Dennis Wheatley - Unholy Crusade

On re entering the living room, he found that the men had returned from their morning's work and that the midday meal was ready. They were waiting only for him to partake of it first. The urgency of going up for Hunterscombe being uppermost in his mind, he was greatly tempted to insist that they should start at once; but it was thirteen hours since he had had even a snack and he knew that he ought to recruit his strength before setting out to climb the mountain. Moreover, he saw that in his honour his hosts had provided a banquet: chickens, a leg of pork, mutton chops, three kinds of stuffed tortillas, several strange puddings, and flagons of wine. Obviously, during the morning the old mother

had performed prodigies of cooking, and he had not the heart to refuse her tribute.

Taking the elbow chair, he insisted that the family should join him at table. All of them except Juanita, who was evidently restraining herself, to give a lady like impression, ate voraciously. Adam, in spite of his normally big appetite, found it difficult to do full justice to the feast. His thoughts remained focused on Hunterscombe and in what sort of state they would find him. As far as he had been able to judge, the bullet had pierced the Wing Commander's right lung; so it was a nasty wound but not one from which a man was likely to die, given proper medical attention. The cave where he lay had been dry and the chill in it as not too great to have offset the warmth of the feather cloak in which Adam had wrapped him. While piloting the helicopter and staggering down from the area made poisonous by sulphur fumes, he must have lost a certain amount of blood; but once he ad settled in the cave there was a good chance that the blood had coagulated where his shirt stuck to the wound. The biggest feature for hope lay in his not being the type of man to turn his face to the wall, and he had said himself that, somehow, he would stick it out till help came; so it seemed all the odds were in favour of his still being alive when they reached him.

Nevertheless, Adam's anxiety about him was acute and he did his best to hurry the others into finishing their big meal. It had, also, occurred to him that, although there was every reason to hope that he would find Hunterscombe again much as he had left him, when they did move him his wound would begin to bleed again, and a further loss of blood before they could get him to hospital might prove fatal; so, as soon as Juanita ceased eating, Adam asked her if she could let him have a pen and paper. From a drawer in the dresser she produced a Biro pen and a gad. On a sheet of it, he wrote:

`I, Wing Commander Jeremy Hunterscombe, of the British Embassy, Mexico City, hereby testify that Mr. Adam Gordon has, at my request, been investigating a conspiracy against the Mexican government; and that it was solely due to information received by me from him that I was enabled to warn the authorities about the subversive meeting held last night at Teotihuacan. Between us we captured Monsignor Alberuque, the leader of the conspiracy, who later died of wounds received during the fighting on the top of the Pyramid of the Sun.'

He added the date and put the Biro in his pocket. As soon as they reached Hunterscombe he would get him to sign the statement and, if the Indians proved unable to write, they could put

their marks under the signature, as witnesses. Then, if the Wing Commander did succumb on the rough, twelve mile journey into Apizaco, Adam felt confident that when he produced the document he would have nothing to fear.

By the time he had completed this precautionary measure, the others were ready to start. While the brothers collected the homemade stretcher, Adam went in to look at Chela. Finding her condition unchanged, he quickly joined the three Indians and they set off up the mountain.

Seeing it in daylight, Adam realised how lucky they had been not to have landed on the top of one of the much loftier peaks that still had snow on them, and that the Zupango farm was a good halfway up it, instead of near the bottom. Had either not been so, they would all by now have been dead.

Looking back over the roofs of the farm, the view was magnificent and far below could be seen a little cluster of houses that one of the brothers pointed out as Xalcatlan. Far away on the other side of the long valley there rose the other chain of mountains, their peaks, some of which were snow capped, outlined against the pale blue sky. Two of the highest were veiled in cloud and in the bright sunlight the vivid colouring of the countryside made a perfect picture postcard landscape. Where they were, halfway up the volcano, the air was crisp and windless, so there could not have been better conditions for climbing. But soon they were in difficulties.

Adam had already learned through Juanita that none of the men knew of a cave high up on the volcano that was sometimes used as a shelter by a goatherd; so it fell to Adam to guide the party as best he could and the paths branched so frequently that he had not the least idea by which one he had come down. By half past two they reached the sulphur affected level, and he knew that he had left Hunterscombe well below that; so they turned back and traversed the mountain lower down, ascending again from time to time by other routes.

As they trudged up and down the winding tracks they yodelled now and then, but only the echoes came back. When coming down Adam had naturally always taken the easiest way, with the least steep slope, which had frequently led to his having to proceed for some way almost at right angles to a line of straight descent. In consequence, he was not even certain on which side of the mountain he had left Hunterscombe, and that made the area to be searched very large. Moreover, the surface was far from being as comparatively smooth as in the darkness he had supposed it to be. The relatively easy ways of descending were along the rivers of lava which had flowed down the volcano sides; but Between them were high cliffs, elbows that stuck out forming Overhangs and great humps of piled up boulders. The little plateau where Hunterscombe had been left might lie hidden behind any of these and probably could be seen only from above. on the other hand, alongside the lava flows, there were many small plateaus with low cliffs and caves in them; so they might gave passed the place more than once without Adam recognising it. For the first hour of their search Adam had not been particularly worried but, as time went on, he became more and more so. although he regarded it as unlikely, he had visualised the possibility of finding Hunterscombe dead; but he had put that thought from him and it had never even occurred to him that they might lot be able to find him at all.

At five o'clock they were still high up on the mountain. It was till light there, but the late February dusk still comes early. It had fallen in the valley and was creeping upwards. By then it was getting on for four hours since they had left the farm and, although the hardy little Indians did not show fatigue, after the gruelling Adam had been through the previous night he was feeling terribly tired.

For a further twenty minutes he cast desperately about, shouting Hunterscombe's name until he was hoarse. Then, as the shadows gathered about the little party, he had to confess himself defeated. As they had failed to find the Wing Commander during the hours of daylight, it was certain that they would not be able to do so in darkness. By pointing downwards towards the farm, he indicated to the Indians that he was calling off the search. To renew it the following morning would be pointless. By then it would be over thirty hours since Hunterscombe had received his wound. He could not possibly last so long without even a drink of water. The thought that he must have been tortured by thirst all day was a terrible one. Perhaps that explained their not having found him. Desperate for a drink, he might have left the cave, attempted to make his way down the mountain and gone head long over a precipice. It was not Adam's fault that he had slept in until midday; but he had meant to be up there first thing in the morning and now he felt that, indirectly, his friend's death lay at his door.