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

Steve Strachan did his best to try to visualize the blowing in of the well as we had seen it, but I knew he wasn’t really convinced. He knew how tense we all were. I suppose he fell that in those circumstances a man is capable of seeing something that never really happened. He did his best. He made polite noises as we described every detail of it. But every now and then he’d say, “Sure I believe you, but just show me something concrete that’ll prove it really happened.”

But what evidence had we? Soaked to the skin, we trudged along the shores of that damned lake, looking for a slick of oil, or stood searching the spot where the rig had been, trying to locate the bubbles that the escaping gas must be making. But little whitecaps frisked across the spot and even through glasses we could see no sign of bubbles.

I remember Garry standing there cursing while the rain streamed down his lined face as though he were crying. We were huddled there in a little bunch by the edge of that sudden lake, our faces gray, exhaustion and despair stamped on our features.

“If only they’d waited till the time they said,” Boy murmured.

Garry turned to me. “Remember the water we ran into when we got clear of the rig? They were flooding then, flooding up to the rig, just in case.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Damn it! One more day!” There was all the bitterness of a gambler who had lost in his voice, “Our only hope is to persuade them to drain the Kingdom.” His voice was high and taut. “Come on, Bruce. We’d better get over there and have a word with them.”

I nodded reluctantly, afraid he might do something stupid when faced with Trevedian, He was at the end of his tether and his big hands twitched as though he wanted to get them around the throat of some adversary. We took two horses and cantered along the shores of the lake, below the buttress and across the rock outcrops to where the wire ran down the mountainside and into the water. They had seen us coming and there was a little group waiting for us. There was Trevedian and the policeman who had come with him the previous day, and two of Trevedian’s men with rifles slung over their shoulders.

For a moment we sat on our horses looking at them and they stood looking at us. Trevedian waited, his small eyes alert, watching us curiously. The policeman said nothing.

Words suddenly burst from Garry’s lips with explosive force, “What do you mean by drowning my rig? You gave us till ten this morning!”

“My warning referred to the house and buildings.” Trevedian glanced at his watch. “It’s now nine-twenty. You’ve forty minutes to get clear of the buildings.”

“But what about the rig?” Garry demanded. “What right had you—”

“You could have moved it,” Trevedian cut in.

Garry turned to the police officer. “Were you up here last night when they began flooding?”

The man shook his head. “No, I came up here this morning, in case there was trouble.”

“Well, there’s going to be plenty of trouble!” Garry snapped. “Do you realize you’ve drowned an oil well? We struck it at approximately two-fifteen this morning.”

Trevedian laughed. “Be damned to that for a tale!” he said.

“You know it’s true!” Garry cried. “Don’t ever let me get my hands on you or as sure as heaven I’ll wring your neck.”

“It seems I was right in insisting on police protection up here.” Trevedian smiled. He glanced at his watch again. “Better get your things clear of the ranch buildings now, Wetheral,” he said. “I’m going to finish flooding now.” He turned away.

“What time did you come up here?” I said, addressing the policeman.

“At eight o’clock this morning,” he answered.

“Were you up here last night when they began flooding?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Mr. Trevedian didn’t expect any trouble until this morning.”

“You mean he was prepared to deal with it himself during the hours of darkness?”

The other shrugged his shoulders. “My orders were to be up here at eight this morning.”

“Are you here as an official of the Provincial Police or has the company hired you as a watchdog?”

“Both,” he said rather tersely.

“I see,” I said. “In other words, you’re employed by the company and lake your orders from Trevedian. That’s all I wanted to know.” I turned my horse. “We’re wasting our time here,” I said to Garry, “This will have to be fought out in the courts.”

He nodded slowly and we rode back to the ranch house in silence. His face looked drawn and haggard. He didn’t say anything all the way back, but I was very conscious of the fact that he’d lost his rig, everything he had worked for during more than fifteen years. It deepened the mood of black despair that had gripped me since I woke up and found the Kingdom had become a lake overnight.

When we reached the ranch house we were greeted with the news that the water was rising again. All our energies were concentrated then on salvaging what we could. We loaded Boy’s vehicles with all our kit and movable equipment and drove them up to the edge of the timber. Jean and I harnessed the horses to an old wagon we found, and in this way I managed to get some of my grandfather’s belongings out. And then, as the rain slackened and a misty sun shone through, we made camp in the shelter of the trees and drank hot tea and watched the water creep slowly up to the ranch house. By midday the place ray grandfather had built with his own hands was a quarter of a mile out in the lake and the water was up to the windows. It was the end of the Kingdom.

That night my feet and hands were swollen and painful and my heart was thudding against my ribs. I felt exhausted and drained of all energy, certain that now my time was up and the end had at last come. I slipped off into a sort of coma, and when I woke sometimes Jean was there, holding my hand, sometimes I was alone. The moon was bright and by craning my head I could just see out of the back of the truck that the ranch house had disappeared completely, swallowed by the waters. There was no sign left that my grandfather had ever been in the country.

I felt better in the morning, but very tired. I slept intermittently and once Boy came and sat beside me and told me he had been over to the dam and had phoned Trevedian from the control room. We were to have the trucks at the hoist by midday tomorrow. I lay back, realizing that this was our final exodus, that the rest of the business would be conducted in the stuffy, soul-destroying atmosphere of a courtroom. There would be weeks, maybe months of litigation.

I couldn’t face that. Jean seemed to understand my mood, for she kept assuring me that it would be all right, that the lawyers would look after it all and that we’d get the compensation required to repay everyone. And then, late in the evening, Johnny rode in with a couple of American newspaper boys, the same who had been up with him the previous fall when they had found the body of my grandfather.

I remember they came in to see me that night. They were a surprisingly quiet, slow-spoken pair and somehow their interest in the whole business as a story put new heart into me.

“But who’ll believe us?” I said. “Even Steve Strachan, who was up here with us, isn’t entirely convinced.”

The taller of them laughed. “He’s not used to this sort of thing,” he said. “We are. We’ve put the four of you through a detailed cross-examination. And it’s okay. The detail is too good to have been fabricated. Soon as we get down I’ll send off my story, Fergus will have half the North American continent gunning for him by the time I’ve finished writing this up. And by a stroke of luck we’ve got pictures of the Campbell homestead and the whole Kingdom before they flooded it.”