Dennis Wheatley - Unholy Crusade

`Go on, man,' shouted the Wing Commander. `Out with him

or we'll not clear the crest and all be killed on it.' To spare Chela's feelings, Adam told a swift lie. `We'll be committing no sin. He is already dead.' Continuing to choke Alberuque into silence with one hand, he put the other under his knees and lifted him. But before he could heave him out, the crest seemed to rush up at them.

`Quick!' gasped Hunterscombe. `For God's sake…'

There came a scraping noise as the undercarriage of the machine

grazed the lip of the crater, but she just cleared it. Next moment Adam got Alberuque's wildly kicking legs out in the rushing air, gave a final push and let him drop, to roll down the inner slope the crater into the red hot, bubbling lava.

The helicopter lifted at once. Another few seconds and it entered the plume of smoke. The hot air lifted it still higher. The smoke blinded them, they were half choked by it and by the awful stench of sulphur. The machine rocked crazily, filling them with terror that it would fall apart under the stress and that they, too, would end up screaming their lives out in the boiling mud beneath them. Suddenly they shot out of the smoke and passed well above the far lip of the crater. Gasping for breath and with their eyes streaming, they felt immense relief. But only for a matter of moments. The engine began to splutter; then it died. From Mexico City it had flown some sixty miles, and the petrol tank was now empty. Rapidly, it sank. There was nothing that Hunterscombe could do to check it. In an agony of apprehension they stared down at the barren, rocky slope below them, then braced themselves for the crash. It came with a grinding of splintered metal. They were all flung forward, then jerked upright; for luck had saved them from the worst. Owing to the formation of the ground, the light machine bounced and came to rest thirty feet further down on an uneven shelf of rock.

For more than a minute they sat there, stunned; hardly able to believe that they were still alive and had escaped serious injury. The lights had gone out, but pale moonlight seeping in made the head and shoulders of each of them stand out to the others in silhouette.

Adam was the first to recover. As he rose to clamber down, he slipped in Alberuque's blood. The interior of the machine was smothered with it and with that from the wounds of Chela and Hunterscombe. The smell of it was strong in their nostrils, mingled with that of the sulphur given off from the volcano.

Adam lifted Chela out, then helped the Wing Commander down. Supported by a hand on the fuselage, she stood beside the machine on her good foot. He tottered a few steps, then sank to the ground. Bending over him, Adam asked anxiously, `Just how bad is it, old chap?'

Hunterscombe gave a travesty of a laugh. `Pretty nasty. That bullet may have had my number on it.'

`Don't say that. You're as tough as they make them. You'll be all right if only I can get you to a doctor.'

`That's what I meant… If you could, I expect he'd patch me up. But you can't… You've Chela to look after and… I'd never get down this mountain without help.'

`I'll manage.' Chela spoke bravely. ` That is, if you can find me something to use as a crutch.'

Adam climbed back into the machine. There was nothing suitable there but, rummaging in the pockets, he found a first aid kit, a big torch and a flask of brandy. Hunterscombe's wound was obviously the worse, so he went to him first and took a bandage from the pack. But their rescuer shook his head:

`Na good, chum…, look at my back.'

The light of the torch showed below the right shoulder a large, dark patch where blood had soaked through his jacket. Staring at it, Adam realised that, even if he could get the coat off, to deal efficiently with such a wound would prove beyond him; so he turned to Chela.

Her wound was worse than he had expected. He could not tell if the bone was splintered, but the bullet had torn the ligaments in her calf. She had lost a lot of blood and was still bleeding. When he applied the iodine, she fainted. Propping her up with her back against a boulder, he bandaged the wound and fixed a tourniquet beneath her knee.

Going back to Hunterscombe, he said, 'We can't stay here. These sulphur fumes are poisonous. If we keep on breathing them, we'll be dead before morning.'

The Wing Commander spoke tersely. `Don't argue. Get the girl down.'

`We can't possibly leave you here.'

To that the wounded man made no reply. Laboriously he fished out of his pocket a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, then lit one.

Chela had passed out only for a moment. She was now sitting with her head bowed on her knees. It was a terrible decision for Adam to have to make, but he knew that Hunterscombe was right. Love apart, his first duty was to the woman of the party even if leaving the man up there meant that he would die from he poison in the air.

Kneeling beside Chela, he whispered, `I've got to get you down the mountain, and Jeremy is not up to making it on his own. He insists that we should leave him.'

She sat up and, in view of her state, spoke with surprising firmness. `We can't. He saved us. It would be an awful thing to do.' Then the fumes caught her in the throat and she was shaken by a bout of coughing.

`We must,' Adam insisted. `These fumes are deadly.'

Putting a hand on his shoulder, she levered herself up and said, You can go if you like, but I'm not going without Jeremy.' Then he looked across at Hunterscombe and added, `You heard what C said. For all our sakes, you must make the effort.'

He, too, was coughing now and had thrown aside his cigarette. With a touch of his old humour he muttered, `Little idiot. But… anything to oblige a lady.' Then he struggled to his feet.

`One moment,' said Adam. Taking the second bandage from the pack, he draped it round Chela's neck and tied it under her right foot, so that it should not drag on the ground and cause her injured leg to give her greater pain. From the first aid pack he gave her half a tablet of morphia and a whole one to Hunterscombe. Knowing that he could not afford to carry any unnecessary weight, he took off and regretfully abandoned his gold armbands and leg gyves. As he did so, he thanked his stars that in those last hurried moments at the museum he had refused to let the attendants put on the soft, gilded sandals, and was still wearing his own stout shoes. But it was cold up there on the mountain top, so he decided to keep the feather work kilt and cloak that he had made 'them put on over his suit.

Two minutes later they had formed up. Adam had Hunterscombe on his right and Chela on his left, with an arm round the waist of each, while they both had an arm round his neck. Chela held the torch in her free hand, and they set off on their attempt to get down to safety.

The going was rough, but it might have been much worse, for the slope was steep only in places they were able to avoid by the light of the torch; but that meant their changing direction every dozen yards or so, and several times they had to make their way round patches of jagged rock that Chela and Hunterscombe could not have got over. In silence, except for their heavy breathing and an occasional gasp, they gradually made their way downwards.

After a quarter of an hour they had to take a rest and sat for several minutes on a broad stone shelf, panting and wheezing. But the air was better there as the sulphur fumes were less pungent. While they recruited their strength, Adam's thoughts were gloomy. He reckoned that, so far, they could not have covered more than two hundred yards and there might well be a mile to go before they could hope to come upon some habitation. The priests had given him such a battering that his body ached all over and, even had he been in the pink of condition, he doubted whether he could have got his two companions down to the valley.