“Don’t be melodramatic. They just repaired the railway, and Valdez won’t be moving into the jungle before morning. I gave him very good directions, but, alas, he’s a bit slower than the unfortunate Colonel Maldonado.”
Jenny shook her head and said, “I still think it’s a bit ruthless. I don’t see how you could do it.”
“Really? I thought I explained. We have an agent with the Balboa Brigade. My instructions were to blaze a trail with the two vials I gave him. Moving at night, he daubed red paint here and there along the way. Moving by day, he marked their trail with phosphorus paint. It’s invisible in sunlight, but in the dark—”
Jenny cut in with, “I’m not talking about the trail our double agent blazed. I’m talking about his life! You didn’t tell Major Valdez, just now, we had one of our own with the rebels he’s after! What happens when the troops catch up with him and the others?”
“I imagine they’ll kill him, don’t you?”
“But Basil, he’s working for us!”
‘Was, my dear. Past tense. We’re almost through, here. The soldiers will move in. Captain Gringo and Gaston Verrier will give them a good mauling before they go down. The survivors will limp out to proclaim a very costly victory, and I will sell their government the better weapons they need. As for our double agent, his job is finished as far as we’re concerned. Dead men tell no tales and all that rot.”
Jenny shuddered and said, “My God, you’re a coldblooded little brute!”
He smiled, put a hand on her breast, and said, “In bed, my dear, it’s permissible to simply call me Basil. I’ve finished playing God for now.”
The sun popped up like a jack-in-the-box this far south of the Tropic of Cancer. Captain Gringo hadn’t figured out an escape plan yet, but Blanca seemed to have been tamed for the moment. He wondered, over breakfast, how long the novelty of being dominated would amuse her.
They faced another long, dull day, and every time he broached the subject of moving north toward the coast Blanca told him he was crazy. They were safe, here in the central jungle. To the San Bias, one stretch of swampy greenery was as mentally stimulating as another.
Captain Gringo and his friends were bored out of their wits. Gaston had a terrible hang-over and Sor Pantera looked utterly worn out. Captain Gringo was too much of a gentleman to ask whether this was from too much flamenco dancing or enough Gaston.
Despite her aversion to bright sunlight, Blanca came from her hut to squat near her captive guests near the pond. She said, “Everyone must smoke themselves. One of my scouts tells me soldados are coming. They will be here soon.”
The tall American blinked and asked, “Soldiers are coming and you think we should stand in a smudge fire?”
Blanca laughed and said, “Not that kind of soldiers. ‘¡Hormiga soldados! Army ants! My scout says a large column is headed right this way.”
“Kee-rist! We have to get out of here!”
“For why? Los soldados won’t hurt you if you’re well covered with medicine smoke. They are very useful creatures. We San Bias welcome army ants to our encampments. Right now my scouts are putting out bait to lead them here.”
“What in hell for? You don’t eat ants, do you?”
“No. They eat everything that hasn’t been smoked enough to repel them. We smoke our skins. We hang our food on smoked ropes. The ants sweep over everything else like a cleansing flame. They eat the vermin in our thatch. They devour every scrap of refuse or filth. After they pass over us, you will see. There will not be a roach or a rat anywhere near here. If your friends spread their clothing in the path of the ants, they will clean them of lice and even grease spots. But we must hurry. If the ants find anyone unsmoked they will bite and sting. They feel like fire if they attack with either end. They have poison jaws and a stinger like a wasp.”
Captain Gringo stood up, unbuttoning his shirt, and said, “Here we go again, gang. We’d better strip, smoke our hides, and do just what the Romans do. I’ve got a feeling the next hour or so is going to be sort of spooky!”
As the San Bias happily piled green herbs on every fire the Balboas joined their host-captors in the smoke baths. The San Bias treated it like a lark. The guerrillas were less enthusiastic about the idea. Most of them had been raised on horror stories of the dreaded army ants. Had they had any choice in the matter they’d have been running for their lives. But as Captain Gringo pointed out, they had no choice. A poison arrow in the back was certain death. The Indians just might know what they were talking about.
There was less blushing this time. They were getting used to the sight of stark nudity, and Sor Pantera, having been passed around a bit and liking it, made no attempt to cover her hairy curves as she, too, disrobed to stand in the rising smoke. At Captain Gringo’s suggestion, they took more time and made sure of a heavy layer of the sticky soot. Missing a spot a mosquito might home in on was one thing. More than one or two bites from an army ant could make you sick as hell.
In less than an hour everyone was the same color. Black. Even the albino, Blanca, looked like a very dark Negress with wild pink eyes. Sor Pantera was a rather awesome apparition with her lush curves clothed in soot and fuzz. Captain Gringo was a Greek statue carved in ebony and a little frightening when he smiled.
Gaston and the other shorter guerrillas sort of faded in with the Indians. All looked a bit like imps from hell as they stamped about, reeking of smoke and black as ink.
A scout ran in, calling out in his own guttural dialect, and took his place over a fire as Blanca explained, “The ants are coming. It is better if we all stay here in the open, near the water. If they fall on you from a tree or a roof they sometimes bite, even through the smoke.”
Captain Gringo had a sudden thought as he remembered Blanca said the ants ate grease. He told Gaston, “We’d better get all our guns out here and hold them off the ground. Let’s keep the muzzles down and act casual, but—”
“Merde alors! You expect these insects to chew up steel?”
“Whale oil. Lard. Our guns are heavily oiled, or should be, in this climate. The bullets are coated with a mixture of beeswax and mutton fat. Some of the guys’ shotgun shells are greased cardboard and—”
“Say no more! Even if the creatures leave not a scratch on the guns or ammunition, clean metal rusts in minutes in this humidity. Chino! Hernando! You there, Sanchez! Come with me. The rest stay here and smile nicely at our hosts, hein?”
But as the weapons detail was just leaving, after a short explanation to Blanca, another scout dog-trotted in, waving his bow excitedly. Blanca shut him up as he was still sputtering and told Captain Gringo, “Soldados— many of them—coming right this way!”
He frowned in his blackface and said, “Another column of ants?”
“No. The other kind of soldados. About four hundred or more! This scout was frightened and didn’t stay to count. He says they just got off the iron serpent that crawls the shining path. He says they look like they know where they are going. And they are coming here. I think it is time for us to run some more.”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Listen, Blanca. You put me in charge last night in the hammock and you later said you liked it. Let me take command of your warriors for the next few hours and I may show you some other surprises.”
“You want us to make love to the soldiers? There are too many to fight!”
“We’ve got to fight them! We’re running out of places to hide. We have some advantages they don’t know about. They’re overconfident. A good mauling may save my friends and teach them to leave you Indians alone.”
Blanca thought, giggled, and said, “Very well. You give the orders and I will relay them. That way my people will think I know what I am telling them to do.”
He called Gaston and the weapons detail back, adding, “Everybody move through the huts into the trees. Pick up your weapons on the way. I want you spread out among the Indians, one gun to every four or five bowmen. We’re going to form a skirmish line facing back this way. Do you understand what I am saying, Blanca?”
The bruja shouted orders in her own dialect and as the Indians began to move toward the trees with puzzled smiles, she told Captain Gringo, “The first part is simple. But what can our few guns and poison arrows mean against such a large party of soldiers?”
“Damn little, all things being equal. There’s something funny going on. The troops have this encampment pinpointed. We’ll worry about how they did it later. They don’t know we know they’re coming. We’re all black with smoke and won’t be easy to see among the forest shadows. The soldiers will hit the huts first. They’ll think we’ve run off as usual, and start poking about for loot and clues. Let’s go. I’ll fill you in as I pick up the machine gun in your hut and set up my own position hi the jungle?”
“What about the ants? I told you they might bite if we get under them.”
“We’ll have to chance a few nips. The Army troopers haven’t smoked themselves at all. By the time they got here they should be nice and sweaty, too.”
Blanca grinned like a child in blackface stealing apples and said, “Oh, that’s funny! The ants will start eating the soldiers alive and they’ll have to run away!”
He smiled, too, a bit wolfishly, and said, “Not if I can help it! Let’s move it. I don’t know how much time we have, and I’d like a little camouflage set up.”
The guerrillas and their Indian allies vacated the clearing by the jungle pool and after a time the birds began to sing more boldly for a time. Then a troop of howler monkeys began to scold to the west and a mustard-clad scout came out of the jungle with his carbine trained on the deserted thatch huts. He darted to the nearest one and took cover as a second scout who’d been backing him leapfrogged past him to a second hut. The first joined him, then, after consultation, trotted back into the trees to report to the main column that the village seemed deserted.
Major Valdez and two company commanders came out of the jungle surrounded by other soldiers. Valdez barked some orders and as the soldiers began poking through the huts, ripping walls out with their bayonets, Captain Gringo watched from behind a pile of brush and told Blanca, “He’s dumber than we could have built him! Look at that! Nobody sent to set up a picket line along their flank. Nobody scouting more than a few yards into the trees. They’re acting like kids playing soldier!”
“When are you going to shoot them?”
“Let them spread out through the huts some more. I’ve got this Maxim trained to rake the length of the huts. I want to nail as many as I can with the first burst. Then, as they come unstuck, Gaston, down at the far end, will have a turkey shoot as they withdrew toward the tracks.”
Blanca reached above him and the machine gun he’d braced across a log to move an overhanging branch as she said, “Don’t move for a moment. Some scouting ants are about to reach the ends of these twigs and drop off.”
He grimaced and rolled his eyes up, expecting to see a few bugs. Then his eyes widened as he saw that the branch above them was red with a solid mass of crawling ants! They moved in a writhing stream past Blanca’s smoke-stained fingertips and began to ooze like flowing honey off the tips of the branches beyond them. The army ants dropped by clinging to one another in living chains rather than simply falling. They apparently kept body contact at all times as they marched through the forest. A rusty red curtain lowered between the muzzle of his gun and the abandoned clearing, and as he glanced to the sides, he gagged in horror. The entire forest floor as far as he could see was a carpet of crawling ants! He and the girl occupied a small island, protected by the smell of smoke that clung to their naked flesh. The American’s flesh began to crawl, protected or not, as he got his first good look at the legendary little horrors.
Most were about the size and shape of good-sized ordinary red ants. Here and there, striding head and shoulders among the common ants, he saw big beetle-sized critters with bulldog heads and massive pincers. They’d apparently evolved to be the heavy artillery of the ant army.
He wondered why they needed the bigger warriors. There were millions of the little bastards and any one of them could bite and sting like fire! The ants kept coming and flowing past like a spreading flood of drying blood, and it was hard to concentrate on the other more dangerous enemy out there in the sunlit clearing. The troopers were almost to the nearest huts now, and pitchforking the Indians’ meager belongings out through the thatch with their bayonets. They were hot and sweaty and frustrated. They’d probably chased San Bias before and knew they had a long, weary campaign to face in the next few days.
Major Valdez came down the line between the huts and the pool as a soldier picked up Sor Pantera’s discarded skirt and held it up with a puzzled smile. Valdez said, “So much for the Balboa Brigade. They ran into this Indian camp and that was the end of them.”
“But where are the Indians, my Major?” asked another officer.
Valdez shrugged and said, “Who knows? Who cares? Our orders were to follow the blazed trail and wipe out the rebels. Since the San Bias would seem to have done it for us, we’ll reward them by burning out this rats’ nest before we move out.”
At that moment a trooper ran out of a hut, slapping at himself and screaming, “¡Hormigas!” in an agonized voice.
Captain Gringo muttered, “That’s it,” and opened up with the Maxim gun. He fired a long burst the length of the encampments, raking his bullet stream through the flimsy, crowded huts. As the Maxim sang its woodpecker song of death, the others opened up down the line and the jungle echoed to the crackle of a small-arms fire as the bewildered soldiers milled uncertainly. Major Valdez might have given a sensible order had he lasted long enough. But something glinted in the sunlight and a San Bias arrow thunked into his throat. He drew his pistol and went down, gargling blood and poison as he fired mindlessly into the dust between his buckled knees.
Another officer took an arrow in the chest as the Indians zeroed in on the more interesting uniforms. A sergeant tried to rally his panic-stricken men, but Sor Pantera blew the top of his head off, cap and all, while, at her side, Gaston dropped three men in a row with his own deliberate fire.
By now the wounded were crawling out of the huts, trailing blood and army ants, as the bulk of the survivors flattened out in the clearing and began to fire blindly into the trees. Captain Gringo let the barrel of his Maxim cool as he put in a fresh belt. Then he moved the muzzle to sweep the main bulk of the enemy, lined up in the open and partly shielded by the bodies of fallen comrades. An Indian, overbold, moved forward for a better aim and was picked off by one of the troopers. But the sight of a grinning jet-black naked bowman had been unnerving, and a couple of troopers rose to make a run for it. Gaston got one with his rifle as the other dropped with three arrows in him.
And then, just as it was starting to settle down to an ordinary fire-fight, the ants moved out into the sunlight, following the scent of sweat and blood.
The troopers tried. They hugged the ground behind piled corpses and poured a withering fire into the brush, but as the solid carpet of red ants moved in and over them, they broke.
Men rose screaming, covered with stinging ants, to be put out of their screaming misery by a bullet or a flashing arrow. Some simply bolted blindly in any direction, as long as it was away from the creeping, scab-colored horde. Those running for the tracks to the east ran a gauntlet of fire, but some few made it simply because a missile couldn’t be everywhere. Captain Gringo began to fire again in short bursts, to save his precious machine-gun ammo for bunched-up targets. He piled up a dozen men near the far end of his firefield and let the Indians pick off the following runners who tripped or swerved around the clump of bodies. But as the ants swarmed over the dead and living between, most of the soldiers moved back and into the knee-deep water of the pool, shooting blind into the tree line from their hips.
It would have been a good move if the army ants were their only worry. But they made a tempting target standing upright in the water, and the Indians and a few guerrillas moved forward for the kill, screaming and looking like demons from hell. A few went down as the cooler troopers zeroed in on the God-awful-looking enemy.
And then the piranha hit.
Like the ants, the vicious little fish were not dangerous in small numbers. But there were thousands of hungry little man-eaters in the several acres of water, and the Indians had been starving them by keeping away the jungle creatures the piranha preyed on in the shallows when they lingered overlong over a drink. The water started boiling around the wading troopers and a man staggered screaming up the bank, his shinbones exposed in the blood mess of his chewed-up legs. He fell forward into the carpet of ants and vanished under them, writhing like a worm on a hot stove. Other soldiers simply vanished under the surface as the water of the pool churned in billows of what looked like tomato soup, boiling.
Captain Gringo saw he had three quarters of a belt left and yelled out, “Hold your fire! We’re wasting ammunition!”
As the crackle of small arms faded, the sudden silence was filled with the softer sickening sounds of swishing water and tiny chewing jaws. The victims had stopped screaming now. Far to the east a handful of surviving soldiers were running blindly for the railroad, scared out of their wits, not sure what in God’s name they’d run into, but determined to put as much distance between themselves and whatever it was as possible!
Nobody could go into the clearing for a good four hours, even coated with repellent soot. The ants had gone out of their tiny minds over so much fresh meat and were piled six inches deep in places as they stormed in from the jungle. Carrion crows and vultures swooped down to contest the army ants for scraps. The crows were better at it than the vultures. One vulture was blinded by ants swarming quickly up its ugly beak and legs as it perched a few seconds too long on an ant-covered corpse. If flapped feebly across the ground, hissing in agony as it picked up more ants with every bounce, then flopped blindly into the water, where the piranha ate the ants and bird together.
The fish took bigger bites and had less to devour, so the pool calmed to a flat mirror long before the horde of ants began to thin. By high noon the dusty soil of the clearing began to reappear in dun patches between red rivulets of ants, marching vaguely toward the west.
This was an unplanned bit of luck for Captain Gringo and his followers. Any reinforcements coming from the direction of the railroad right of way would be blocked until the ants crossed the tracks or headed somewhere else. The American and his followers had no way of knowing the exact wording of the confused dispatches being sent along the wires at the moment, but they were easy to imagine.
As they moved slowly back to see what the ants had left for them, Captain Gringo noticed that some of the soot was wearing off his skin and those of the others around him. They looked, if anything, dirtier and wilder than before. Blanca warned him to be careful where he put his feet. The bigger warrior ants who guarded the flanks of the moving columns were more apt to nip at anything, smoke-covered or not, that moved within range of their dim little eyes.
They came to the body of one of the Indians killed by the soldiers. His smoked skin hung in folds on his bones as if he’d been mummified. The ants had followed the trail of spilled blood into his bullet wound, hollowed out everything between skin and bones, and crawled out via everybody opening.
The dead troopers in the huts and sprawled across the clearing had been reduced to neatly uniformed skeletons, with every button and buckle fastened, and not a morsel of flesh on their glistening, clean-picked bones. Blanca nudged a skull with her sooty toe and said, “You see what a fine job they do? Smell the air now.”
He sniffed and grimaced. There was a faint wet-wasp-nest taste to the air. The body odor of the ants. They’d cleaned up every bit of anything else that could smell. But he didn’t think it smelled exactly alpine. It was getting hot and he was sticky under his coating of sooty sweat. They walked over to the edge of the pool and stared down into the muddy shallows. The piranha had been a bit messier. Shreds of stringy sinew clung like moss to the human bones scattered across the mud in the tea-colored water. But the victims were just as dead.
Gaston and Sor Pantera joined them by the pool, and Captain Gringo saw that the widow had put her skirt back on after letting the ants dry-clean it. She hadn’t found the blouse as yet, and he noticed that the hair on her soot-stained breasts had been singed off. It wasn’t much of an improvement. She looked like a beautiful, shapely woman dressed in a gorilla suit.
Gaston had pulled on his boots and pants and was wiping his face with a smoke-stained rag. He said, “We gained more guns than we have any possible need for. More important, the rifle ammunition fits the Maxim gun. All in all, this was not a bad little battle we just had. But I have to discuss a distressing matter. The soldiers did not stumble over us by accident, hein?”
Captain Gringo nodded and said, “I know. It’s Chino.”
Sor Pantera frowned and asked, “Chino? What has Chino done?”
Gaston slapped a palm to his forehead and said, “Merde! Of course! He alone went with us to wreck the train. He must have started leaving blazes within view of the tracks. He brought up the rear as we followed Little Turtle through that swampy maze. It’s so obvious, once one thinks about it seriously!”
Sor Pantera growled low in her throat and said, “I see it, now! I thought he caught on quickly for an innocent-looking farmboy! Wait until I tell the others he is a traitor He will wish he died with his friends, here, when we get through with him!”
Captain Gringo shook his head and said, “Wrong move. It’s not professional to shoot a spy when you don’t have to.”
Gaston nodded and said, “The boy does not know we are on to him, Sor Pantera. This leads to all sorts of interesting ideas, if one can but remain a bit more detached than the heat down here seems to call for.” He winked at the American as he added, “The first idea that comes to me is to lead Chino on a false trail and let him blaze it for his friends. I’m open to anything more subtle.”
Captain Gringo said, “Let’s not worry about Chino for the moment. We’ve got to police the area for supplies and ammo. Then we’ve got to haul ass. I figure we’ve got an hour or so.”
All three of them looked surprised. He understood the girls being puzzled, but when Gaston repeated they’d chased the Colombian Army away for at least the day, he snorted, “Jesus H. Christ, Gaston. Didn’t you use any artillery in the French Foreign Legion?”
Blanca asked, “What is this artillery?” and he gestured with his free hand to indicate a shell coming in from the west as he said, “Boom, boom! Lots of boom, boom! The soldiers who got away know where this place is. We just taught them how dangerous it is to move in with bayonets.”
Gaston frowned and said, “We don’t know they have artillery, Dick.”
“You want to stay here and find out, the hard way?
There’s nothing worth holding here. The book gives you three choices once contact’s been made with the enemy: We can dig in and attempt to hold the position, we can advance, or we can retreat.”
Gaston nodded and said, “I vote for the latter, then. I still doubt the troops we just mauled will recover quickly, but discretion over valor has its points.”
“The Indian girl, Blanca, had been following the discussion with difficulty. She nudged Captain Gringo and said, “I don’t know if I feel like running away. This is a good campsite.”
He shook his head wearily and said, “We can argue about who the boss is later, honey. You trusted me to show you how to ambush the soldiers and it went well, didn’t it?”
“Oh, yes! We San Bias have never beaten regular troops before.”
“Right. And when your people repeat the story around a hundred campfires in the times to come, they will remember you were the bruja who led her warriors so cleverly.”
Blanca thought, grinned, and said, “That is true. I was terribly clever, just now. Tell me, what clever thing am I going to order next?”
“We should move in the last direction the Army will expect us to: back to the coastal swamps and offshore keys you came from.”
“But there are white men there, with guns.”
“I know. I don’t think they’re part of the Colombian Army. They are gun runners. Bullies and bandits. If we show up with rifles and a machine gun—”
Blanca clapped her hands and squealed, “Oh, I see the cleverness of my latest plan! The evil white men will run away, thinking we are with the regulars. I, Blanca, will be the liberator of my people’s lands!”
As she bounced away to start yelling orders, Gaston nodded and said, “You’d have made a good bullfighter. I thought we’d have to throw the little bitch to the piranha.”
Captain Gringo shrugged and replied, “We’ve got enemies to spare. Her boys are pretty good with those arrows, and the combination must be driving the other side nuts!”
With another warning to keep quiet about Chino, he moved back to where he’d left the Maxim gun, scooping up his clothes and snapping out a series of commands to the still bemused guerrillas. The Indians were already gathering their meager belongings. Captain Gringo dressed and sat on a palm log thumbing rifle rounds into the canvas machine-gun belts. As he’d let Blanca assert herself as Indian leader, he watched Sor Pantera boss her tattered Balboa Brigade around sans comment. It was easier to play boss than it was to really keep fifty-odd people alive against a hostile world.
He envied Gaston’s “practique” approach to surviving. He knew the bitter little Frenchman had a point. Nobody expected a soldier of fortune to risk his own neck for total strangers and wild Indians. Nobody in Panama was paying him, save for Sir Basil, who seemed to pay people to get killed. A man with any sense would be long gone by now and left all these crazy Panamanians to fight it out among themselves.
In less than an hour he saw everyone was ready to move out and he’d field-stripped, cleaned, and rearmed his machine gun. Gaston came over, a new Army rifle slung across his back. He still packed his pistol and had ammo bandoliers crisscrossed on his chest. He looked like a Mexican bandit who needed a bath. He said, “I’ve ordered everyone to arm themselves the same with these new Lebels. We have standardized ammunition at last, thanks to the Army. How many do you think we polished off?”
The American said, “Don’t know. A lot of them went into the water, guns and all. More we wounded will have died out in the jungle between here and the railroad. I’d say we chopped up at least a third of a short battalion. Make it three hundred if you want to remember it for your grandchildren.”
“Merde, some of the others have already decided we killed a thousand. But enough of the joyous part of soldiering. I have a personnel problem I need help with.”
“I told you I’d keep an eye on Chino. I’ll get him to carry my gun and we’ll see if we can spot how he’s been leaving a trail.”
“Zut, Chino is not my biggest worry. I am being overextended sexually. I told you I had the two Indian sisters, but you insisted on giving me Sor Pantera. I don’t think I can take care of all this spare ammunition and three women if you expect me to walk from here to the coast.”
Captain Gringo chuckled and Gaston sighed, “Go ahead and laugh. You know what an animal Sor Pantera is. You are younger than me, too. Won’t you take at least one of the girls off my hands?”
The American shook his head and said, “Blanca is inclined to be possessive, and a bit murderous. I’d better stick to her for now. She’s starting to go along with my suggestions and I don’t want to rock the boat.”
“Sacre! This is most unjust! I am old enough to be your father and you saddle me with three sex maniacs!”
“My heart bleeds for you. Can’t you get rid of one of the Indian girls?”
“Mais non, they seem to be part of a set. Sor Pantera by herself is enough for any man. With ingenuity one can handle two for a time. Three is simply too much of a good thing, hein?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Sor Pantera’s sort of losing her shyness and I might be able to stick Chino with her, if I word it right.”
“Chino? You wish to saddle that little turncoat with a spitfire like the widow? It would serve him right, but she says she hates him.”
“I said I’d word it right. Let’s gather the troops and move it out. We’re overdue some incoming mail.”
He rose with the machine gun cradled in his arms, yelled for Chino, and when the boy trotted over with a worried look, he handed the Maxim to him and said, “I want you at my side. We’re taking the point.”
As he started into the jungle Blanca fell in on his other side to ask, “Why am I leading my people this way? We seem to be trending toward the railroad tracks.”
He said, “I know. When they start to shell the camp behind us, they’ll elevate and . . . Never mind. Just trust me to know what I’m doing.”
Gaston caught up with them, as if to ask the same question. But the Frenchman had read the book, too. He said, “I see we are moving into the guns. But I still think you’re being melodramatic. Despite the fancy uniforms, few armies in these parts really know how it’s done.”
Captain Gringo didn’t answer. A few minutes later, something whistled through the sky behind them and slammed down into the clearing with a soggy crump. Captain Gringo nodded and said, “Sounds like a seventy-five. I’d be using air bursts if I was in command.”
An Indian ran up to Blanca, chattering rapidly. She hushed him and told the others, “There was a big boom at the edge of the water.”
Before anyone could answer, there was’ a rumble of falling shellfire behind them and Chino started to run forward with the Maxim. Captain Gringo said, “Easy does it, Chino. They’ll plaster the clearing, elevate, and send the real barrage into the jungle to the east to get us as we run that way.”
“But we are not running that way!” laughed Blanca, translating for the Indian before she added, “Oh, I am so clever! The soldiers are shooting the way stupid persons might have run. But we are headed toward them. It is fun to fight as the white men fight!”
As they moved on, the jungle behind and to their right began to rumble with drumfire, and the rear of the column hurried up abreast. The explosions were close enough to leave a ringing in the ears between bursts, but far enough away for the tall American to yell, “Spread out and stay in line. It’s a walking barrage, and it’s headed the other way.”
Gaston ran out to the flanks to herd the frightened guerrillas back into a semblance of order. Captain Gringo told Blanca not to let her Indians stray too far, and as the albino trotted off, shouting orders, he turned to Chino and asked, conversationally, “Have you noticed how they’ve written you off, kid?”
“I beg your pardon, Captain?”
“Look, I haven’t time to screw around. You’ve been working for the Army, the British, or Sir Basil. Don’t bother to deny it. Don’t ask me how I know. We’re talking about your future, Chino. You’re smart enough to know the people you’ve worked for in the past are not your friends.”
Chino trudged on, the Maxim on his shoulder and a wooden-Indian expression on his face. Captain Gringo nodded and continued, “You’re busting your nuts trying to figure out what you should say. I’ll save you the trouble. You don’t have to admit anything. I just want you to keep thinking.”
The sky behind them ripped open like tearing canvas, and as a rumble of explosions echoed through the trees around them, he added, “See what I mean?”
“Bastard!” muttered Chino. Captain Gringo didn’t think the boy meant him. He said, “I’d say you’ve been working for Sir Basil. Neither the Colombian Army nor British Intelligence would throw away a good agent like a cigar butt. We’ll talk about it after you’ve had time to gather your thoughts a bit.”
Chino laughed bitterly and said, “Consider them gathered. You’d have killed me when you found out if you hadn’t known you could turn me around.”
“That’s true. What’s Sir Basil’s plan?”
“I wish I knew! He told me I was to leave a trail so that others working for him would be able to keep track of you. He said nothing about the Army hitting us with artillery.”
“I’ll buy that, Chino. Sir Basil likes to fish in troubled waters. He likes to keep his eye on all the bait. He’s probably got a few agents with the Army, as well as each rival guerrilla group.”
“I can see that, now. But what is the old goat’s point? Does he just like to see people killing one another?”
“Of course. He sells weapons. British Intelligence screwed up his original plans by blowing the whistle before anyone could get a real revolution going. Hakim’s trying to keep the fire under the kettle any way he can. He doesn’t care if we kill the soldiers or if the soldiers kill us. He just wants us all to make a lot of noise. You don’t sell arms when things are quiet.”
A cluster of shells exploded in the distance. As the echoes faded, Chino asked, “What are we to do? None of us Panamanian groups can make peace with the far-off government we all hate.”
“I know. You might start by stopping the stupid feuding among yourselves. I know you’re not a Balboa. What rebel outfit are you with, Chino?”
Chino hesitated before he murmured, “Christian Democrats. We don’t approve of the Marxist ideas of Sor Pantera and these other Balboas.”
“Okay, you’re right-wingers. The Balboas are left-wingers. If you got together, when you took over the country you’d have a two-party system all set up. You sure as hell won’t knock off the Colombians on your own.”
“I know. The matter has been discussed. The problem is that we who do the fighting seem to have little to say. Our leaders seem to be more worried about theory.”
“I understand. I’ve met my share of tea-party Fabians and barroom rebels. I generally ignore anybody who orders me to charge unless he wants to come along.”
They saw that Sor Pantera and two of her followers were moving up to join them. So Captain Gringo said, “We’ll talk about it some more when we camp for the night, Chino.’,
“I understand. Do any of the others suspect me?”
“Just one of the others,” he lied, adding, “I’m not going to tell you who it is. I want you to think twice before you decide to switch sides again.”
Chino nodded and said, “Of course. I wish I had the same insurance. But don’t worry. You can trust me for the simple reason that I see no other way for me to stay alive.”