Десмонд Бэгли - High Citadel

One foot forward easily — that was his good foot. The next foot brought round in a stiff semi-circle to grope for a footing. This was harder because the foot was dead and he could not feel the ground. Slowly, very slowly, take the weight. Right — that was good. Now the other foot — easy again.

He began to count, got up to eleven and lost count. He started again and this time got up to eight. After that he did not bother to count but just went forward, content to know that one foot was moving in front of the other.

Pace... halt... swing... grope... halt... pace... halt... swing... grope... halt... pace... halt... swing... grope... halt... swing... something glared against his closed eyes and he opened them to stare full into the sun.

He stopped and then closed his eyes painfully, but not before he had seen the silver streak on the horizon and knew it was the sea. He opened his eyes again and looked down on the green valley and the white scattering of houses that was Altemiros lying snugly between the mountains and the lesser foothills beyond.

His tongue came out to lick ice-cracked lips stiffly. ‘Forester,’ he whispered. ‘Forester, we are on top.’

But Forester was past caring, hanging limply unconscious across Rohde’s broad shoulder.

Aguillar looked dispassionately at a small cut on his hand — one of many — from which the blood was oozing. I will never be a mechanic, he thought; I can guide people, but not machines. He laid down the broken piece of hacksaw blade and wiped away the blood, then sucked the wound. When the blood ceased to flow he picked up the blade and got to work on the slot he was cutting in the length of steel reinforcing rod.

He had made ten bolts for the crossbows, or at least he had slotted them and put in the metal flights. To sharpen them was beyond his powers; he could not turn the old grindstone and sharpen a bolt at the same time, but he was confident that, given another pair of hands, the ten bolts would be usable within the hour.

He had also made an inventory of the contents of the camp, checked the food supplies and the water, and in general had behaved like any army quartermaster. He had a bitter-sweet feeling about being sent to the camp. He recognized that he was no use in a fight; he was old and weak and had heart trouble — but there was more to it than that. He knew that he was a man of ideas and not a man of action, and the fact irked him, making him feel inadequate.

His sphere of action lay in the making of decisions and in administration; in order to get into a position to make valid decisions and to have something to administer he had schemed and plotted and manipulated the minds of men, but he had never fought physically. He did not believe in fighting, but hitherto he had thought about it in the abstract and in terms of large-scale conflicts. This sudden plunge into the realities of death by battle had led him out of his depth.

So here he was, the eternal politician, with others, as always, doing the fighting and dying and suffering — even his own niece. As he thought of Benedetta the blade slipped and he cut his hand again. He muttered a brief imprecation and sucked the blood, then looked at the slot he had cut and decided it was deep enough. There would be no more bolts; the teeth of the hacksaw blade were worn smooth and would hardly cut cheese, let alone steel.

He fitted the flight into the slot, wedging it as Willis had shown him, and then put the unsharpened bolt with the others. It was strange, he thought, that night was falling so suddenly, and went out of the hut to be surprised by the deepening mist. He looked up towards the mountains, now hidden from sight, and felt deep sorrow as he thought of Rohde. And of Forester, yes — he must not forget Forester and the other norteamericano , Peabody.

Faintly from the river he head the sound of small-arms fire and his ears pricked. Was that a machine-gun? He had heard that sound when Lopez and the army had ruthlessly tightened their grip on Cordillera five years earlier, and he did not think he was mistaken. He listened again but it was only some freak of the mountain winds that had brought the sound to his ears and he heard nothing more. He hoped that it was not a machine-gun — the dice were already loaded enough.

He sighed and went back into the hut and selected a can of soup from the shelf for his belated midday meal. He had just finished eating the hot soup half an hour later when he heard his niece calling him. He went out of the hut, tightening his coat against the cold air, and found that the mist was very much thicker. He shouted to Benedetta to let her know where he was and soon a dim figure loomed through the fog, a strange figure, misshapen and humped, and for a moment he felt fear.

Then he saw that it was Benedetta supporting someone and he ran forward to help her. She was breathing painfully and gasped, ‘It’s Jenny, she’s hurt.’

‘Hurt? How?’

‘She was shot,’ said Benedetta briefly.

He was outraged. ‘This American lady — shot! This is criminal.’

‘Help me take her inside,’ said Benedetta. They got Miss Ponsky into the hut and laid her in a bunk. She was conscious and smiled weakly as Benedetta tucked in a blanket, then closed her eyes in relief. Benedetta looked at her uncle. ‘She killed a man and helped to kill others — why shouldn’t she be shot at? I wish I were like her.’

Aguillar looked at her with pain in his eyes. He said slowly, ‘I find all this difficult to believe. I feel as though I am in a dream. Why should these people shoot a woman?’

‘They didn’t know she was a woman,’ said Benedetta impatiently. ‘And I don’t suppose they cared. She was shooting at them when it happened, anyway. I wish I could kill some of them.’ She looked up at Aguillar. ‘Oh, I know you always preach the peaceful way, but how can you be peaceful when someone is coming at you with a gun? Do you bare your breast and say, “Kill me and take all I have”?’

Aguillar did not answer. He looked down at Miss Ponsky and said, ‘Is she badly hurt?’

‘Not dangerously,’ said Benedetta. ‘But she has lost a lot of blood.’ She paused. ‘As we were coming up the road I heard a machine-gun.’

He nodded. ‘I thought I heard it — but I was not sure.’ He held her eyes. ‘Do you think they are across the bridge?’

‘They might be,’ said Benedetta steadily. ‘We must prepare. Have you made bolts? Tim has the crossbow and he will need them.’

‘Tim? Ah... O’Hara.’ He raised his eyebrows slightly, then said, ‘The bolts need sharpening.’

‘I will help you.’

She turned the crank on the grindstone while Aguillar sharpened the steel rods to a point. As he worked he said, ‘O’Hara is a strange man — a complicated man. I do not think I fully understand him.’ He smiled slightly. ‘That is an admission from me.’

‘I understand him — now,’ she said. Despite the cold, a film of sweat formed on her forehead as she turned the heavy crank.

‘So? You have talked with him?’

While the showers of sparks flew and the acrid stink of burning metal filled the air she told Aguillar about O’Hara and his face grew pinched as he heard the story. ‘That is the enemy,’ she said at length. ‘The same who are on the other side of the river.’

Aguillar said in a low voice, ‘There is so much evil in the world — so much evil in the hearts of men.’

They said nothing more until all the bolts were sharpened and then Benedetta said, ‘I am going out on the road. Will you watch Jenny?’

He nodded silently and she walked along the street between the two rows of huts. The mist was getting even thicker so that she could not see very far ahead, and tiny droplets of moisture condensed on the fabric of her coat. If it gets colder it will snow, she thought.