Десмонд Бэгли - High Citadel

‘That’s all right,’ said O’Hara awkwardly. He felt sorry for Aguillar; the man had courage, but courage was not enough — or perhaps it was not the right kind of courage. Intellectual bravery was all very well in its place.

It was nearer three hours than two before they arrived at the camp, the slowness being caused by Aguillar’s physical weakness, and O’Hara was fretting about what could have happened at the bridge. At least he had heard no rifle fire, but the wind was blowing away from the mountains and he doubted if he would have heard it anyway. This added to his tension.

Willis met them. ‘Did Forester and Rohde get away all right — and our good friend Peabody?’ asked O’Hara.

‘They left before I awoke,’ said Willis. He looked up at the mountains. ‘They should be at the mine by now.’

Armstrong circled the trebuchet, making pleasurable noises. ‘I say, you’ve done a good job here, Willis.’

Willis coloured a little. ‘I did the best I could in the time we had — and with what we had.’

‘I can’t see how it can possibly work,’ said O’Hara.

Willis smiled. ‘Well, it’s stripped down for transport. It’s more or less upside-down now; we can wheel it down the road on the axle.’

Armstrong said, ‘I was thinking of the Russo-Finnish war; a bit out of my field, I know, but the Finns were in very much the same case as we are — dreadfully under-equipped and using their ingenuity to the utmost. I seem to remember they invented the Molotov Cocktail.’

O’Hara’s mind leapt immediately to the remaining drum of paraffin and to the empty bottles he had seen lying round the camp. ‘My God, you’ve done it again,’ he said. ‘Gather together all the bottles you can find.’

He strode across to the hut where the paraffin was stored, and Willis called after him, ‘It’s open — I was in there this morning.’

He pushed open the door and paused as he saw the crate of liquor. Slowly he bent down and pulled out a bottle. He cradled it in his hand, then held it up to the light; the clear liquid could have been water; but he knew the deception. This was the water of Lethe which brought blessed forgetfulness, which untied the knots in his soul. His tongue crept out to lick his lips.

He heard someone approaching the hut and quickly put the bottle on a shelf, pushing it behind a box and out of sight. When Benedetta came in he was bending over the paraffin drum, unscrewing the cap.

She was laden with empty bottles. ‘Willis said you wanted these. What are they for?’

‘We’re making bombs of a sort. We’ll need some strips of cloth to make wicks and stoppers; see if you can find something.’

He began to fill the bottles and presently Benedetta came back with the cloth and he showed her how to stuff the necks of the bottles, leaving an easily ignitable wick. ‘Where are the others?’ he asked.

‘Willis had an idea,’ she said. ‘Armstrong and my uncle are helping him.’

He filled another bottle. ‘Do you mind leaving your uncle up here alone?’

‘What else can we do?’ she asked. She bent her head. ‘He has always been alone. He never married, you know. And then he has known a different kind of loneliness — the loneliness of power.’

‘And have you been lonely — since...’

‘Since my family were killed?’ She looked up and there was something in her dark eyes that he could not fathom. ‘Yes, I have. I joined my uncle and we were two lonely people together in foreign countries.’ Her lips curved. ‘I think you are also a lonely man, Tim.’

‘I get along,’ he said shortly, and wiped his hands on a piece of rag.

She stood up. ‘What will you do when we leave here?’

‘Don’t you mean, if we leave here?’ He stood too and looked down at her upraised face. ‘I think I’ll move on; there’s nothing for me in Cordillera now. Filson will never forgive me for bending one of his aeroplanes.’

‘Is there nothing you want to stay for?’

Her lips were parted and on impulse he bent his head and kissed her. She clung to him and after a long moment he sighed. A sudden wonder had burst upon him and he said in surprise, ‘Yes, I think there is something to stay for.’

They stood together quietly for a few minutes, not speaking. It is in the nature of lovers to make plans, but what could they plan for? So there was nothing to say.

At last Benedetta said, ‘We must go, Tim. There is work to do.’

He released her. ‘I’ll see what the others are doing. You’d better throw the booze out of the liquor crate and put the paraffin bottles in it; we can strap it on to the trebuchet.’

He walked out of the hut and up to the other end of the camp to see what was happening. Halfway there he stopped in deep thought and cursed quietly. He had at last recognized the strange look in Benedetta’s eyes. It had been compassion.

He took a deep breath, then straightened his shoulders and walked forward again, viciously kicking at a stone. He heard voices to his left and tramped over to the hillside, where he saw Willis, Armstrong and Aguillar grouped round an old cable drum.

‘What’s all this?’ he asked abruptly.

‘Insurance,’ said Armstrong cheerfully. ‘In case the enemy gets across the bridge.’

Willis gave another bang with the rock he was holding and O’Hara saw he had hammered a wedge to hold the drum in position. ‘You know what this is,’ he said. ‘It’s one of those wooden drums used to transport heavy cable — looks like a big cotton reel, doesn’t it?’

It did indeed look like a cotton reel, eight feet in diameter. ‘Well?’ said O’Hara.

‘The wood is rotten, of course — it must have been standing in the open for years,’ said Willis. ‘But it’s heavy and it will roll. Take a few steps down the hill and tell me what you see.’

O’Hara walked down the hill and came to a steep drop, and found he was overlooking a cutting, blasted when the road was being made. Willis said from behind him, ‘The drum is out of sight of the road. We wait until a jeep or a truck is coming up, then we pull away the chocks and with a bit of luck we cause a smash and block the road.’

O’Hara looked back at Aguillar, whose grey face told of the exertions he had made. He felt anger welling up inside him and jerked his head curtly to Willis and Armstrong. He walked out of earshot of Aguillar, then said evenly, suppressing his anger, ‘I think it would be a good idea if we didn’t go off half-cocked on independent tracks.’

Willis looked surprised and his face flushed. ‘But—’

O’Hara cut him short. ‘It’s a bloody good idea, but you might have had some consultation about it. I could have helped to get the drum down into position and the old man could have filled paraffin bottles. You know he’s got a heart condition, and if he drops dead on us those swine on the other side of the river have won.’ He tapped Willis on the chest. ‘And I don’t intend to let that happen if I have to kill you, me and every other member of this party to get Aguillar away to safety.’

Willis looked shocked. ‘Speak for yourself, O’Hara,’ he said angrily. ‘I’m fighting for my own life.’

‘Not while I’m in command, you’re not. You’ll bloody well obey orders and you’ll consult me on everything you do.’

Willis flared up. ‘And who put you in command?’

‘I did,’ said O’Hara briefly. He stared at Willis. ‘Want to make an issue of it?’

‘I might,’ said Willis tightly.

O’Hara stared him down. ‘You won’t,’ he said with finality.

Willis’s eyes flickered away. Armstrong said quietly, ‘It would be a good idea if we didn’t fight among ourselves.’ He turned to Willis. ‘O’Hara is right, though; we shouldn’t have let Aguillar push the drum.’