High Citadel. Desmond Bagley
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hand on O’Hara’s arm. ‘What’s happening back there?’
O’Hara took a grip on himself. ‘I didn’t have time to see much. I think the bridge is down; there are some trucks on the other side and there seemed to be a hell of a lot of men.’
Forester scanned the ground with a practised eye. ‘There’s plenty of cover by the river – we should be able to get a good view from among those rocks without being spotted. Let’s go.’
So here they were, looking at the ant-like activity on the other side of the river. There seemed to be about twenty men; some were busy unloading thick planks from a truck, others were cutting rope into lengths. Three men had apparently been detailed off as sentries; they were standing with rifles in their hands, scanning the bank of the gorge. As they watched, one of the men must have thought he saw something move, because he raised his rifle and fired a shot.
Forester said, ‘Nervous, aren’t they? They’re firing at shadows.’
O’Hara studied the gorge. The river was deep and ran fast – it was obviously impossible to swim. One would be swept away helplessly in the grip of that rush of water and be frozen to death in ten minutes. Apart from that, there were the problems of climbing down the edge of the gorge to the water’s edge and getting up the other side, not to mention the likelihood of being shot.
He crossed the river off his mental list of possibilities and turned his attention to the bridge. It was a primitive suspension contraption with two rope catenaries strung from massive stone buttresses on each side of the gorge. From the catenaries other ropes, graded in length, supported the main roadway of the bridge which was made of planks. But there was a gap in the middle where a lot of planks were missing and the ropes dangled in the breeze.
Forester said softly, ‘That’s why they didn’t meet us at the airstrip. See the truck in the river – downstream, slapped up against the side of the gorge?’
O’Hara looked and saw the truck in the water, almost totally submerged, with a standing wave of water swirling over the top of the cab. He looked back at the bridge. ‘It seems as though it was crossing from this side when it went over.’
‘That figures,’ said Forester. ‘I reckon they’d have a couple of men to make the preliminary arrangements – stocking up the camp and so on – in readiness for the main party. When the main party was due they came down to the bridge to cross – God knows for what reason. But they didn’t make it – and they buggered the bridge, with the main party still on the other side.’
‘They’re repairing it now,’ said O’Hara. ‘Look.’
Two men crawled on to the swaying bridge pushing a plank before them. They lashed it into place with the aid of a barrage of shouted advice from terra firma and then retreated. O’Hara looked at his watch; it had taken them half an hour.
‘How many planks to go?’ he asked.
Rohde grunted. ‘About thirty.’
‘That gives us fifteen hours before they’re across,’ said O’Hara.
‘More than that,’ said Forester. ‘They’re not likely to do that trapeze act in the dark.’
Rohde took out his pistol and carefully sighted on the bridge, using his forearm as a rest. Forester said, ‘That’s no damned use – you won’t hit anything at fifty yards with a pistol.’
‘I can try,’ said Rohde.
Forester sighed. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘But just one shot to see how it goes. How many slugs have you got?’
‘I had two magazines with seven bullets in each,’ said Rohde. ‘I have fired three shots.’
‘You pop off another and that leaves ten. That’s not too many.’
Rohde tightened his lips stubbornly and kept the pistol where it was. Forester winked at O’Hara and said, ‘If you don’t mind I’m going to retire now. As soon as you start shooting they’re going to shoot right back.’
He withdrew slowly, then turned and lay on his back and looked at the sky, gesturing for O’Hara to join him. ‘It looks as though the time is ripe to hold our council of war,’ he said. ‘Surrender or fight. But there may be a way out of it – have you got that air chart of yours?’
O’Hara produced it. ‘We can’t cross the river – not here, at least,’ he said.
Forester spread out the chart and studied it. He put his finger down. ‘Here’s the river – and this is where we are. This bridge isn’t shown. What’s this shading by the river?’
‘That’s the gorge.’
Forester whistled. ‘Hell, it starts pretty high in the mountains, so we can’t get around it upstream. What about the other way?’
O’Hara measured off the distance roughly. ‘The gorge stretches for about eighty miles down stream, but there’s a bridge marked here – fifty miles away, as near as dammit.’
‘That’s a hell of a long way,’ commented Forester. ‘I doubt if the old man could make it – not over mountain country.’
O’Hara said, ‘And if that crowd over there have any sense they’ll have another truckload of men waiting for us if we do try it. They have the advantage of being able to travel fast on the lower roads.’
‘The bastards have got us boxed in,’ said Forester. ‘So it’s surrender or fight.’
‘I surrender to no communists,’ said O’Hara.
There was a flat report as Rohde fired his pistol and, almost immediately, an answering fusillade of rifle shots, the sound redoubled by echoes from the high ground behind. A bullet ricocheted from close by and whined over O’Hara’s head.
Rohde came slithering down. ‘I missed,’ he said.
Forester refrained from saying, ‘I told you so,’ but his expression showed it. Rohde grinned. ‘But it stopped them working on the bridge – they went back fast and the plank dropped in the river.’
‘That’s something,’ said O’Hara. ‘Maybe we can hold them off that way.’
‘For how long?’ asked Forester. ‘We can’t hold them off for ever – not with ten slugs. We’d better hold our council of war. You stay here, Miguel; but choose a different observation point – they might have spotted this one.’
O’Hara and Forester went back to the group on the road. As they approached O’Hara said in a low voice, ‘We’d better do something to ginger this lot up; they look too bloody nervous.’
There was a feeling of tension in the air. Peabody was muttering in a low voice to Miss Ponsky, who for once was silent herself. Willis was sitting on a rock, nervously tapping his foot on the ground, and Aguillar was speaking rapidly to Benedetta some little way removed from the group. The only one at ease seemed to be Armstrong, who was placidly sucking on an empty pipe, idly engaged in drawing patterns on the ground with a stick.
O’Hara crossed to Aguillar. ‘We’re going to decide what to do,’ he said. ‘As you suggested.’
Aguillar nodded gravely. ‘I said that it must happen.’
O’Hara said, ‘You’re going to be all right.’ He looked at Benedetta; her face was pale and her eyes were dark smudges in her head. He said, ‘I don’t know how long this is going to take, but why don’t you begin preparing a meal for us. We’ll all feel better when we’ve eaten.’
‘Yes, child,’ said Aguillar. ‘I will help you. I am a good cook, Señor O’Hara.’
O’Hara smiled at Benedetta. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’
He walked over to where Forester was giving a pep talk. ‘And that’s the