Desmond Bagley - High Citadel / Landslide

‘You’re our most serious casualty – no one else got a scratch.’

‘I must bandage your head, Tim,’ said Benedetta.

‘We’ll go up to the pond,’ said O’Hara.

As he got to his feet Aguillar approached. ‘You did well, Señor O’Hara,’ he said.

O’Hara swayed and leaned on Forester for support. ‘Well enough, but they won’t fall for that trick again. All we’ve bought is time.’ His voice was sober.

‘Time is what we need,’ said Forester. ‘Earlier this morning I wouldn’t have given two cents for our scheme to cross the mountains. But now Rohde and I can leave with an easy conscience.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’d better get on the road.’

Miss Ponsky came up. ‘Are you all right, Mr O’Hara – Tim?’

‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘You did all right, Jenny.’

She blushed. ‘Why – thank you, Tim. But I had a dreadful moment. I really thought I’d have to shoot that man by the truck.’

O’Hara looked at Forester and grinned weakly and Forester suppressed a macabre laugh. ‘You did just what you were supposed to do,’ said O’Hara, ‘and you did it very well.’ He looked around. ‘Willis, you stay down here – get the gun from Rohde and if anything happens fire the last bullet. But I don’t think anything will happen – not yet a while. The rest of us will have a war council up by the pond. I’d like to do that before Ray goes off.’

‘Okay,’ said Forester.

They went up to the pond and O’Hara walked over to the water’s edge. Before he took a cupped handful of water he caught sight of his own reflection and grimaced distastefully. He was unshaven and very dirty, his face blackened by smoke and dried blood and his eyes red-rimmed and sore from the heat of the fire-bolts. My God, I look like a tramp, he thought.

He dashed cold water at his face and shivered violently, then turned to find Benedetta behind him, a strip of cloth in her hands. ‘Your head,’ she said. ‘The skin was broken.’

He put a hand to the back of his head and felt the stickiness of drying blood. ‘Hell, I must have hit hard,’ he said.

‘You’re lucky you weren’t killed. Let me see to it.’

Her fingers were cool on his temples as she washed the wound and bandaged his head. He rubbed his hand raspingly over his cheek; Armstrong is always clean-shaven, he thought; I must find out how he does it.

Benedetta tied a neat little knot and said, ‘You must take it easy today, Tim. I think you are concussed a little.’

He nodded, then winced as a sharp pain stabbed through his head. ‘I think you’re right. But as for taking it easy – that isn’t up to me; that’s up to the boys on the other side of the river. Let’s get back to the others.’

Forester rose up as they approached. ‘Miguel thinks we should get going,’ he said.

‘In a moment,’ said O’Hara. ‘There are a few things I want to find out.’ He turned to Rohde. ‘You’ll be spending a day at the camp and a day at the mine. That’s two days used up. Is this lost time necessary?’

‘It is necessary and barely enough,’ said Rohde. ‘It should be longer.’

‘You’re the expert on mountains,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ll take your word for it. How long to get across?’

‘Two days,’ said Rohde positively. ‘If we have to take longer we will not do it at all.’

‘That’s four days,’ said O’Hara. ‘Add another day to convince someone that we’re in trouble and another for that someone to do something about it. We’ve got to hold out for six days at least – maybe longer.’

Forester looked grave. ‘Can you do it?’

‘We’ve got to do it,’ said O’Hara. ‘I think we’ve gained one day. They’ve got to find some timber from somewhere, and that means going back at least fifty miles to a town. They might have to get another truck as well – and it all takes time. I don’t think we’ll be troubled until tomorrow – maybe not until the next day. But I’m thinking about your troubles – how are you going to handle things on the other side of the mountain?’

Miss Ponsky said, ‘I’ve been wondering about that, too. You can’t go to the government of this man Lopez. He would not help Señor Aguillar, would he?’

Forester smiled mirthlessly. ‘He wouldn’t lift a finger. Are there any of your people in Altemiros, Señor Aguillar?’

‘I will give you an address,’ said Aguillar. ‘And Miguel will know. But you may not have to go as far as Altemiros.’

Forester looked interested and Aguillar said to Rohde, ‘The airfield.’

‘Ah,’ said Rohde. ‘But we must be careful.’

‘What’s this about an airfield?’ Forester asked.

‘There is a high-level airfield in the mountains this side of Altemiros,’ said Aguillar. ‘It is a military installation which the fighter squadrons use in rotation. Cordillera has four squadrons of fighter aircraft – the eighth, the tenth, the fourteenth and the twenty-first squadrons. We – like the communists – have been infiltrating the armed forces. The fourteenth squadron is ours; the eighth is communist; and the other two still belong to Lopez.’

‘So the odds are three to one that any squadron at the airfield will be a rotten egg,’ commented Forester.

‘That is right,’ said Aguillar. ‘But the airfield is directly on your way to Altemiros. You must tread carefully and act discreetly, and perhaps you can save much time. The commandant of the fourteenth squadron, Colonel Rodriguez, is an old friend of mine – he is safe.’

‘If he’s there,’ said Forester. ‘But it’s worth the chance. We’ll make for this airfield as soon as we’ve crossed the mountains.’

‘That’s settled,’ said O’Hara with finality. ‘Doctor Armstrong, have you any more tricks up your medieval sleeve?’

Armstrong removed his pipe from his mouth. ‘I think I have. I had an idea and I’ve been talking to Willis about it and he thinks he can make it work.’ He nodded towards the gorge. ‘Those people are going to be more prepared when they come back with their timber. They’re not going to stand up and be shot at like tin ducks in a shooting gallery – they’re going to have their defences against our crossbows. So what we need now is a trench mortar.’

‘For Christ’s sake,’ exploded O’Hara. ‘Where the devil are we going to get a trench mortar?’

‘Willis is going to make it,’ Armstrong said equably. ‘With the help of Señor Rohde, Mr Forester and myself – and Mr Peabody, of course, although he isn’t much help, really.’

‘So I’m going to make a trench mortar,’ said Forester helplessly. He looked baffled. ‘What do we use for explosives? Something cleverly cooked up out of match-heads?’

‘Oh, you misunderstand me,’ said Armstrong. ‘I mean the medieval equivalent of a trench mortar. We need a machine that will throw a missile in a high trajectory to lob behind the defences which our enemies will undoubtedly have when they make their next move. There are no really new principles in modern warfare, you know; merely new methods of applying the old principles. Medieval man knew all the principles.’

He looked glumly at his empty pipe. ‘They had a variety of weapons. The onager is no use for our purpose, of course. I did think of the mangonel and the ballista, but I discarded those too, and finally settled on the trebuchet. Powered by gravity, you know, and very effective.’

If the crossbows had not been such a great success O’Hara would have jeered at Armstrong, but now he held his peace, contenting himself with looking across at Forester ironically. Forester still looked baffled and shrugged his shoulders. ‘What sort of missile would the thing throw?’ he asked.