City in the Sahara - Barsac Mission 02

  The agricultural machines, robbed of the waves which gave them life, had suddenly stopped.

  The electric pumps which raised water from the river to fill the two reservoirs had similarly ceased to function. One, in the Factory itself, supplied another above the barracks of the Black Guard. In two days this second reservoir, whence the water was distributed everywhere, had run dry, and Blackland was without water.

  Then, after nightfall, there was no longer any electric light, and as there was no other means of illumination, the whole town was plunged into darkness. This enraged Harry Killer, the more because all this time he could see the Factory well lit and protected by the beams of its powerful searchlights.

  Realizing at last that the dice were loaded against him, the despot resigned himself to restoring, from the morning of 10th April, the current which he had cut off the day before. At the same time he made a telephone call to Marcel Camaret, who happened to be in his office with those whom he had agreed to protect.

  These heard the engineer reply, as previously, with the words "yes", "no", and "good", which are the small change of such conversation when half remains unknown to the bystanders. Again as before, he curtly interrupted the dialogue with a burst of laughter.

  According to the summary he gave his guests, Harry Killer and he had reached an agreement. It was decided that the former should resume the supply of current from the hydroelectric station, and that for its part the Factory should guarantee the general services of Blackland. This agreement, however, did not at all alter the rest of the situation, which did not cease to be extraordinary. The peace was limited to the terms agreed. For the rest, it was still to be war. Harry Killer especially persisted in demanding his prisoners, and Marcel Camaret in refusing to give them up.

  At the end of the conversation, Harry Killer had asked the engineer to let him have the liquid air he needed for his heliplanes. Every time these returned from a journey their fuel tanks were empty and were left at the Factory to be refilled. Harry Killer no longer possessed a drop of the liquid air, and this had put his forty flymg-macnines out of action.

  On this point Marcel Camaret, equally anxious both to conserve his supply of motive power and not to provide the enemy with weapons so powerful, had point blank refused. Thereupon the despot had flown into a rage, and had vowed to starve the Factory out. It was then that the engineer had replaced the receiver, laughing at a threat which seemed as vain as its predecessors.

  His hearers, however, took it very seriously indeed. If the Factory really seemed impregnable, thanks to the defences which Camaret had designed, it seemed to be less well provided with aggressive weapons, and moreover he would not at any price use those he possessed. Under such conditions, the situation could last indefinitely, and at last a day would come when hunger would force the Factory to surrender.

  When Barsac consulted him about it, Camaret shrugged his shoulders. "We've got enough provisions for some time," he assured him.

  "For how long?" Barsac asked.

  Camaret made an evasive gesture. "I don't know exactly. Fifteen days, maybe three weeks. That's unimportant, however, because in forty-eight hours we shall have completed a heliplane which is now under construction. For the moment I invite you to take part in its trial, which we shall carry out by night, so that the Palace will not see it. It will take place the day after tomorrow, the 12th April, at four in the morning.

  This was good news, which the prisoners had not at all expected. To have that heliplane would certainly much improve their situation. But would it bring rescue?

  "There are more than a hundred people in the Factory," Barsac pointed out. "However powerful it may be, your heliplane cannot carry them all."

  "It will only take ten people," Camaret replied, "not counting the pilot That's not too bad."

  "Excellent!" Barsac agreed, "and yet it won't be enough to get you out of this business."

  "Not at all," replied Camaret. "From Saye it is about two hundred miles as the crow flies, and about four hundred and fifty from Timbuctoo, which might be better. As we could only travel by night, to escape the aerial torpedoes, the heliplane can make three voyages in forty-eight hours to Saye or two to Timbuctoo. The five hundred people or so whom I estimate to be the population of the Factory, women and children included, could be evacuated in five days by the first route or less than eight by the second."

  The announcement of this plan, which seemed qmte feasible, weakened the fears aroused by Harry Killer's threats. The chance to put it into operation was impatiently awaited.

  To the besieged garrison the two days they had to wait seemed interminable. They spent the time as best they could, usually in walking about the garden, sheltered by the wall which hid them from the Palace. M. Poncin, in particular, lingered there from morning till night. Continually bending over the various plants it contained, he made measurements with a lens, and recorded weights very accurately by means of a small precision balance.

  "What the devil are you at?" asked Florence, when he surprised him engaged in this occupation.

  "It's my work, Monsieur Florence," M. Poncin replied, not without an air of selfimportance.

  "Statistics?" asked Florence in amazement.

  "Nothing else. I am simply working out the number of inhabitants which the Niger Bend would support."

  "Aha, it's always the Bend," said Amedee Florence, who did not appear to take the work of his comrade very seriously. "It seems to me, however, that just here we're no longer in that famous Bend."

  "There's no reason why we shan't work by analogy," M. Poncin proclaimed in academic tones.

  "Flatterers who share in a splendid orgy!" remarked a voice behind them.

  By this quotation from the Chdtiments (A poetic satire by Victor Hugo, denouncing the leading figures of the Second Empire—i.o.e.) brought in for the sake of the rhyme, Amedee Florence recognized Dr. Chatonnay.

  "What are you doing there?" asked the good hearted fellow, having finished his quotation.

  "M. Poncin is explaining statistical technique," Florence replied in serious tone. "Please go on, M. Poncin."

  "It's quite simple. Here's some spinach, taking up about four square inches. A little further on you can see a cauliflower; it takes up sixteen square inches. I've measured a hundred plants selected at random, and I've taken the average of the areas they occupy. I've similarly measured their daily growth. This lettuce, for example, has increased by exactly sixty one point seven to eighty grains since yesterday. In short, I have ascertained math-em-at-ic-al-ly, that the daily growth is about point three three nine of a grain to every nine-sixty-fourths, of a square inch."

  "That's very strange," Dr. Chatonnay declared without batting an eyelid.

  "Yes, isn't it? These scientific enquiries are always quite interesting," said M. Poncin, throwing out his chest. And he proceeded to work out from the area of the Niger Bend the weight of the crops it could produce— "12,012,000 tons a day or a yearly total of over a thousand million ton."

  "I cannot deny that these figures are fun," hummed the doctor, parodying a line from Corneille whose rhyme had just come into his head,

  "Knowing the amount of food needed to support the life of one man, it is easy to deduce the population which the Niger Bend can support," M. Poncin ended calmly. "Such are the services which science can render, and so our imprisonment will not be completely wasted."

  "Thanks to you, Monsieur Poncin," Amedee Florence and the doctor declared with one voice. And they left the statistician to his researches.

  Hour by hour passed the 10th and then the 11th.

  One incident, though without importance, broke the monotony of the second day. About five in the afternoon Camaret was told that the pump which raised water from the river was no longer working.

  The engineer confirmed the report. The pump was running wild, as though it were working in the void and meeting with no resistance. He ordered the piston to be taken out, for its flanges seemed to have been damaged so that
they did not fit the bore of the cylinder. This was only a matter of a trifling repair which could be completed in less than forty-eight hours.

  By dawn of the next day this nerve-racking wait was at last over. As might be supposed, in spite of the early hour fixed by Marcel Camaret, nobody was missing at the rendez-vous. He for his part had kept his promise. When they reached the garden, where the trials were to be made, the workmen who had built the heliplane had already brought it out.

  The engineer climbed on to the platform and tuned up the motor. Several minutes elapsed, too slowly to please the onlookers, who feared there might be some mistake. They were soon reassured. The apparatus suddenly rose easily; then, unfurling its wings, it glided through the air and returned to alight on the spot whence it had set out. Marcel Camaret now taking ten men with him, soared aloft with it again, and three times flew around the garden. The experiment was over.

  "Tonight, at nine, the first flight," he announced as he left the platform.

  At that all was forgotten-the siege, the imprisonment, the fortnight of anxiety and boredom. In a few hours the nightmare would be over. They would be free. They congratulated one another and exchanged good wishes, while the mechanics moved the heliplane back under cover until it should emerge, next evening, to take flight for Timbuctoo.

  As the evacuation of the Factory would need several days, the usual work must not be interrupted. In particular the taking-down of the pump was completed that day. When this was done, the conclusion was reached that it was not damaged. The cause of the trouble would have to be sought elsewhere, and for the moment the pump only needed to be reinstalled, a job that was done at once.

  At half past eight in the evening, the darkness being complete, Marcel Camaret at last gave the signal to depart. Long before that Harry Killer's eight escaped prisoners and two of the wives of the workmen, who were to form the first convoy, were waiting in thegardens, whence, under the control of an experienced pilot, the heliplane was to take flight. On the order of their chief, a dozen of the technicians went towards the shelter. They opened the door....

  That was the exact moment of the catastrophe.

  At the very instant when the door opened, there came the sudden roar of a tremendous explosion. The shelter collapsed like a house built of playing cards, leaving nodnng but a pile of rubble.

  After a moment's understandable amazement, the onlookers rushed to the help of the workmen. Fortunately, except for one slightly wounded, they had escaped scotfree, the explosion having taken place before they went into the shelter.

  But although there were no deaths to lament, it was none the less a great misfortune, an irreparable disaster, which the garrison had suffered. The heliplane was destroyed, blown almost piecemeal. There remained nothing, but useless fragments.

  "Rigaud," said Camaret, with the calm which never left him in the gravest circumstances, "start clearing up the site. We must Ieam the cause of the explosion."

  They attacked the heap of ruins at the very spot where the heliplane had stood. The arms were many, and the work progressed rapidly. By about eleven, that part of the shelter flooring was laid bare, and beneath it was found a deep pit.

  "Dynamite," Camaret said coldly. "It did not come here by itself, I suppose."

  Bloodstains on the rubble having shown that the explosion had claimed its victims, work was continued with the same ardour. Soon, indeed, grim discoveries were made. A lillle before midnight, ihey included the torn off arm of a Negro. Then came a hand violently ripped off, and last was found the head belonging to that mutilated body.

  Amedee Florence, who, like a good reporter, had watched the work attentively, recognized that dismal trophy at once:

  Tchoumoukil" he cried unhesitatingly.

  He explained to Camaret who the fellow was, a traitor from the service of Miss Blazon into that of Harry Killer. That, in fact, explained everything. Tchoumouki was at once the cause and the victim of the explosion. It only remained to be learned how he had found his way into the factory.

  Anyhow, as he had done so, others might have followed by the same route. It was now a matter of foiling the plans of the enemy by striking them with a salutary terror.

  For this purpose, Camaret ordered the mangled remains of Tchoumouki to be thrown over the wall on to the Esplanade, where Harry Killer's followers could not fail to find them. They would thus learn, without any shadow of doubt, that to get into the Factory was not devoid of danger.

  Meanwhile the clearing up continued. The workmen passed the debris from hand to hand, the rubbish piled up in the garden, and the rest of the surface of the shelter was uncovered bit by bit.

  "Here's another of them!" one of the workmen cried suddenly.

  Marcel Camaret went across. A human foot was indeed appearing between the fragments. A few minutes later the whole body was uncovered. It was a white man in the prime of life, his shoulder horribly mangled by the fall of the roofing.

  Doctor Chatonnay bent over him. "He's still alive!" he announced.

  The man was freed of the rubbish and brought to Camaret, while the doctor applied firstaid. Next day they would interrogate him if he had strength to speak.

  "And if he's willing to," remarked Am£dee Florence.

  "I'll undertake to see he's willing," said Marcel Camaret between his clenched teeth.

  The clearing up could now be regarded as complete. At least it had got so far they could be certain there was nobody else to be found in the ruins. So Marcel Camaret called off the work, and sent the workmen to get a well earned rest.

  Following their example, the engineer and his guests left the scene of the disaster and made off through the garden to their respective quarters.

  But after a few paces Amedee Florence paused and asked Camaret: "What are we going to do, Sir, now we haven't got a heliplane?"

  "We shall make another," Camaret replied.

  "You've got the material?" asked Barsac.

  "To be sure."

  "How long will it take."

  "Two months."

  "Hum!" was Florence's only reply; and without pressing the matter further he walked thoughtfully away.

  Two monthsl . . . And they only had food for a fortnight.

  The reporter was already trying to think of a way out of this predicament.

  C HAPTER X

  AMEDEE FLORENCE HAS AN IDEA

  How different from that of the previous day was the morning of the 13th April! Yesterday, sure of reaching the end of their trials, the captives had exulted. Today, all hope fled, they were discouraged and sad.

  Few of them had been able to sleep during the rest of the night. Most of them had spent it going over the situation in all its aspects, and found no means of overcoming its difficulties.

  Marcel Camaret himself was at a loss. Short of building another heliplane, he could imagine no way out of the present difficulty. But to set his hopes on an apparatus which would take two long months to build, when there was only food enough for a fortnight, was not even to deceive himself.

  Enquiry showed that this chance of escape was even less feasible than they had supposed. A careful inventory of the reserves and a careful examination of the horticultural products now growing to maturity made it clear indeed that they had not even fifteen days' supplies but merely nine or ten days! Not only before two months, but before the end of the present month of April, they were bound to suffer hunger.

  To postpone as long as possible the inevitable calamity, they decided to put themselves on rations at once. If they could not flatter themselves that they might escape that fate, They could at least prolong the agony of their siege.

  The morning of the 13th was devoted to this inventory and to work on the heliplane which Marcel Camaret was determined to construct although to all appearance there was no hope of its rescuing them. So it was only during the afternoon that they could attend to the prisoner.

  After a lunch, which for the first time was too scanty, Camaret, accompanied by the guests whose
sudden irruption into his life threatened to cost him so dear, went up to the injured man, whom Doctor Chatonnay said was in condition to stand the enquiry.

  "Who are you?" Camaret asked him. In asking this question, which seemed devoid of interest, he was conforming to a plan very carefully thought out.

  The victim not having replied, Camaret repeated his question with no more success.

  "I ought to warn you," the engineer said gently, "that I'm going to make you talk."

  That threat did not make the man open his mouth, and his lips outlined an ironical smile. Make him talk? He plainly thought this incredible. And, indeed, to judge by his appearance, they were in the presence of an individual of no common energy.

  Camaret shrugged his shoulders. Then, without insisting, he placed on the thumbs and under the feet of the recalcitrant four little metallic plates, and connected them up to some terminals. This done, he suddenly threw over a switch.

  The man at once twisted in frightful convulsions. The veins on his neck were swollen as though about to burst, and his empurpled face displayed intolerable suffering.

  The trial did not last long. After a few seconds, Camaret switched off the current. "Will you talk?" he asked.

  Then, as the man remained quiet: "Very goodl" he said. "Let's start again."

  As again he completed the circuit the same results followed even more violently than before. The victim's face was covered with sweat, his eyeballs rolled upwards and his chest panted like the bellows of a forge.

  "Will you talk?" Camaret asked, again cutting off the current.

  "Yes . . . yes!" the man babbled; he was at the end of his strength.

  "Excellent!" exclaimed Camaret. "What's your name?"

  "Fergus David," came the answer.

  "That's not a name," Camaret objected. "Those are two forenames."

  "That's what they call me in Blackland. Nobody there knows my real name."