Хэммонд Иннес - Nothing to Lose [= Campbell’s Kingdom]

The results couldn’t have been better. The whole cliff face had fallen outward, spilling across the road and over the precipice beyond. I tugged the wires free and went back to the truck.

The driver was out on the road. “What in hell was that?” he asked.

“Just blocking the rood behind us,” I said. “Can you pull your truck over so that I can reach those telephone wires?”

I got my telephone equipment, clipped on to the wires, cut the lines behind the clips, and rang and rang. At length a voice answered me, “Butler, Slide Camp, here. What’s going on? I been trying to get—”

“Listen, Butler!” I shouted, again holding the mouthpiece well away from my face. “There’s been an accident! Can you hear me?”

“Yes. Is that Mr. Trevedian?”

“Yes. Now listen. There’s been a bad fall. The cliff has fallen in and buried one of our trucks. Have you got that?”

“Yes.”

“Right. How many men have you got up there?”

“About fifty-three, I guess.”

“How many trucks?”

“Four. No, five, counting the one that’s just arrived.”

“Okay. Rustle up every man in the camp, all the digging equipment you can, pile them into the trucks and get down to that fall as fast as you can. We’ve got to have that road cleared by tomorrow morning. And there’s the driver of the truck. He’s buried under it somewhere. I want every man, you understand? I’ll have a roll call before we’re through. Every man, you understand. This is an emergency.”

“Where are you speaking from?” His voice sounded doubtful.

“Get on with it, damn you! I want the whole lot of you down here in half an hour! I’ll be working up with my men from the other—” I pulled off the wires then and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I felt tired. Would he bring them all down? Everything depended on how scared he was of Trevedian.

Slowly I climbed down and back into the cab. “Okay,” I murmured as I sank back into the seat. “Let’s go and join the others.”

The driver was staring at me. His face looked white and scared in the dashboard tights. The heavy Diesel coughed and roared, the tanker ground forward around the curve of the hill, down the straight, run to the swamp ground, and then Garry was there, guiding the driver as he backed the tanker alongside the other trucks.

“What was that noise?” Garry naked as the driver cut his engine. His face, too, looked scared in the faint light from the cab.

“There’s been a bit of a fall,” I said wearily.

“A fall?” Then he saw the dynamiting equipment lying beside me on the seat. “Do you mean you’ve blown the road?”

“That’s about it,” I said.

“But, hell, man, that’s a criminal offense!”

“We’ll see,” I said. “It won’t be easy to prove.”

“I should have insisted on your telling me your plan before—”

“There wasn’t time,” I said. And then suddenly I lost my temper.

“Damn it, how did you think we were going to get a rig up there? Ask Trevedian to be kind enough to bring it up for us? Well, I did that. I warned him this was a public highway, built with government money. He laughed in my face.”

Boy had come up beside him. “What do we do next, Bruce?” His voice was steady, quite natural, as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world. I liked Boy for that. He understood. For him a thing that was done was done.

“I’ve phoned the camp,” I said. “We wait here until they’re all down at the fall.”

“And then we blow up the camp, I suppose?” Garry said sarcastically.

“No,” I replied. “Just a bridge. Better get some rest, both of you,” I added. “We’ve got a long night’s work.”

Boy turned away, but Garry hesitated, and then he nodded slowly, “Guess you’re right,” he said, and went back to his truck.

Half an hour later headlights pierced the snow for a moment and ft truck rumbled past. Another truck followed a few minutes afterward, and then another. We waited and watched. There were still two more trucks. Five minutes... ten. Nothing came. At length I got out of the cab and walked up the line to Garry’s truck.

“I think we’ll risk it,” I said. “Go one mile and then stop. As soon as I’ve blown the bridge, I’ll change places with Boy and ride up with you. Okay?”

Garry opened his mouth to soy something, but then closed it again. “Okay,” he said.

One by one, the trucks pulled out and swung onto the road. I followed in the last truck. Our headlights nosed the red taillight of the truck ahead. The hill was short and steep. For an awful moment I thought we were going to get stuck. But a moment later we were lipping the top of the hill and running down to the torrent.

A hundred yards beyond the bridge I had my driver stop and I ran back to fit my battery wires. The explosion was much sharper this time. When I went forward to look at the bridge, it was a tumbled mass of logs. The drop to the torrent bed was only a few feet. Nobody would get hurt if a truck failed to pull up in time.

I got back into the cab, and half a mile farther on we caught up with the taillight of the truck ahead. They had pulled up, engines panting softly in the darkness. I ran up to the leading truck and sent Boy back to bring up the rear. Garry looked at me once out of the comer of his eye, but he said nothing and we started forward up the long drag to the camp.

It was twelve-forty when we saw the lights of a hut. More lights appeared as we slowly followed the road across the camp area.

“Do you reckon they’ve all gone down in those trucks?” Garry asked. It was the first time he had spoken.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope so.”

We were almost clear of the camp when a man suddenly ran out into the middle of the road, flagging us down with his arm.

I could feel myself trembling, and my feet and hands felt deathly cold. Something had gone wrong. Another man appeared beside the first; another and another — a whole bunch of them. As we pulled up, they crowded round us. “Switch the dashboard light off,” I said to the driver. And then, leaning out of the darkness of the cab, I flashed the beam of my torch on them, blinding them.

“What are you boys doing up here?” I rasped. “Didn’t you get Trevedian’s orders? Every man is wanted down the trail! There’s been a bad fall! One of our trucks is buried!”

A man stepped forward, a big gangling fellow with a battered nose. “We only got here yesterday. They must have forgotten about us, I guess. We didn’t know what was going on.”

I said, “Well, you’d better get going as fast as you can. Trevedian wants everybody down there.”

“Why didn’t you boys stay there?”

“We had to clear the road,” I said quickly. “Besides, this stuff has to be up on top and operating tomorrow. Anybody on the hoist?”

“I don’t know,” the big fellow answered. “We’re new here.”

“Well, if you’re new here you’d better look lively and get down the road. Trevedian’s a bad man to fall out with.”

“Tough, eh? Well, nobody ain’t going to get tough with me.” His voice was drowned in a bobble of talk. Then the men began to drift away to their hut. I signaled the driver to go on, and we rumbled into the trees and down the slope to the edge of the slide. There a whole circle of lights blazed on the dazzling white of the snow, lighting up the concrete box of the cable housing. A figure appeared, armed with a rifle. “Hell!” I breathed. That fool Butler had failed to collect the guard.

I clambered down from the cab and started to explain. But as he on as I told him we’d got to get our trucks up the hoist, he began asking me for my pass. “Don’t be a fool, man!” I shouted. “Trevedian’s down at the fall, trying to clear it! How would he issue passes? Can you work the motor?”