High Citadel / Landslide. Desmond Bagley
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balance. ‘What’s that?’ he asked. ‘The scales of justice?’
Armstrong looked startled and then pleased. ‘Why, sir, you have identified it correctly,’ he said.
Forester did not press it further. He thought Armstrong was a nut – clever, but still a nut. That crossbow of his had turned out to be some weapon – but it took a nut to think it up. He smiled at Armstrong and crawled away to where he could get a good look at the bridge.
His mouth tightened when he saw how narrow the gap was. Maybe he wouldn’t have to climb the pass after all; maybe he’d have to fight and die right where he was. He judged that by the afternoon the gap would be narrow enough for a man to jump and that O’Hara had better prepare himself for a shock. But O’Hara had seemed untroubled and talked of a plan, and Forester hoped to God that he knew what he was doing.
When he got back to the rock shelter he found that Willis had come down from the hutted camp. He had hauled a travois the whole way and it was now being unpacked. He had brought more food, some blankets and another crossbow which he was demonstrating to O’Hara.
‘This will be faster loading,’ he said. ‘I found some small gears, so I built them into the windlass – they make the cranking a lot easier. How did the other bow work?’
‘Bloody good,’ said O’Hara. ‘It killed a man.’
Willis paled a little and the unshaven bristles stood out against his white skin. Forester smiled grimly. The backroom boys always felt squeamish when they heard the results of their tinkering.
O’Hara turned to Forester. ‘As soon as they start work on the bridge we’ll give them a surprise,’ he said. ‘It’s time we put a bloody crimp in their style. We’ll have breakfast and then go down to the bridge – you’d better stick around and see the fun; you can leave immediately afterwards.’
He swung around. ‘Jenny, don’t bother about helping with the breakfast. You’re our star turn. Take a crossbow and have a few practice shots at the same range as yesterday.’ As she paled, he smiled and said gently, ‘We’ll be going down to the bridge and you’ll be firing at a stationary, inanimate target.’
Forester said to Willis, ‘Where’s Peabody?’
‘Back at the camp – making more arrows.’
‘Have any trouble with him?’
Willis grinned briefly. ‘He’s a lazy swine but a couple of kicks up the butt soon cured that,’ he said, unexpectedly coarsely. ‘Where’s Armstrong?’
‘On watch down by the bridge.’
Willis rubbed his chin with a rasping noise. ‘That man’s got ideas,’ he said. ‘He’s a whole Manhattan Project by himself. I want to talk to him.’
He headed down the hill and Forester turned to Rohde, who had been talking to Aguillar and Benedetta in Spanish. ‘What do we take with us?’
‘Nothing from here,’ Rohde said. ‘We can get what we want at the camp; but we must take little from there – we travel light.’
O’Hara looked up from the can of stew he was opening. ‘You’d better take warm clothing – you can have my leather jacket,’ he offered.
‘Thanks,’ Forester said.
O’Hara grinned. ‘And you’d better take your boss’s vicuna coat – he may need it. I hear it gets cold in New York.’
Forester smiled and took the can of hot stew. ‘I doubt if he’ll appreciate it,’ he said drily.
They had just finished breakfast when Willis came running back. ‘They’ve started work on the bridge,’ he shouted. ‘Armstrong wants to know if he should shoot.’
‘Hell no,’ said O’Hara. ‘We’ve only got two bullets.’ He swung on Rohde. ‘Go down there, get the gun from Armstrong and find yourself a good spot for shooting – but don’t shoot until I tell you.’
Rohde plunged down the hill and O’Hara turned to the others. ‘Everyone gather round,’ he ordered. ‘Where’s Jenny?’
‘I’m here,’ called Miss Ponsky from inside the shelter.
‘Come to the front, Jenny; you’ll play a big part in all this.’ O’Hara squatted down and drew two parallel lines in the dust with a sharp stone. ‘That’s the gorge and this is the bridge. Here is the road; it crosses the bridge, turns sharply on the other side and runs on the edge of the gorge, parallel to the river.’
He placed a small stone on his rough diagram. ‘Just by the bridge there’s a jeep, and behind it another jeep. Both are turned so that their lights illuminate the bridge. Behind the second jeep there’s a big truck half full of timber.’ O’Hara placed a larger stone. ‘Behind the truck there’s another jeep. There are some other vehicles farther down, but we’re not concerned with those now.’
He shifted his position. ‘Now for our side of the gorge. Miguel will be here, upstream of the bridge. He’ll take one shot at the men on the bridge. He won’t hit anyone – he hasn’t yet, anyway – but that doesn’t matter. It’ll scare them and divert their attention, which is what I want.
‘Jenny will be here, downstream of the bridge and immediately opposite the truck. The range is one hundred and eight yards, and we know the crossbow will do it because Jenny was shooting consistently well at that range all yesterday afternoon. As soon as she hears the shot she lets fly at the petrol tank of the truck.’
He looked up at Forester. ‘You’ll be right behind Jenny. As soon as she has fired she’ll hand you the bow and tell you if she’s hit the tank. If she hasn’t, you crank the bow, reload it and hand it back to her for another shot. If she has hit it, then you crank it, run up to where Benedetta will be waiting and give it to her cocked but unloaded.’
He placed another small stone. ‘I’ll be there with Benedetta right behind me. She’ll have the other crossbow ready cocked and with a fire-bolt in it.’ He looked up at her. ‘When I give you the signal you’ll light the paraffin rags on the bolt and hand the crossbow to me, and I’ll take a crack at the truck. We might need a bit of rapid fire at this point, so crank up the bows. You stick to seeing that the bolts are properly ignited before the bows are handed to me, just like we did yesterday in practice.’
He stood up and stretched. ‘Is that clear to everyone?’
Willis said, ‘What do I do?’
‘Anyone not directly concerned with this operation will keep his head down and stay out of the way.’ O’Hara paused. ‘But stand by in case anything goes wrong with the bows.’
‘I’ve got some spare bowstrings,’ said Willis. ‘I’ll have a look at that first bow to see if it’s okay.’
‘Do that,’ said O’Hara. ‘Any more questions?’
There were no questions. Miss Ponsky held up her chin in a grimly determined manner; Benedetta turned immediately to collect the fire-bolts which were her care; Forester merely said, ‘Okay with me.’
As they were going down the hill, though, he said to O’Hara, ‘It’s a good plan, but your part is goddam risky. They’ll see those fire-bolts before you shoot. You stand a good chance of being knocked off.’
‘You can’t fight a war without risk,’ said O’Hara. ‘And that’s what this is, you know; it’s as much a war as any bigger conflict.’
‘Yeah,’ said Forester thoughtfully. He glanced at O’Hara sideways. ‘What about me doing this fire-bolt bit?’
O’Hara laughed. ‘You’re going with Rohde – you picked it, you do it. You said I was garrison commander, so while you’re here you’ll bloody well obey orders.’
Forester laughed