High Citadel. Desmond Bagley
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‘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.
‘What was this place, anyway?’ asked Willis.
‘Living quarters for the mine up on top,’ said O’Hara. ‘That’s what Rohde tells me.’
Willis nodded. ‘They had their workshops down here, too,’ he said. ‘All the machinery has gone, of course, but there are still a few bits and pieces left.’ He shivered. ‘I can’t say I’d like to work in a place like this.’
O’Hara looked about the hut. ‘Neither would I.’ He caught sight of an electric conduit tube running down a wall. ‘Where did their electricity supply come from, I wonder?’
‘They had their own plant; there’s the remains of it out back. The generator has gone – they must have salvaged it when the mine closed down. They scavenged most everything, I guess; there’s precious little left.’
Armstrong drew the last of the smoke from his failing pipe with a disconsolate gurgle. ‘Well, that’s the last of the tobacco until we get back to civilization,’ he said as he knocked out the dottle. ‘Tell me, Captain; what are you doing in this part of the world?’
‘Oh, I fly aeroplanes from anywhere to anywhere,’ said O’Hara. Not any more I don’t, he thought. As far as Filson was concerned, he was finished. Filson would never forgive a pilot who wrote off one of his aircraft, no matter what the reason. I’ve lost my job, he thought. It was a lousy job but it had kept him going, and now he’d lost it.
The girl came back and he crossed over to her. ‘Anything doing down the road?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. Miguel says everything is quiet.’
‘He’s quite a character,’ said O’Hara. ‘He certainly knows a lot about these mountains – and he knows a bit about medicine too.’
‘He was born near here,’ Benedetta said. ‘And he was a medical student until – ’ She stopped.
‘Until what?’ prompted O’Hara.
‘Until the revolution.’ She looked at her hands. ‘All his family were killed – that is why he hates Lopez. That is why he works with my uncle – he knows that my uncle will ruin Lopez.’
‘I thought he had a chip on his shoulder,’ said O’Hara.
She sighed. ‘It is a great pity about Miguel; he was going to do so much. He was very interested in the soroche, you know; he intended to study it as soon as he had taken his degree. But when the revolution came he had to leave the country and he had no money so he could not continue his studies. He worked in the Argentine for a while, and then he met my uncle. He saved my uncle’s life.’
‘Oh?’ O’Hara raised his eyebrows.
‘In the beginning Lopez knew that he was not safe while my uncle was alive. He knew that my uncle would organize an opposition – underground, you know. So wherever my uncle went he was in danger from the murderers hired by Lopez – even in the Argentine. There were several attempts to kill him, and it was one of these times that Miguel saved his life.’