes before. Say five minutes after five. It’s about four hundred and fifty miles; two and a half hours at normal cruise. Let’s aim at a two o’clock takeoff and give ourselves half an hour in hand for bad weather or getting lost or a wing falling off.’
He nodded. ‘So I’ll pick you up at – quarter-past one?’
Tine.” I finished my drink, stood up, turned away. Then turned back. ‘Just why are you really coming on this trip?’
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps – I rehearsed being a gunner for three years, in the war. I want to play it, just once, for the camera.’
‘Luiz, you’re a damned liar.’
But he just smiled. After a moment, I went away.
I had my room door half open before I realised the light was on inside. And not only the light. Miss Jiminez.
This time, she was out of mourning. She was out of practically everything, everything being a tight white silk Chinese dress with a slit skirt reaching almost to journey’s end and a high collar with a big cutaway just below to give a fine close-up of her strategic high ground.
I leant limply back on the door, shoving it closed. The last diing I wanted right now wasa briefingon what Clausewitz said about how to drop bricks ona uneof jet fighters.
I didn’t get it. She stood up, slowly, gracefully, and said gently: ‘This is an early celebration of tomorrow, Capitán. Would you like a drink?’
. There, on the bedside table, was a half-bottle of champagnein a silver ice-bucket. Two glasses.
I nodded blankly and she poured the stuff out – expertly, too. She handed me one and smiled softly. ‘To tomorrow, then. I think in England you say “confusion to the enemy”?’
‘Er-yes.’ Well, that or ‘Request takeoff, anyway.
‘Confusion to ¿he enemy.’ She drank, watching me across the glass. I took a quick swallow.
* There was a short pause. Then I said: ‘Well – it’s nice of you to drop in and wish me luck.’
She straightened herself, put her head slightly back and slightly on one side and said simply: ‘Capitán, I just wanted to be sure you had – everything you needed.’
My mouth may have been open; I know my eyes were. She might have made it more obvious by having herself brought in naked on a plate with water-cress round the edges, but only might.
But I just couldn’t see why. I’ve got a fairly high opinion of myself – anyway, nobody has a higher one – but I didn’t see how I’d suddenly jumped into the class, and bed, of a rich Venezuelan society girl who was well known to despise my strategic reading.
She said: ‘Tomorrow you must be most brave, most noble, Capitán.’
Then it clicked. She was ready to lay down her… well, just lay down, for her father’s cause. To ensure my devotion to duty.
Suddenly she was just a big, busty girl in a tarty dress. And I remembered a strong, small body against me in the silence of the Mitchell’s cabin – and not bribing me to go out and dro
p bricks on anybody in the morning.
I finished my glass in a gulp and said deliberately: ‘I think I’ve got everything I need – except sleep.’
A small frown rippled across her forehead. ‘Tomorrow, Capitán, you could become a trueliberador.’
‘Maybe. But I’m going anyway, you know.’
‘A true hero of the República.’
‘Sure. I know. They’ll name an Avenida Keith Carr and have it end in the Plaza del Mitchell with the starboard induction manifold on a granite plinth and an Eternal Oil Leak dripping at the bottom. And it’ll last all of five years. Until the next revolution.’
Her eyes blazed, shocked. ‘There will be no more revolutions! When the generals are gone and there is a true democracy… You don’t believe me?’
I dumped more champagne in my glass. I hadn’t planned on any more drinking this evening, but it seemed my plans had stopped mattering anyway.
‘My beliefs don’t matter,’ I said carefully, ‘but just for the record, I believe democracy’s simply a habit. Like smoking or drinking or driving safely. Not checks and balances, not one-man-one-vote. Just millions of people saying – instinctively -“Christ, they can’t dothat! ” But it takes time to build up that sort of instinct. And meanwhile, revolution’s a habit, too. Your old man isn’t exactly trying to breakthat habit tomorrow, is he?’
‘He has no choice!’
I shrugged and said wearily: ‘Well… maybe he hasn’t, in a way. I don’t know. I don’t even care. Just take it that I’m going tomorrow, if the Mitchell holds up. And that’s all you want, isn’t it? My reasons don’t matter.’
She glared, but a little uncertainly. ‘Napoleon believed that morale was three times as important as physical power.’
I grinned. ‘But not tonight, Josephine.’
She stared a split second longer, slammed the champagne glass on the floor, and stalked out. The slam of the door shivered the whole building.
After a while I just kicked the pieces of glass under the bed, stripped, and flopped into bed.
TWENTY-FIVE
A light, steady tapping woke me. I rolled out of bed, staggered across to the door, and jerked it open without remembering to ask who it was. Luiz slid quickly inside and shut the door.
