High Citadel

II

Mrs Coughlin died during the night without regaining consciousness. They found her in the morning cold and stiff. Miss Ponsky was in tears. ‘I should have stayed awake,’ she sniffled. ‘I couldn’t sleep most of the night, and then I had to drop off.’

Rohde shook his head gravely. ‘She would have died,’ he said. ‘We could not do anything for her – none of us.’

Forester, O’Hara and Peabody scratched out a shallow grave. Peabody seemed better and O’Hara thought that maybe Forester had been right when he said that Peabody was only suffering from a hangover. However, he had to be prodded into helping to dig the grave.

It seemed that everyone had had a bad night, no one sleeping very well. Rohde said that it was another symptom of soroche and the sooner they got to a lower altitude the better. O’Hara still had a splitting headache and heartily concurred.

The oxygen cylinder was empty.

O’Hara tapped the gauge with his finger but the needle stubbornly remained at zero. He opened the cock and bent his head to listen but there was no sound from the valve. He had heard the gentle hiss of oxygen several times during the night and had assumed that Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin or Aguillar.

He beckoned to Rohde. ‘Did you use all the oxygen last night?’

Rohde looked incredulously at the gauge. ‘I was saving some for today,’ he said. ‘Señor Aguillar needs it.’

O’Hara bit his lip and looked across to where Peabody sat. ‘I thought he looked pretty chipper this morning.’

Rohde growled something under his breath and took a step forward, but O’Hara caught his arm. ‘It can’t be proved,’ he said. ‘I could be wrong. And anyway, we don’t want any rows right here. Let’s get down this mountain.’ He kicked the cylinder and it clanged emptily. ‘At least we won’t have to carry this.’

He remembered the chocolate and brought it out. There were eight small squares to be divided between ten of them, so he, Rohde and Forester did without and Aguillar had two pieces. O’Hara thought that he must have had three because the girl did not appear to eat her ration.

Armstrong and Willis appeared to work well as a team. Using the axe, they had ripped some timber from one of the huts and made a rough stretcher by pushing lengths of wood through the sleeves of two overcoats. That was for Aguillar, who could not walk.

They put on all the clothes they could and left the rest in suitcases. Forester gave O’Hara a bulky overcoat. ‘Don’t mess it about if you can help it,’ he said. ‘That’s vicuna – it cost a lot of dough.’ He grinned. ‘The boss’s wife asked me to get it this trip; it’s the old man’s birthday soon.’

Peabody grumbled when he had to leave his luggage and grumbled more when O’Hara assigned him to a stretcher-carrying stint. O’Hara resisted taking a poke at him; for one thing he did not want open trouble, and for another he did not know whether he had the strength to do any damage. At the moment it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.

So they left the huts and went down the road, turning their backs on the high peaks. The road was merely a rough track cut out of the mountainside. It wound down in a series of hairpin bends and Willis pointed out where blasting had been done on the corners. It was just wide enough to take a single vehicle but, from time to time, they came across a wide part where two trucks could pass.

O’Hara asked Rohde, ‘Did they intend to truck all the ore from the mine?’

‘They would have built a telfer,’ said Rohde. ‘An endless rope with buckets. But they were still proving the mine. Petrol engines do not work well up here – they need superchargers.’ He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground.

In a patch of snow was the track of a tyre.

‘Someone’s been up here lately,’ observed O’Hara. ‘Supercharged or not. But I knew that.’

‘How?’ Rohde demanded.

‘The airstrip had been cleared of snow.’

Rohde patted his breast and moved away without saying anything. O’Hara remembered the pistol and wondered what would happen if they came up against opposition.

Although the path was downhill and the going comparatively good, it was only possible to carry the stretcher a hundred yards at a time. Forester organized relays, and as one set of carriers collapsed exhaustedly another took over. Aguillar was in a comatose condition and the girl walked next to the stretcher, anxiously watching him. After a mile they stopped for a rest and O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘I’ve got a flask of spirits. ‘I’ve been saving it for when things really get tough. Do you think it would help the old man?’

‘Let me have it,’ said Rohde.

O’Hara took the flask from his hip and gave it to Rohde, who took off the cap and sniffed the contents. ‘Aguardiente,’ he said. ‘Not the best drink but it will do.’ He looked at O’Hara curiously. ‘Do you drink this?’

‘I’m a poor man,’ said O’Hara defensively.

Rohde smiled. ‘When I was a student I also was poor. I also drank aguardiente. But I do not recommend too much,’ He looked across at Aguillar. ‘I think we save this for later.’ He recapped the flask and handed it back to O’Hara. As O’Hara was replacing it in his pocket he saw Peabody staring at him. He smiled back pleasantly.

After a rest of half an hour they started off again. O’Hara, in the lead, looked back and thought they looked like a bunch of war refugees. Willis and Armstrong were stumbling along with the stretcher, the girl keeping pace alongside; Miss Ponsky was sticking close to Rohde, chatting as though on a Sunday afternoon walk, despite her shortness of breath, and Forester was in the rear with Peabody shambling beside him.

After the third stop O’Hara found that things were going better. His step felt lighter and his breathing eased, although the headache stayed with him. The stretcher-bearers found that they could carry for longer periods, and Aguillar had come round and was taking notice.

O’Hara mentioned this to Rohde, who pointed at the steep slopes about them. ‘We are losing a lot of height,’ he said. ‘It will get better now.’

After the fourth halt O’Hara and Forester were carrying the stretcher. Aguillar apologized in a weak voice for the inconvenience he was causing, but O’Hara forbore to answer – he needed all his breath for the job. Things weren’t that much better.

Forester suddenly stopped and O’Hara thankfully laid down the stretcher. His legs felt rubbery and the breath rasped in his throat. He grinned at Forester, who was beating his hands against his chest. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘It should be warmer down in the valley.’

Forester blew on his fingers. ‘I hope so.’ He looked up at O’Hara. ‘You’re a pretty good pilot,’ he said. ‘I’ve done some flying in my time, but I don’t think I could do what you did yesterday.’

‘You might if you had a pistol at your head,’ said O’Hara with a grimace. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t leave it to Grivas – he’d have killed the lot of us, starting with me first.’

He looked past Forester and saw Rohde coming back up the road at a stumbling run, his gun in his hand. ‘Something’s happening.’

He went forward to meet Rohde, who gasped, his chest heaving. ‘There are huts here – I had forgotten them.’

O’Hara looked at the gun. ‘Do you need that?’

Rohde gave a stark smile. ‘It is possible, señor.’ He waved casually down the road with the pistol. ‘I think we should be careful. I think we should look first before doing anything. You, me, and Señor Forester.’

‘I think so too,’ said Forester. ‘Grivas said his pals would be around and this seems a likely place to meet them.’

‘All right,’ said O’Hara, and looked about. There was no cover on the road but there was a jumble of rocks a little way back. ‘I think everyone else had better stick behind that lot,’ he said. ‘If anything does break, there’s no point in being caught in the open.’

They went back to shelter behind the rocks and O’Hara told everyone what was happening. He ended by saying, ‘If there’s shooting you don’t do a damned thing – you freeze and stay put. Now I know we’re not an army but we’re likely to come under fire all the same – so I’m naming Doctor Willis as second-in-command. If anything happens to us you take your orders from him.’ Willis nodded.

Aguillar’s niece was talking to Rohde, and as O’Hara went to join Forester she touched him on the arm. ‘Señor.’

He looked down at her. ‘Yes, señorita.’

‘Please be careful, you and Señor Forester. I would not want anything to happen to you because of us.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ said O’Hara. ‘Tell me, is your name the same as your uncle’s?’

‘I am Benedetta Aguillar,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I’m Tim O’Hara. I’ll be careful.’

He joined the other two and they walked down the road to the bend. Rohde said, ‘These huts were where the miners lived. This is just about as high as a man can live permanently – a man who is acclimatized such as our mountain indios. I think we should leave the road here and approach from the side. If Grivas did have friends, here is where we will find them.’

They took to the mountainside and came upon the camp from the top. A level place had been roughly bulldozed out of the side of the mountain and there were about a dozen timber-built huts, very much like the huts by the airstrip.

‘This is no good,’ said Forester. ‘We’ll have to go over this miniature cliff before we can get at them.’

‘There’s no smoke,’ O’Hara pointed out.

‘Maybe that means something – maybe it doesn’t,’ said Forester. ‘I think that Rohde and I will go round and come up from the bottom. If anything happens, maybe you can cause a diversion from up here.’

‘What do I do?’ asked O’Hara. ‘Throw stones?’

Forester shook with silent laughter. He pointed down the slope to beyond the camp. ‘We’ll come out about there. You can see us from here but we’ll be out of sight of anyone in the camp. If all’s clear you can give us the signal to come up.’ He looked at Rohde, who nodded.

Forester and Rohde left quietly and O’Hara lay on his belly, looking down at the camp. He did not think there was anyone there. It was less than five miles up to the airstrip by the road and there was nothing to stop anybody going up there. If Grivas’s confederates were anywhere, it was not likely that they would be at this camp – but it was as well to make sure. He scanned the huts but saw no sign of movement.

Presently he saw Forester wave from the side of the rock he had indicated and he waved back. Rohde went up first, in a wide arc to come upon the camp at an angle. Then Forester moved forward in the peculiar scuttling, zigzagging run of the experienced soldier who expects to be shot at. O’Hara wondered about Forester; the man had said he could fly an aeroplane and now he was behaving like a trained infantryman. He had an eye for ground, too, and was obviously accustomed to command.

Forester disappeared behind one of the huts and then Rohde came into sight at the far end of the camp, moving warily with his gun in his hand. He too disappeared, and O’Hara felt tension. He waited for what seemed a very long time, then Forester walked out from behind the nearest hut, moving quite unconcernedly. ‘You can come down,’ he called. ‘There’s no one here.’

O’Hara let out his breath with a rush and stood up. ‘I’ll go back and get the rest of the people down here,’ he shouted, and Forester waved in assent.

O’Hara went back up the road, collected the party and took them down to the camp. Forester and Rohde were waiting in the main ‘street’ and Forester called out, ‘We’ve struck it lucky; there’s a lot of food here.’

Suddenly O’Hara realized that he hadn’t eaten for a day and a half. He did not feel particularly hungry, but he knew that if he did not eat he could not last out much longer – and neither could any of the others. To have food would make a lot of difference on the next leg of the journey.

Forester said, ‘Most of the huts are empty, but three of them are fitted out as living quarters complete with kerosene heaters.’

O’Hara looked down at the ground which was crisscrossed with tyre tracks. ‘There’s something funny going on,’ he said. ‘Rohde told me that the mine has been abandoned for a long time, yet there’s all these signs of life and no one around. What the hell’s going on?’

Forester shrugged. ‘Maybe the commie organization is slipping,’ he said. ‘The Latins have never been noted for good planning. Maybe someone’s put a spoke in their wheel.’

‘Maybe,’ said O’Hara. ‘We might as well take advantage of it. What do you think we should do now – how long should we stay here?’

Forester looked at the group entering one of the huts, then up at the sky. ‘We’re pretty beat,’ he said. ‘Maybe we ought to stay here until tomorrow. It’ll take us a while to get fed and it’ll be late before we can move out. We ought to stay here tonight and keep warm.’

‘We’ll consult Rohde,’ said O’Hara. ‘He’s the expert on mountains and altitude.’

The huts were well fitted. There were paraffin stoves, bunks, plenty of blankets and a large assortment of canned foods. On the table in one of the huts there were the remnants of a meal, the plates dirty and unwashed and frozen dregs of coffee in the bottom of tin mugs. O’Hara felt the thickness of the ice and it cracked beneath the pressure of his finger.

‘They haven’t been gone long,’ he said. ‘If the hut was unheated this stuff would have frozen to the bottom.’ He passed the mug to Rohde. ‘What do you think?’

Rohde looked at the ice closely. ‘If they turned off the heaters when they left, the hut would stay warm for a while,’ he said. He tested the ice and thought deeply. ‘I would say two days,’ he said finally.

‘Say yesterday morning,’ suggested O’Hara. ‘That would be about the time we took off from San Croce.’

Forester groaned in exasperation. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Why did they go to all this trouble, make all these preparations, and then clear out? One thing’s sure: Grivas expected a reception committee – and where the hell is it?’

O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘We are thinking of staying here tonight. What do you think?’

‘It is better here than at the mine,’ said Rohde. ‘We have lost a lot of height. I would say that we are at an altitude of about four thousand metres here – or maybe a little more. That will not harm us for one night; it will be better to stay here in shelter than to stay in the open tonight, even if it is lower down the mountain.’ He contracted his brows. ‘But I suggest we keep a watch.’

Forester nodded. ‘We’ll take it in turns.’

Miss Ponsky and Benedetta were busy on the pressure stoves making hot soup. Armstrong had already got the heater going and Willis was sorting out cans of food. He called O’Hara over. ‘I thought we’d better take something with us when we leave,’ he said. ‘It might come in useful.’

‘A good idea,’ said O’Hara.

Willis grinned. ‘That’s all very well, but I can’t read Spanish. I have to go by the pictures on the labels. Someone had better check on these when I’ve got them sorted out.’

Forester and Rohde went on down the road to pick a good spot for a sentry, and when Forester came back he said, ‘Rohde’s taking the first watch. We’ve got a good place where we can see bits of road a good two miles away. And if they come up at night they’re sure to have their lights on.’

He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve got six able-bodied men, so if we leave here early tomorrow, that means two-hour watches. That’s not too bad – it gives us all enough sleep.’

After they had eaten Benedetta took some food down to Rohde and O’Hara found himself next to Armstrong. ‘You said you were a historian. I suppose you’re over here to check up on the Incas,’ he said.

‘Oh, no,’ said Armstrong. ‘They’re not my line of country at all. My line is medieval history.’

‘Oh,’ said O’Hara blankly.

‘I don’t know anything about the Incas and I don’t particularly want to,’ said Armstrong frankly. He smiled gently. ‘For the past ten years I’ve never had a real holiday. I’d go on holiday like a normal man – perhaps to France or Italy – and then I’d see something interesting. I’d do a bit of investigating – and before I’d know it I’d be hard at work.’

He produced a pipe and peered dubiously into his tobacco pouch. ‘This year I decided to come to South America for a holiday. All there is here is pre-European and modern history – no medieval history at all. Clever of me, wasn’t it?’

O’Hara smiled, suspecting that Armstrong was indulging in a bit of gentle leg-pulling. ‘And what’s your line, Doctor Willis?’ he asked.

‘I’m a physicist,’ said Willis. ‘I’m interested in cosmic rays at high altitudes. I’m not getting very far with it, though.’

They were certainly a mixed lot, thought O’Hara, looking across at Miss Ponsky as she talked animatedly to Aguillar. Now there was a sight – a New England spinster schoolmarm lecturing a statesman. She would certainly have plenty to tell her pupils when she arrived back at the little schoolhouse.