Десмонд Бэгли - The Vivero Letter

I opened my eyes and looked at the darkening sky. ‘Who is the stretcher for?’

A head swam into view and I screwed up my eyes and saw it was Pat Harris. ‘Jemmy, are you okay? Who beat you up? Those goddamn chicleros ?’

I eased myself up on one elbow and he supported my back with his arm. ‘Where did you come from?’

‘We came in the choppers. The army’s moved in.’ He moved a little. ‘Look, there they are.’

I stared at the five helicopters standing outside the camp, and at the busy men in uniform moving about briskly. Two of them were trotting my way with a stretcher. The locusts coming from heaven, I thought; they were helicopters.

‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner,’ said Pat. ‘It was that goddamn storm. We got a flick from the tail of a hurricane and had to put down half way.’

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Campeche — the other side of Yucatán. I flew over this morning and saw all hell breaking loose here — so I whistled up the Mexican army. If it hadn’t been for the storm we’d have been here six hours ago. Say, where is everybody?’

That was a good question. I said creakily, ‘Most of us are dead.’

He stared at me as I sat up. ‘Dead!’

I nodded wearily. ‘Fallon’s still alive — I think. He’s over there.’ I grabbed his arm. ‘Jesus! Katherine’s down in the cenote — in a cave. I’ve got to get her out.’

He looked at me as though I had gone mad. ‘In a cave! In the cenote !’ he echoed stupidly.

I shook his arm. ‘Yes, you damn fool! She’ll die if I don’t get her out. We were hiding from Gatt.’

Pat saw I was serious and was galvanized as though someone had given him an electric shock. ‘You can’t go down there — not in your condition,’ he said. ‘Some of these boys are trained swimmers — I’ll go see the teniente .’

I watched him walk across to a group of the soldiers, then I got to my feet, feeling every pain of it, and limped to the cenote and stood on the edge, looking down at the dark water. Pat came back at a run. ‘The teniente has four scuba-trained swimmers and some oxygen bottles. If you’ll tell them where the girl is, they can take oxygen down to her.’ He looked down at the cenote . ‘Good Christ!’ he said involuntarily. ‘Who’s that?’

He was looking down at the body of Gatt which lay sprawled on the wooden dock. His mouth was open in a ghastly grin — but it wasn’t really his mouth. ‘It’s Gatt,’ I said unemotionally. ‘I told you I’d kill him.’

I was drained of all emotion; there was no power in me to laugh or to cry, to feel sorrow or joy. I looked down at the body without feeling anything at all, but Harris looked sick. I turned away and looked towards the helicopters. ‘Where are those bloody divers?’

They came at last and I explained haltingly what they were to do, and Pat interpreted. One of the men put on my harness and they jury-rigged an oxygen bottle and he went down. I hoped he wouldn’t frighten Katie when he popped up in the cave. But her Spanish was good and I thought it would be all right.

I watched them carry Fallon away on a stretcher towards one of the choppers while a medico bandaged me up. Harris said in wonder, ‘They’re still finding bodies — there must have been a massacre.’

‘Something like that,’ I said indifferently.

I wouldn’t move from that spot at the edge of the cenote until Katie was brought up, and I had to wait quite a while until they flew in proper diving gear from Campeche. After that it was easy and she came up from the cave under her own steam and I was proud of her.

We walked to the helicopter together with me leaning on her because suddenly all the strength had left me. I didn’t know what was going to happen to us in the future — I didn’t know if such an experience as we had undergone was such a perfect beginning to a marriage, but I was willing to try if she was.

I don’t remember much about anything after that, not until I woke up in a hospital in Mexico City with Katie sitting by the bedside. That was many days afterwards. But I vaguely remember that the sun was just coming up as the chopper took off and I was clutching that little gold lady which Vivero had made. Christ was not to be seen, but I remember the dark shape of the Temple of Yum Chac looming above the water and drifting away forever beneath the heavily beating blades.

I would like to thank Captain T. A. Hampton of the British Underwater Centre, Dartmouth, for detailed information about diving techniques.

My thanks also go to Gerard L’E. Turner, Assistant Curator of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, for information on certain bronze mirrors, Amida’s Mirror in particular.

Theirs the credit for accuracy; mine the fault for inaccuracy.