Desmond Bagley - High Citadel / Landslide

Forester smiled and took the can of hot stew. ‘I doubt if he’ll appreciate it,’ he said drily.

They had just finished breakfast when Willis came running back. ‘They’ve started work on the bridge,’ he shouted. ‘Armstrong wants to know if he should shoot.’

‘Hell no,’ said O’Hara. ‘We’ve only got two bullets.’ He swung on Rohde. ‘Go down there, get the gun from Armstrong and find yourself a good spot for shooting – but don’t shoot until I tell you.’

Rohde plunged down the hill and O’Hara turned to the others. ‘Everyone gather round,’ he ordered. ‘Where’s Jenny?’

‘I’m here,’ called Miss Ponsky from inside the shelter.

‘Come to the front, Jenny; you’ll play a big part in all this.’ O’Hara squatted down and drew two parallel lines in the dust with a sharp stone. ‘That’s the gorge and this is the bridge. Here is the road; it crosses the bridge, turns sharply on the other side and runs on the edge of the gorge, parallel to the river.’

He placed a small stone on his rough diagram. ‘Just by the bridge there’s a jeep, and behind it another jeep. Both are turned so that their lights illuminate the bridge. Behind the second jeep there’s a big truck half full of timber.’ O’Hara placed a larger stone. ‘Behind the truck there’s another jeep. There are some other vehicles farther down, but we’re not concerned with those now.’

He shifted his position. ‘Now for our side of the gorge. Miguel will be here, upstream of the bridge. He’ll take one shot at the men on the bridge. He won’t hit anyone – he hasn’t yet, anyway – but that doesn’t matter. It’ll scare them and divert their attention, which is what I want.

‘Jenny will be here , downstream of the bridge and immediately opposite the truck. The range is one hundred and eight yards, and we know the crossbow will do it because Jenny was shooting consistently well at that range all yesterday afternoon. As soon as she hears the shot she lets fly at the petrol tank of the truck.’

He looked up at Forester. ‘You’ll be right behind Jenny. As soon as she has fired she’ll hand you the bow and tell you if she’s hit the tank. If she hasn’t, you crank the bow, reload it and hand it back to her for another shot. If she has hit it, then you crank it, run up to where Benedetta will be waiting and give it to her cocked but unloaded.’

He placed another small stone. ‘I’ll be there with Benedetta right behind me. She’ll have the other crossbow ready cocked and with a fire-bolt in it.’ He looked up at her. ‘When I give you the signal you’ll light the paraffin rags on the bolt and hand the crossbow to me, and I’ll take a crack at the truck. We might need a bit of rapid fire at this point, so crank up the bows. You stick to seeing that the bolts are properly ignited before the bows are handed to me, just like we did yesterday in practice.’

He stood up and stretched. ‘Is that clear to everyone?’

Willis said, ‘What do I do?’

‘Anyone not directly concerned with this operation will keep his head down and stay out of the way.’ O’Hara paused. ‘But stand by in case anything goes wrong with the bows.’

‘I’ve got some spare bowstrings,’ said Willis. ‘I’ll have a look at that first bow to see if it’s okay.’

‘Do that,’ said O’Hara. ‘Any more questions?’

There were no questions. Miss Ponsky held up her chin in a grimly determined manner; Benedetta turned immediately to collect the fire-bolts which were her care; Forester merely said, ‘Okay with me.’

As they were going down the hill, though, he said to O’Hara, ‘It’s a good plan, but your part is goddam risky. They’ll see those fire-bolts before you shoot. You stand a good chance of being knocked off.’

‘You can’t fight a war without risk,’ said O’Hara. ‘And that’s what this is, you know; it’s as much a war as any bigger conflict.’

‘Yeah,’ said Forester thoughtfully. He glanced at O’Hara sideways. ‘What about me doing this fire-bolt bit?’

O’Hara laughed. ‘You’re going with Rohde – you picked it, you do it. You said I was garrison commander, so while you’re here you’ll bloody well obey orders.’

Forester laughed too. ‘It was worth a try,’ he said.

Close to the gorge they met Armstrong. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked plaintively.

‘Willis will tell you all about it,’ said O’Hara. ‘Where’s Rohde?’

Armstrong pointed. ‘Over there.’

O’Hara said to Forester, ‘See that Jenny has a good seat for the performance,’ and went to find Rohde.

As always, Rohde had picked a good spot. O’Hara wormed his way next to him and asked, ‘How much longer do you think they’ll be fixing that plank?’

‘About five minutes.’ Rohde lifted the pistol, obviously itching to take a shot.

‘Hold it,’ O’Hara said sharply. ‘When they come with the next plank give them five minutes and then take a crack. We’ve got a surprise cooking for them.’

Rohde raised his eyebrows but said nothing. O’Hara looked at the massive stone buttresses which carried the cables of the bridge. ‘It’s a pity those abutments aren’t made of timber – they’d have burnt nicely. What the hell did they want to build them so big for?’

‘The Incas always built well,’ said Rohde.

‘You mean this is Inca work?’ said O’Hara, astonished.

Rohde nodded. ‘It was here before the Spaniards came. The bridge needs constant renewal, but the buttresses will last for ever.’

‘Well, I’m damned,’ said O’Hara. ‘I wonder why the Incas wanted a bridge here – in the middle of nowhere.’

‘The Incas did many strange things.’ Rohde paused. ‘I seem to remember that the ore deposit of this mine was found by tracing the surface workings of the Incas. They would need the bridge if they worked metals up here.’

O’Hara watched the men on the other side of the gorge. He spotted the big man with the beard whom Forester thought was the leader, wearing a quasi-uniform and with a pistol at his waist. He walked about bellowing orders and when he shouted men certainly jumped to it. O’Hara smiled grimly as he saw that they did not bother to take cover at all. No one had been shot at while on the other side – only when on the bridge – and that policy was now going to pay off.

He said to Rohde, ‘You know what to do. I’m going to see to the rest of it.’ He slid back cautiously until it was safe to stand, then ran to where the rest were waiting, skirting the dangerous open ground at the approach to the bridge.

He said to Benedetta, ‘I’ll be posted there; you’d better get your stuff ready. Have you got matches?’

‘I have Señor Forester’s cigarette lighter.’

‘Good. You’d better keep it burning all the time, once the action starts. I’m just going along to see Jenny, then I’ll be back.’

Miss Ponsky was waiting with Forester a little farther along. She was bright-eyed and a little excited and O’Hara knew that she’d be all right if she didn’t have to kill anyone. Well, that was all right, too; she would prepare the way and he’d do the killing. He said, ‘Have you had a look?’

She nodded quickly. ‘The gas tank is that big cylinder fastened under the truck.’

‘That’s right; it’s a big target. But try to hit it squarely – a bolt might glance off unless you hit it in the middle.’

‘I’ll hit it,’ she said confidently.

He said, ‘They’ve just about finished putting a plank in. When they start to fasten the next one Rohde is going to give them five minutes and then pop off. That’s your signal.’

She smiled at him. ‘Don’t worry, Tim, I’ll do it.’

Forester said, ‘I’ll keep watch. When they bring up the plank Jenny can take over.’