PEPE PLEADED hoarsely for a drink, and there was no more water in the earthenware jug. Lewis hammered on the door of the adobe hut till the guard came.
“What do you do with all the water?” the man complained. “One would think I had nothing to do but fetch and carry for you. Give me the jug.”
“When will the doctor be here?” Lewis demanded.
“How should I know? If you still feel bad, take another quinine pill.”
“I am all right. It is Pepe. His wound needs attention.”
“I will send up to the plateau for one of the ambulance men.” The fellow had a gruff manner, but was not unkindly. When he brought the water, he poured some into a mug and raised Pepe so that he could drink.
“Is there anything you want for yourself?” he asked Lewis.
“A shave.” Lewis rubbed the irritating stubble on his face. “If I could have a shave . . .”
“What do you think this is? The Grand Hotel? The orders are, no razors. The General would be offended if you cut yourself. Why do you object to a beard? A few more days, and you will look quite distinguished.”
“A few more days! How long are we to be kept in this pigsty?”
“Till the revolution.” The guard grinned.
“How long will that be?”
“It depends. Opportunity does not ripen in the sun. It takes money and organisation. We are only the advance party, the bridgehead. If you ask me, it will be a long time before everything is ready. Settle down, my friend. Be content with your beard. If it were not for the General’s sister, you wouldn’t be here to talk of razors.”
“Where is she? What has become of her?”
“Naturally she is at the finca. I saw her yesterday when I went down to take a turn with a shovel.” He laughed. “She is sad, if it is any consolation to you. Perhaps she is pining for you. Next time you should plan the elopement better.”
It was no use protesting against the fellow’s words. Lewis had learned that the “elopement” was the joke of the camp.
“She is a prisoner?” he asked. “Is that it?”
“We are all prisoners.” The guard shrugged. “When Bartol returns, then will be the great liberation. I hope you will live that long.”
“If I do, I will reward you for your kindness.”
“Is this another attempt to bribe me?”
“It is not. Have you heard anything of my daughter?”
“I know nothing at all of your daughter.”
“You promised to ask.”
“I have asked. I know nothing. If she landed only yesterday, it is too early for news.” He hesitated. “I have heard that a launch is coming up the river from the port. It should reach our landing some time to-morrow. That is all I can tell you, and now I must lock you up. When the ambulance man comes, you may go back to the plateau with him and take your walk.”
With the hot sun pouring down on the mud walls, the hut was like an oven. Pepe slept in his corner till midday, when the guard brought soup and bread. It was good soup and wholesome bread, but Pepe would not eat. Lewis became more and more anxious about him.
The man from the ambulance unit did not come till after three. He was a cheerful fellow, singing as he came. They were mostly cheerful fellows, these liberators. In moments of relaxation they laughed and sang as if there were nothing serious in life. When they trained – and they had hours of training each day – they were grim fanatics, devoted to their cause.
“You will live if you don’t get in the way of any more bullets,” the ambulance man told Pepe.
He was expert. His hands had tenderness.
Lewis walked back with him to the plateau. Once a day he was to be allowed an hour or two of liberty in the open. He was free to move as he wished when his escort had brought him to the high place, because from there it was impossible to escape.
The plateau was a natural stronghold, approached through a narrow defile where machine-guns poked their muzzles through screening foliage.
Lewis looked back at the village from the entrance to the defile. Once the Indian families who still lived in the huts had earned money by picking coffee for Julian; now they were prisoners and servants of the rebels.
There were, perhaps, two hundred of these rebels, and some of them had made temporary homes in caves while others lived in much-used tents. They were boastful, like assertive children. The amiable ambulance man was particularly boastful.
Lewis probed him. “How do you think you can throw out the government with this handful?”
The young man laughed. “There are many more of us back in the hills, and once we move, the army will revolt. In all the towns our fifth column is ready. The people will rise in the streets. The first bullet will pierce the heart of the tyrant Recalde.”
“Why do you wait, then?”
“General Izarbarra will not give the word until we have planes and pilots. He is a great organiser, our Pascual. Planes and pilots cost money, but we are digging it out of the earth down there. In green stones. Did you know that? Emeralds.”
Emeralds!
Lewis remembered the green stones in the drawer of the desk at the Casa Alta. He remembered the ring that Julian had given to Anne.
The plateau was a wide terrace, looking out to the south over the jungle slope that bordered the Casa Alta; a great natural parade-ground, hidden and secured by a rough semi-circle of precipitous rock.
At this time of day it was deserted. All the rebels, except the sentries, were resting, waiting for the cooler hours.
Lewis crossed to the far edge of the terrace where a craggy projection afforded a view over a vast stretch of country through which the river wound. He strained to see to the utmost range of vision, but could find no craft on the river. If a launch was due at the landing tomorrow, it was still many miles away beyond the screening hills.
He walked slowly back along the edge of the jungle and paused for a moment at the beginning of a narrow track that vanished into the thick mass of greenery that ran down to the coffee terraces. No one used the track because it was too difficult, but a sentry was there to turn back a prisoner who might be tempted to try it.
“Buenas dias, señor.”
The sentry grinned and brought up his rifle in a mocking gesture of salute. Like the rest of them, he wore a dull greenish battledress of tough gaberdine.
Lewis walked on a few yards. When he came back to the defile, his promenade would be over, and he had no wish to return to the hut just yet. He paused again.
Looking down over the tree-tops, he could see the roof of the Casa Alta and the gods and warriors in the forecourt. He watched, hoping that Leite might come from the house and cross the open space, but it seemed that no one was stirring.
He closed his eyes and the fear came to him that he would never see her again.
That was the moment when the first shot was fired.
It cracked loudly in the still clear air of the afternoon, and the sentry at the jungle path lifted his head as the echo rattled over the valley.
Three shots followed in quick succession and shouts could be faintly heard. Then a jumble of figures, small as ants, raced past the stone figures in the direction of the coffee terraces.
Men on the plateau sprang from their rest and ran. Some headed for the defile. Others came to the jungle edge and looked at one another questioningly.
There was nothing more for a long time. Then a submachine-gun chattered below them and Lewis knew that it was being fired from the track that climbed up the slope above the coffee trees.
He had joined the group of the alarmed men, but none of them took any notice of him. They were listening anxiously, seeking the answer to the riddle in their minds.
There was silence again, but not for long. A new burst of firing, more intense and prolonged, told them that the workers from the mine had joined battle. The men on the rim looked towards an officer who stood with them, but he was as puzzled as any of them and had no order to give.
Another officer ran towards them across the plateau. “It’s the police,” he shouted while he was still some yards away. “They have raided the house. That much came through. Then the field line went dead.”
“So there has been a traitor!”
“What are we to do?”
“Orders are definite,” the newcomer said. “Whatever happens at the house, we are not to reveal ourselves. If it is only the police, then they can have little information. Someone has become curious about the man Page. One of his friends, perhaps.”
“But the General may be in danger!”
“It was he who gave us our orders. The house must at all times be disregarded. There is nothing to do but wait.”
The heavy burst of firing had ended. Now there were only occasional shots, suggesting a pursuit through the jungle, but the intervals between them grew longer and longer and soon there was silence.
Hope rose higher and higher in Lewis. The day of the monster was over. Leite would be delivered from him, and Leite would see that Anne was safe.
He wiped the sweat from his face. The next moment he was cold under the hot sun. He shivered, but the ague was not physical. One of the officers became aware of him.
“Take that prisoner back to his hut,” he ordered.
Lewis stumbled as he turned. Despair was in him again and his dejection was the deeper for the bright hope that had gone. The raid on the finca may have upset Pascual’s plans, but it could not have been decisive. Pascual was not a man to be caught so easily, and it would take more than a detachment of rural police to overcome Guadelemo.
The guns in the defile were manned, and beyond the village the outposts waited.