Алистер Маклин - Caravan to Vaccares

‘She stays here,’ he declared. ‘My orders–’

‘Great God in heaven!’ Le Grand Duc thundered. ‘Are you defying me?’

He advanced ponderously upon a plainly apprehensive Masaine. Before the gypsy could even begin to realize what was about to happen Le Grand Duc smashed down his heel, with all his massive weight behind it, on Masaine’s instep. Masaine howled in agony, hobbled on one leg and stooped to clutch his injured foot with both hands. As he did so Le Grand Duc brought down his locked hands on the base of Masaine’s neck, who collapsed heavily on the floor, unconscious before he struck it.

‘Swiftly, Miss Dubois, swiftly!’ Le Grand Duc said urgently. ‘If not already gone, your friend may well be in extremis.’

And in extremis Bowman undoubtedly was. He was still on his feet – but it was only an exceptional will-power and instinct, though fast fading, for survival that kept him there. His face was streaked with sand and blood, twisted in pain and drawn in exhaustion. From time to time he held his left ribs which appeared to be the prime source of the pain he was suffering. His earlier pierrot finery was now bedraggled and dirtied and torn, two long rips on the right-hand side of his tunic were evidences of two extremely narrow escapes from the scything left horn of the bull. He had forgotten how many times now he’d been on the sanded floor of the arena but he hadn’t forgotten the three occasions when his visits there had been entirely involuntary: twice the shoulder of the bull had hurled him to the ground, once the backsweep of the left horn had caught him high on the left arm and sent him somersaulting. And now the bull was coming at him again.

Bowman side-stepped but his reactions had slowed, and slowed badly. Providentially, the bull guessed wrongly and hooked away from Bowman but his left shoulder struck him a glancing blow, though from something weighing about a ton and travelling at thirty miles an hour the word ‘glancing’ is purely a relative term. It sent Bowman tumbling head over heels to the ground. The bull pursued him, viciously trying to gore, but Bowman had still enough awareness and physical resources left to keep rolling over and over, desperately trying to avoid those lethal horns.

The crowd had suddenly become very quiet. This, they knew, was a great razateur, a master mime and actor, but surely no one would carry the interest of his art to the suicidal lengths where, every second now as he rolled over the sand, he escaped death by inches and sometimes less, for twice in as many seconds the bull’s horns tore through the back of the doublet.

Both times Bowman felt the horn scoring across his back and it was this that galvanized him to what he knew must be his final effort. Half a dozen times he rolled away from the bull as quickly as he could, seized what was only half a chance and scrambled upright. He could do no more than just stand there, swaying drunkenly and staggering from side to side. Again, that eerie silence fell across the arena as the bull, infuriated beyond measure and too mad to be cunning any more, came charging in again, but just as it seemed inevitable that the bull must surely this time impale him, an uncontrollable drunk lurch by Bowman took him a bare inch clear of the scything horn: so incensed was the bull that he ran on for another twenty yards before realizing that Bowman was no longer in his way and coming to a halt.

The crowd appeared to go mad. In their relief, in their unbounded admiration for this demigod, they cheered, they clapped, they shouted, they wept tears of laughter. What an actor, what a performer, what a magnificent razateur! Such an exhibition, surely, had never been seen before. Bowman leaned in total exhaustion against the barrier, a smiling Czerda only feet away from where he stood. Bowman was finished and the desperation on his face showed it. He was finished not only physically, he had come to the end of his mental tether. He just wasn’t prepared to run any more. The bull lowered its head in preparation for another charge: again, silence fell over the arena. What fresh wonder was this miracle man going to demonstrate now?

But the miracle man was through with demonstrations for the day. Even as the silence fell he heard something that made him spin round and stare at the crowd, incredulity in his face. Standing high at the back of the crowd and waving frantically at him was Cecile, oblivious of the fact that scores of people had turned to stare at her.

‘Neil!’ Her voice was close to a scream. ‘Neil Bowman! Come on!’

Bowman came. The bull had started on its charge but the sight of Cecile and the realization that escape was at hand had given Bowman a fresh influx of strength, however brief it might prove to be. He scrambled into the safety of the callajon at least two seconds before the bull thundered into the barrier. Bowman removed the pierrot’s hat which had been hanging by its elastic band down the back of his neck, impaled it on one of the sharpened horns, brushed unceremoniously by the flabbergasted Czerda and ran up the terraces as quickly as his leaden legs would permit, waving to the crowd who parted to make way for him: the crowd, nonplussed though it was by this remarkable turn of events, nevertheless gave him a tumultuous reception: so unprecedented had the entire act been that they no doubt considered that this was also part of it. Bowman neither knew nor cared what their reactions were: just so long as they opened up before him and closed again after he had passed it would give him what might prove to be vital extra seconds over the inevitable pursuers. He reached the top, caught Cecile by the arm.

‘I just love your sense of timing,’ he said. His voice, like his breathing, was hoarse and gasping and distressed. He turned and looked behind him. Czerda was ploughing his way up through the crowd and not leaving any newly made friends behind him: El Brocador was moving on a converging course: of Searl he could see no sign. Together they hurried down the broad steps outside the arena, skirting the bull pens, stables and changing rooms. Bowman slid a hand through one of the many rips in his tunic, located his car keys and brought them out. He tightened his grip on Cecile’s arm as they reached the last of the changing rooms and peered cautiously round the corner. A second later he withdrew, his. face bitter with chagrin.

‘It’s just not our day, Cecile. That gypsy I clobbered – Maca – is sitting on the bonnet of the Citroën. Worse, he’s cleaning his nails with a knife. One of those knives.’ He opened a door behind them, thrust Cecile into the changing room where he himself had robed before his performance, and handed her the car keys. ‘Wait till the crowd comes out. Mingle with them. Take the car, meet me at the southern end – the seaward end – of the church at Saintes-Maries. For God’s sake, don’t leave the Citroën anywhere near by – drive it out to the caravan park east of the town and leave it there.’

‘I see.’ She was, Bowman thought, remarkably calm. ‘And meantime you have things to attend to?’

‘As always.’ He peered through a crack in the door: for the moment there was no one in sight. ‘Four bridesmaids,’ he said, slipped out and closed the door behind him.

The three manacled men were lying in their bunks, quietly and seemingly uncaring, Lila was sniffing disconsolately and Le Grand Duc scowling thunderously when Searl came running up the steps. The apprehensive look was back on his face again and he was noticeably short of breath.

‘I trust,’ Le Grand Duc said ominously, ‘that you are not the bearer of ill tidings.’

‘I saw the girl,’ Searl gasped. ‘How did she–’

‘By God, Searl, you and your nincompoop friend Czerda will pay for this. If Bowman is dead–’ He broke off and stared over Searl’s shoulder, then pushed him roughly to one side. ‘Who in heaven’s name is that?’