Desmond Bagley - High Citadel / Landslide

‘But I’ve killed a man,’ she wailed. ‘I’ve taken a life.’

Forester got her to her feet and led her away, talking softly to her all the time. O’Hara bent and picked up the crossbow. ‘What a secret weapon!’ he said in admiration. ‘No noise, no flash – just zing. ’ He laughed. ‘They still don’t know what happened – not for certain. Armstrong, you’re a bloody genius.’

But Armstrong was asleep.

The enemy made no further attempts to repair the bridge that morning. Instead, they kept up a steady, if slow, light barrage of rifle fire, probing the tumble of rocks at the edge of the gorge in the hope of making hits. O’Hara withdrew everyone to safety, including Rohde. Then he borrowed a small mirror from Benedetta and contrived a makeshift periscope, being careful to keep the glass in the shadow of a rock so that it would not reflect direct sunlight. He fixed it so that an observer could lie on his back in perfect cover, but could still keep an eye on the bridge. Forester took first watch.

O’Hara said, ‘If they come on the bridge again use the gun – just one shot. We’ve got them off-balance now and a bit nervous. They don’t know if that chap fell off the bridge by accident, whether he was shot and they didn’t hear the report, or whether it was something else. We know it was something else and so does the other man who was on the bridge, but I don’t think they believe him. There was a hell of an argument going on the last I saw of it. At any rate, I think they’ll be leery of coming out now, and a shot ought to put them off.’

Forester checked the pistol and looked glumly at the four remaining bullets. ‘I feel a hell of a soldier – firing off twenty-five per cent of the available ammunition at one bang.’

‘It’s best this way,’ said O’Hara. ‘They don’t know the state of our ammunition, the crossbow is our secret weapon, and by God we must make the best use of it. I have ideas about that, but I want to wait for the second crossbow.’ He paused. ‘Have you any idea how many of the bastards are across there?’

‘I tried a rough count,’ said Forester. ‘I made it twenty-three. The leader seems to be a big guy with a Castro beard. He’s wearing some kind of uniform – jungle-green pants and a bush-jacket.’ He rubbed his chin and said thoughtfully, ‘It’s my guess that he’s a Cuban specialist.’

‘I’ll look out for him,’ said O’Hara. ‘Maybe if we can nail him the rest will pack up.’

‘Maybe,’ said Forester non-committally.

O’Hara trudged back to the camp which had now been transferred to the rock shelter on the hillside. That was a better defensive position and could not be so easily rushed, the attackers having to move over broken ground. But O’Hara had no great faith in it; if the enemy crossed the bridge they could move up the road fast, outflanking the rock shelter to move in behind and surround them. He had cudgelled his brain to find a way of blocking the road but had not come up with anything.

But there it was – a better place than the camp by the pond and the roadside. The trouble was water, but the rock hollow at the rear of the shelter had been filled with twenty-five gallons of water, transported laboriously a canful at a time, much of it spilling on the way. And it was a good place to sleep, too.

Miss Ponsky had recovered from her hysteria but not from her remorse. She was unaccustomedly quiet and withdrawn, speaking to no one. She had helped to transport the water and the food but had done so mechanically, as if she did not care. Aguillar was grave. ‘It is not right that this should be,’ he said. ‘It is not right that a lady like Miss Ponsky should have to do these things.’

O’Hara felt exasperated. ‘Dammit, we didn’t start this fight,’ he said. ‘The Coughlins are dead, and Benedetta was nearly killed – not to mention me. I’ll try not to let it happen again, but she is the best shot and we are fighting for our lives.’

‘You are a soldier,’ said Aguillar. ‘Almost I seem to hear you say, with Napoleon, that one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.’ His voice was gently sardonic.

O’Hara disregarded that. ‘We must all practise with the bow – we must learn to use it while we have time.’

Aguillar tapped him on the arm. ‘Señor O’Hara, perhaps if I gave myself to these people they would be satisfied.’

O’Hara stared at him. ‘You know they wouldn’t; they can’t let us go – knowing what we know.’

Aguillar nodded. ‘I know that; I was wondering if you did.’ He shrugged half-humorously. ‘I wanted you to convince me there is nothing to gain by it – and you have. I am sorry to have brought this upon all these innocent people.’

O’Hara made an impatient noise and Aguillar continued, ‘There comes a time when the soldier takes affairs out of the hands of the politician – all ways seem to lead to violence. So I must cease to be a politician and become a soldier. I will learn how to shoot this bow well, señor.’

‘I wouldn’t do too much, Señor Aguillar,’ said O’Hara. ‘You must conserve your strength in case we must move suddenly and quickly. You’re not in good physical shape, you know.’

Aguillar’s voice was sharp. ‘Señor, I will do what I must.’

O’Hara said no more, guessing he had touched on Spanish-American pride. He went to talk to Miss Ponsky.

She was kneeling in front of the pressure stove, apparently intent on watching a can of water boil, but her eyes were unfocused and staring far beyond. He knew what she was looking at – the steel bolt that had sprouted like a monstrous growth in the middle of a man’s back.

He said, ‘Killing another human being is a terrible thing, Miss Ponsky. I know – I’ve done it, and I was sickened for days afterwards. The first time I shot down an enemy fighter in Korea I followed him down – it was a dangerous thing to do, but I was young and inexperienced then. The Mig went down in flames, and his ejector seat didn’t work, so he opened the canopy manually and jumped out against the slipstream.

‘It was brave or desperate of that man to do that. But he had the Chinese sort of courage – or maybe the Russian courage, for all I know. You see, I didn’t know the nationality or even the colour of the man I had killed. He fell to earth, a spinning black speck. His parachute didn’t open. I knew he was a dead man.’

O’Hara moistened his lips. ‘I felt bad about that, Miss Ponsky; it sickened me. But then I thought that the same man had been trying to kill me – he nearly succeeded, too. He had pumped my plane full of holes before I got him and I crash-landed on the airstrip. I was lucky to get away with it – I spent three weeks in hospital. I finally worked it out that it was a case of him or me, and I was the lucky one. I don’t know if he would have had regrets if he had killed me – I think probably not. Those people aren’t trained to have much respect for life.’

He regarded her closely. ‘These people across the river are the same that I fought in Korea, no matter that their skins are a different colour. We have no fight with them if they will let us go in peace – but they won’t do that, Miss Ponsky. So it’s back to basics; kill or be killed and the devil take the loser. You did all right, Miss Ponsky; what you did may have saved all our lives and maybe the lives of a lot of people in this country. Who knows?’

As he lapsed into silence she turned to him and said in a husky, broken voice, ‘I’m a silly old woman, Mr O’Hara. For years I’ve been talking big, like everyone else in America, about fighting the communists; but I didn’t have to do it myself, and when it comes to doing it yourself it’s a different matter. Oh, we women cheered our American boys when they went to fight – there’s no one more bloodthirsty than one who doesn’t have to do the fighting. But when you do your own killing, it’s a dreadful thing, Mr O’Hara.’