‘The boy can’t hear it,’ Paz said. ‘The noise of the water.’ He groped for his boots, found his glasses and put them on. As he did so, the boat came fully into view. It was a double-ended lightweight metal hull about twenty feet long. Aft there was a tiny shelter made with a filthy piece of canvas. Under it a man sat huddled against the rain. He was steering by means of a big outboard engine. As he did so he was smoking and watching the river ahead with no more than perfunctory interest. However it would need no more than passing interest to spot the bright yellow nylon rope that was hanging in the river. It dipped into the water to make a long white ripple. Even more arresting was the raging torrent that marked the place where Rafael was struggling for his life.
The boat had a small spotlight and a machine gun mounted amidships. That sort of equipment suggested hostile intent, as did the absence of any flag or identification mark. There were six men on it, four of them talking, crouching together under an awning upon which the rain beat like a never-ending drumroll. The other man was sprawled full-length in the bow.
The boat’s prow touched a mud-flat hidden under the water. With a sigh, two of the crew reached for long pieces of timber to push themselves off the mud. The helmsman raced the engine and swung the rudder. As he opened the throttle, the propeller thrashed and the engine built up into an hysterical scream. The boat did not move. Patiently they tried again.
Singer could see the men on the boat quite clearly. They wore the same olive-green combat jackets and trousers that the Federalistas wore, which were exactly the same as the ones the guerrillas wore. They had no badges. Two of them had Fidel caps of the sort that Paz, and many of his men, wore. Their belts and boots varied greatly. One man – with a fine large bandit moustache – wore old leather cartridge bands criss-crossed over his shoulders.
‘Turn round,’ muttered Paz frantically. ‘Turn round turn round.’ There was a chance that their difficulty with the mud-flat would persuade them that the river was not navigable beyond this point. If they kept busy, they might not notice Rafael nor the rope. It was a forlorn hope. How could they miss it? Paz could hardly take his eyes away from the boy struggling in the water. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.’
Singer turned his head as Paz continued with his Hail Mary, reciting it in fluid continuity that rushed to completion.
As if in answer to the prayer, the boat came unstuck. It suddenly swung and caught the fast current. The two men with the poles almost overbalanced. There was an unintelligible gabble of anger as they swore at the helmsman’s carelessness. The boat kept swinging until it faced the way it had come.
Angel Paz held his breath, as did the rest of them, but their prayers were not answered. The boat’s helmsman spotted the flurry of water that was Rafael. He shouted to the others. One of them swung the machine gun round. Another reached for a rifle. Neither was hurried in his movements. Before either of them could fire, the man at the front opened up.
He was using a Chinese version of an old machine pistol designed for the Red Army back in World War Two. Even the best of them had never been renowned for their accuracy. This one sprayed the whole river. Bullets ricocheted off the water and screamed away into the jungle. They whined over the heads of Paz and his men, who could also hear them cutting into the undergrowth and smacking into wood. Then, concentrating more carefully on the flurry in the river, the man fired again.
With a sound like tearing cloth this burst of fire made Rafael into raw meat. For just one instant the white foaming water turned red. Then pieces of the boy tumbled over the rocks and were carried off downstream.
Perhaps the men on the boat did not recognize their target as a living person. Rafael looked like an old tree trunk, or a rotting carcass, snagged in the mangrove roots. The monotony of a long patrol through uninhabited country can drive a man to shoot at anything. This theory was to some extent confirmed by the unhurried manner of the men.
But Angel Paz did not have charity enough to embrace this theory. He jumped to his feet and shouted. ‘Murderers! Murdering swines! God damn you!’
The riverbank was high above the water at the place where Paz stood. The men in the boat had to raise their eyes to see him. The machine-gunner was dismayed. He looked up and did not swivel his gun. His face registered his amazement at the sight of a mysterious madman who had suddenly appeared from the jungle, shaking his fist in rage and vowing divine reckoning.
‘One hundred, two hundred, three hundred,’ said Angel Paz in his normal speaking voice. It was only then that the men on the boat realized the shaking fist was clasping a hand-grenade from which he’d already taken the pin. Paz threw it and dropped flat.
Angel Paz’s calculated delay gave the boat crew no chance of retrieving the bomb and throwing it back. As it reached the end of the lob it exploded. There was a box of ammunition on board. Some grenades and a signal flare were triggered by the explosion. The boat became a ball of flame as four whiplike cracks echoed off the water. The sound was quite unlike the muffled explosions such grenades made on soft ground. There was little or no smoke. The flash was reflected in the whole stretch of river, making it mirror-bright before turning to soft brownish-grey wool as the debris came down and hit the surface.
Awestruck, the guerrillas crawled to the embankment to see what remained. There were only some twisted pieces of gun mounting, and the skeleton of the engine, sticking out of the water. The wind and rain swept the smell of cordite away downstream so that, when everything else had vanished, it all seemed like a bad dream.
Santos smacked Paz on the back and gave him a wide smile and a roar of congratulation. Santos did that! There were hurrahs from the others, the sort of mad enthusiasm normally reserved for football stars and other such fenómenos.
This was real leadership, thought Paz. From now onwards he would not face the difficulties he’d faced before. He’d proved himself to his men in a way they understood. He’d faced the machine-gunner in proud defiance; as a torero faces a brave bull. And he’d not flinched. He smiled at them. He was still smiling at them when he heard more shooting. Then he stopped smiling. Where the hell were Lucas and the woman?
Lucas had no ambition to take over command of the party. He didn’t care for Paz and he detested Singer, but he preferred to let them run things, providing they acted with reasonable sense. If Paz wanted to send the unfortunate Rafael off to drown himself then that was just between the two of them. They were both old enough to be responsible for their actions. Lucas felt no protective instinct towards them. Inez was different. If there had been any suggestion of her doing the crossing then Lucas would have made it his business. They understood each other, Lucas and Inez. There was no need to talk. As they walked they kept under the trees to avoid the rain. If it came to the worst they would be the survivors. Inez, Lucas and a few of the healthier Indians could survive this sort of trip. Perhaps Singer too, Lucas admitted. But not Paz. He was too soft in his temperament. Men like Paz, so proudly wearing their political allegiances, were all old-fashioned romantics at heart. Behind a desk they survived but the jungle brought them to account. Lucas had seen it in Vietnam, time and time again.
The army. The smell of the jungle kept bringing it back to him. Lucas remembered the terrifying discussions that had always followed the field exercises. What would the Brigade Major have said about Paz and his river crossing? Here the men were always bunched up together, many of them asleep, no recce upstream or downstream and no flank guards anywhere. He took Inez’s hand and offered to carry her rifle. She gave it to him gladly. She had bound the breech with a strip of cloth and plugged the barrel. Not many of the others had taken such trouble. The downpour had flattened her hair and had plastered her clothes to her body. The rain and chronic discomfort had reduced her to a state of bovine fatalism. At first she’d longed for a hot bath. Now she could think only of being dry again and wearing clean dry clothes.
‘Look at that tree,’ Lucas said. ‘It looks like a gigantic lettuce.’
br /> ‘Yes,’ she said. They walked along the riverbank. ‘The river will be as high as this when the rains come,’ she said. They got to a place two or three hundred yards away from where Paz was organizing his river crossing. From here they could see half a mile along the river. Lucas wanted Inez all to himself and he felt easier here where he could tell himself he was doing his share, guarding the flank of the crossing.
They found a place to sit down. Lucas put the rifle on his knees. She asked, ‘Can you still use one of those?’
It was a British Lee Enfield that must have dated from the Thirties. They were the best of all the series: hand-made piece by piece. The barrel had been shortened in the guerrilla style but the gun was still familiar to him. It brought back memories of the training depot. Even medics had to learn to shoot, the bad-tempered adjutant had told him; yet they were furious when Lucas ended up with the battalion trophy. Until then the commanding officer had won the best shot trophy for five years in a row.
Lucas unwrapped the rifle. He’d been about to tell her that he had used one of these guns before she was born, but that was not the sort of claim he wanted to make just now. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘In the army?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Look!’ she said in sudden alarm. ‘A boat!’ Her voice was low and strangled by her dismay. ‘The others can’t see it yet.’
‘And the men on the boat have seen nothing.’ It was incredible that there should be a boat in the middle of this wilderness. ‘Who the hell could they be?’
‘Some sort of patrol,’ said Inez.
‘Two boats!’ Lucas said as a second appeared.
Only patrol boats moved as these two boats were moving. Both were close to this side of the river instead of in the middle channel. The first boat came past them. They could look down into it. The boat’s crew did not raise their eyes to see them; they were sheltering from the rain. She found the tension unbearable. ‘Can they see? They must be able to see the others?’ she said while praying it was not so.
Lucas gently pushed her down out of sight. He had already made his calculations. He’d have to let the first boat come past and run right into Paz and the others. Some of Paz’s men would get killed perhaps but they’d have to look after themselves. They could always fade away into the jungle. Lucas’ top priority was to have a clear field of fire for the second boat.
He unwrapped the breech of the rifle almost without knowing he was doing it. Then he unplugged the barrel and worked the bolt to put a round up the spout. Bolt action: not exactly what he would have chosen for this job. No matter.
He watched the first boat pass out of sight around the bend of the river. Then he heard the machine-gun fire: not one burst but two.
‘Jesus Christ!’ said Lucas, who was not a man who blasphemed readily, especially not in the presence of Inez. But he’d not heard that sound since Vietnam. Few guns could equal that rate of fire. The Viet Cong had modified them because they used too much ammunition.
There was no time for discussions or challenges. He put his sights on the men in the second boat and started firing. There were four of them. Lucas was well under cover and high: a perfect position. They had no idea where the shots were coming from. The second man retreated round the wrong side of the cabin and offered Lucas his back. An easy target.
The first two men were punched off the side of the boat and into the water by the shots. The other two stood there helpless, not knowing what to do. Lucas stopped firing but then came the deafening sound of the multiple explosion and its flash of light. The sign that fighting continued made Lucas continue his killing. He fired three more shots. It was like target practice. Both men went into the water. One of them toppled gently over the side like a man nervously taking a swim. He floated back to the propeller blades and caused the motor to stall. Without its engine, the boat’s forward motion stopped. The current caught it and it drifted back. It touched a mud-flat, stuck there for a moment and then swung round, drifted and stuck again.
Lucas put the gun down very gently. Then he tugged off his boots and clawed off his clothes. ‘I must get it. I must get the boat.’ His shoulders bore the freckles that age brings and his skin had lost some of its elasticity so that it formed wrinkles around his waist and under his arm. Yet his muscles were still hard and ancient scars testified to the blows that his body had withstood.
When Lucas went into the water he showed none of the diffidence that the others had shown. He did not stumble in the pot-holes, flinch at the touch of passing fish or try to wipe imaginary leeches from his arms. Lucas moved into the river quickly. Once there, an expert crawl stroke took him through the currents with only the smallest of deviation.
With one hand clutching the boat he struggled with the body enmeshed in the propeller. It would attract predatory fish and he wanted to get it clear. As he tugged at it his hands became streaked with blood that flowed out into the brown stream. When it was almost free he climbed into the boat, squatted and gave the corpse one last vicious kick that dislodged it. Now he crouched over the outboard motor. It was still warm and after three tries he got it started again.
The body was still not gone. It floated alongside, rubbing against the alloy hull, its belts and buckles making a noise as it scraped the thin metal. Lucas pushed it again and it floated away to the riverbank to snag in the mangrove roots, arms spread, like a man trying to haul himself out of the water.
It all happened so quickly that Inez hardly had time to understand until it was done. Then she had only a great feeling of relief that Lucas was still alive and calling to her from the boat.
She gathered up his clothes and the rifle and took them down to the boat. Then she climbed aboard. They were both intoxicated in that release that comes with escape from danger. She kissed him. He put his hat on and got the boat moving. She kissed him again. She hardly noticed the oily scum the river had left on his body, the leeches already swollen and falling away, or the watery blood that streaked his arms.
‘Blow the whistle, Inez,’ he said. ‘Make sure they know it’s us.’
As they came into view even Paz and Singer joined in the frenzy of cheers. To what extent they were cheering Lucas, his marksmanship, his swimming or the prospect of crossing the river without getting drowned, even they didn’t know. Some were cheering none of these things: they were simply cheering a mad old fellow who strolled off with a beautiful woman and returned stark naked, except for his hat.
The cheers did not last long. There was too much to be done. Singer and Santos crossed the river first. They organized a campsite on the far bank. Lucas went with them. He helped to get the fire going. It proved a long job to cross the river even with the use of the boat. There was shallow water that grounded it, and the mules objected spitefully to their enforced swim.
Lucas dried himself by the heat of the big fire. ‘You did well, Lucas,’ Singer said. ‘That second boat would have zapped us all.’ They were all exhilarated by their narrow escape. Even Singer was good-humoured.
‘You would have outgunned them,’ Lucas said. ‘They were vulnerable on the water. You had cover.’
Paz came up to where they were talking. ‘Yeah. Thanks,’ he said. He was looking out at the river. The rain still thrashed down. The last boatload was coming across. ‘I should have put out guards,’ said Paz, still looking at the boat. ‘You should have told me, Lucas.’
‘Quite so,’ Lucas said. ‘My mistake.’
Paz shrugged.
Lucas said, ‘Since you are inviting suggestions let me take the boat downriver and collect those bodies.’
‘It’s getting dark.’
‘It won’t take long.’
Singer said, ‘Do we know who they are?’
Paz said, ‘Pekinista probably. We are near the border of the provincia de la Villareal where Big Jorge’s outposts start. On the other hand they could have been government people: rurales – a militia force that is supposed to keep the communications clear.’
/> ‘Here in the middle of nowhere?’ said Lucas.
‘Lightweight boats like that could be moved on a truck down the highway or even brought in by chopper.’
Singer said, ‘You don’t believe that, do you? Why would they put patrols through this nowhere place?’
‘Surveys, the power scheme, agricultural schemes … I don’t know.’
‘Bullshit,’ Singer snapped.
‘Can I go?’ Lucas asked.
‘If you are not back by morning we’ll leave without you,’ Paz said.
‘I’ll be back for supper,’ Lucas promised. ‘It’s the last of the dried fish.’
In the dull light of late afternoon Lucas, with Inez and with Tito, took the boat downriver. The rain continued as they searched. It did not take very long to spot the first body. It was the one that had been entangled in the prop blades. It had not moved far. Two more were only half a mile downstream. They found no remains of the men from the first boat, but there were empty beer-cans and some big plastic bottles that might have survived the explosion.
Lucas dragged the bodies to the riverbank and searched them carefully: cheap plastic wrist-watches, but no identity dogtags. None of the clothing had any marks that gave a clue to the men’s origin. The pockets yielded a pack of local cigarettes, low-value notes of Guianese paper money, a stub of wooden pencil.
Coming back they sat together at the front of the boat while Tito took the helm. Lucas smoked a cheroot he’d saved for a special occasion.
‘Not a thing,’ he said. ‘Funny that.’
‘They’d been briefed to do a special mission. Unattributable. Anonymous.’
‘It looks like that.’
‘I believe they were our people, Lucas.’ She looked back to be sure that Tito was not within hearing distance.
‘MAMista?’