Десмонд Бэгли - High Citadel

‘Wow!’ said O’Hara. He visualized a twenty-pound boulder arching in a high trajectory — it would come out of the sky almost vertically at that range. ‘We can do the bridge a bit of no good with a thing like that.’

‘How long will it take to make?’ asked Forester.

‘Not long,’ said Armstrong. ‘Not more than twelve hours, Willis thinks. It’s a very simple machine, really.’

O’Hara felt in his pocket and found his cigarette packet. He took one of his last cigarettes and gave it to Armstrong. ‘Put that in your pipe and smoke it. You deserve it.’

Armstrong smiled delightedly and began to shred the cigarette. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I can think much better when I smoke.’

O’Hara grinned. ‘I’ll give you all my cigarettes if you can come up with the medieval version of the atom bomb.’

‘That was gunpowder,’ said Armstrong seriously. ‘I think that’s beyond us at the moment.’

‘There’s just one thing wrong with your idea,’ O’Hara commented. ‘We can’t have too many people up at the camp. We must have somebody down at the bridge in case the enemy does anything unexpected. We’ve got to keep a fighting force down here.’

‘I’ll stay,’ said Armstrong, puffing at his pipe contentedly. ‘I’m not very good with my hands — my fingers are all thumbs. Willis knows what to do; he doesn’t need me.’

‘That’s it, then,’ said O’Hara to Forester. ‘You and Miguel go up to the camp, help Willis and Peabody build this contraption, then push on to the mine tomorrow. I’ll go down and relieve Willis at the bridge.’

Forester found the going hard as they climbed up to the camp. His breath wheezed in his throat and he developed slight chest pains. Rohde was not so much affected and Willis apparently not at all. During the fifteen-minute rest at the halfway point he commented on it. ‘That is acclimatization,’ Rohde explained. ‘Señor Willis has spent much time at the camp — to come down means nothing to him. For us going up it is different.’

‘That’s right,’ said Willis. ‘Going down to the bridge was like going down to sea-level, although the bridge must be about twelve thousand feet up.’

‘How high is the camp?’ asked Forester.

‘I’d say about fourteen and a half thousand feet,’ said Willis. ‘I’d put the mine at a couple of thousand feet higher.’

Forester looked up at the peaks. ‘And the pass is nineteen thousand. Too close to heaven for my liking, Miguel.’

Rohde’s lips twisted. ‘Not heaven — it is a cold hell.’

When they arrived at the camp Forester was feeling bad and said so. ‘You will be better tomorrow,’ said Rohde.

‘But tomorrow we’re going higher,’ said Forester morosely.

‘One day at each level is not enough to acclimatize,’ Rohde admitted. ‘But it is all the time we can afford.’

Willis looked around the camp. ‘Where the hell is Peabody? I’ll go and root him out.’

He wandered off and Rohde said, ‘I think we should search this camp thoroughly. There may be many things that would be of use to O’Hara.’

‘There’s the kerosene,’ said Forester. ‘Maybe Armstrong’s gadget can throw fire bombs. That would be one way of getting at the bridge to burn it.’

They began to search the huts. Most of them were empty and disused, but three of them had been fitted out for habitation and there was much equipment. In one of the huts they found Willis shaking a recumbent Peabody, who was stretched out on a bunk.

‘Five arrows,’ said Willis bitterly. ‘That’s all this bastard has done — made five arrows before he drank himself stupid.’

‘Where’s he getting the booze?’ asked Forester.

‘There’s a case of the stuff in one of the other huts.’

‘Lock it up if you can,’ said Forester. ‘If you can’t, pour it away — I ought to have warned you about this, but I forgot. We can’t do much about him now — he’s too far gone.’

Rohde who had been exploring the hut grunted suddenly as he took a small leather bag from a shelf. ‘This is good.’

Forester looked with interest at the pale green leaves which Rohde shook out into the palm of his hand. ‘What’s that?’

‘Coca leaves,’ said Rohde. ‘They will help us when we cross the mountain.’

‘Coca?’ said Forester blankly.

‘The curse of the Andes,’ said Rohde. ‘This is where cocaine comes from. It has been the ruin of the indios — this and aguardiente. Señor Aguillar intends to restrict the growing of coca when he comes into power.’ He smiled slowly. ‘It would be asking too much to stop it altogether.’

‘How is it going to help us?’ asked Forester.

‘Look around for another bag like this one containing a white powder,’ said Rohde. As they rummaged among the shelves, he continued, ‘In the great days of the Incas the use of coca was restricted to the nobles. Then the royal messengers were permitted to use it because it increased their running power and stamina. Now all the indios chew coca — it is cheaper than food.’

‘It isn’t a substitute for food, is it?’

‘It anaesthetises the stomach lining,’ said Rohde. ‘A starving man will do anything to avoid the pangs of hunger. It is also a narcotic, bringing calmness and tranquillity — at a price.’

‘Is this what you’re looking for?’ asked Forester. He opened a small bag he had found and tipped out some of the powder. ‘What is it?’

‘Lime,’ said Rohde. ‘Cocaine is an alkaloid and needs a base for it to precipitate. While we are waiting for Señor Willis to tell us what to do, I will prepare this for us.’

He poured the coca leaves into a saucer and began to grind them, using the back of a spoon as a pestle. The leaves were brittle and dry and broke up easily. When he had ground them to a powder he added lime and continued to grind until the two substances were thoroughly mixed. Then he put the mixture into an empty tin and added water, stirring until he had a light green paste. He took another tin and punched holes in the bottom, and, using it as a strainer, he forced the paste through.

He said, ‘In any of the villages round here you can see the old women doing this. Will you get me some small, smooth stones?’

Forester went out and got the stones and Rohde used them to roll and squeeze the paste like a pastrycook. Finally the paste was rolled out for the last time and Rohde cut it into rectangles with his pocket-knife. ‘These must dry in the sun,’ he said. ‘Then we put them back in the bags.’

Forester looked dubiously at the small green squares. ‘Is this stuff habit-forming?’

‘Indeed it is,’ said Rohde. ‘But do not worry; this amount will do us no harm. And it will give us the endurance to climb the mountains.’

Willis came back. ‘We can swing it,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the material to make this — what did Armstrong call it?’

‘A trebuchet,’ Forester said.

‘Well, we can do it,’ said Willis. He stopped and looked down at the table. ‘What’s that stuff?’

Forester grinned. ‘A substitute for prime steak; Miguel just cooked it up.’ He shook his head. ‘Medieval artillery and pep pills — what a hell of a mixture.’

‘Talking about steak reminds me that I’m hungry,’ said Willis. ‘We’ll eat before we get started.’

They opened some cans of stew and prepared a meal. As Forester took the first mouthful, he said, ‘Now tell me — what the hell is a trebuchet?’

Willis smiled and produced a stub of pencil. ‘Just an application of the lever,’ he said. ‘Imagine a thing like an out-of-balance seesaw — like this.’ Rapidly he sketched on the soft pine top of the table. ‘The pivot is here and one arm is, say, four times as long as the other. On the short arm you sling a weight, of, say, five hundred pounds, and on the other end you have your missile — a twenty-pound rock.’