High Citadel

I

Montes looked ill. He was worse than he had been in the air. His chest heaved violently as he sucked in the thin air and he had a ghastly pallor. As he opened his mouth to speak again the girl said, ‘Hush, tio, be quiet. I will tell them,’

She turned and looked across the cabin at O’Hara and Forester. ‘My uncle’s name is not Montes,’ she said levelly. ‘It is Aguillar.’ She said it as though it was an explanation, entire and complete in itself.

There was a moment of blank silence, then O’Hara snapped his fingers and said softly, ‘By God, the old eagle himself.’ He stared at the sick man.

‘Yes, Señor O’Hara,’ whispered Aguillar. ‘But a crippled eagle, I am afraid.’

‘Say, what the hell is this?’ grumbled Peabody. ‘What’s so special about him?’

Willis gave Peabody a look of dislike and got to his feet. ‘I wouldn’t have put it that way myself,’ he said. ‘But I could bear to know more.’

O’Hara said, ‘Señor Aguillar was possibly the best president this country ever had until the army took over five years ago. He got out of the country just one jump ahead of a firing squad.’

‘General Lopez always was a hasty man,’ agreed Aguillar with a weak smile.

‘You mean the government arranged all this — this jam we’re in now — just to get you?’ Willis’s voice was shrill with incredulity.

Aguillar shook his head and started to speak, but the girl said, ‘No, you must be quiet.’ She looked at O’Hara appealingly. ‘Do not question him now, señor. Can’t you see he is ill?’

‘Can you speak for your uncle?’ asked Forester gently.

She looked at the old man and he nodded. ‘What is it you want to know?’ she asked.

‘What is your uncle doing back in Cordillera?’

‘We have come to bring back good government to our country,’ she said. ‘We have come to throw out Lopez.’

O’Hara gave a short laugh. ‘To throw out Lopez,’ he said flatly. ‘Just like that. An old man and a girl are going to throw out a man with an army at his back.’ He shook his head disbelievingly.

The girl flared up. ‘What do you know about it; you are a foreigner — you know nothing. Lopez is finished — everyone in Cordillera knows it, even Lopez himself. He has been too greedy, too corrupt, and the country is sick of him.’

Forester rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘She could be right,’ he said. ‘It would take just a puff of wind to blow Lopez over right now. He’s run this country right into the ground in the last five years — just about milked it dry and salted enough money away in Swiss banks to last a couple of lifetimes. I don’t think he’d risk losing out now if it came to a showdown — if someone pushed hard enough he’d fold up and get out. I think he’d take wealth and comfort instead of power and the chance of being shot by some gun-happy student with a grievance.’

‘Lopez has bankrupted Cordillera,’ the girl said. She held up her head proudly. ‘But when my uncle appears in Santillana the people will rise, and that will be the end of Lopez.’

‘It could work,’ agreed Forester. ‘Your uncle was well liked. I suppose you’ve prepared the ground in advance.’

She nodded. ‘The Democratic Committee of Action has made all the arrangements. All that remains is for my uncle to appear in Santillana.’

‘He may not get there,’ said O’Hara. ‘Someone is trying to stop him, and if it isn’t Lopez, then who the hell is it?’

‘The comunistas,’ the girl spat out with loathing in her voice. ‘They cannot afford to let my uncle get into power again. They want Cordillera for their own.’

Forester said, ‘It figures. Lopez is a dead duck, come what may; so it’s Aguillar versus the communists with Cordillera as the stake.’

‘They are not quite ready,’ the girl said. ‘They do not have enough support among the people. During the last two years they have been infiltrating the government very cleverly and if they had their way the people would wake up one morning to find Lopez gone, leaving a communist government to take his place.’

‘Swapping one dictatorship for another,’ said Forester. ‘Very clever.’

‘But they are not yet ready to get rid of Lopez,’ she said. ‘My uncle would spoil their plans — he would get rid of Lopez and the government, too. He would hold elections for the first time in nine years. So the communists are trying to stop him.’

‘And you think Grivas was a communist?’ queried O’Hara.

Forester snapped his fingers. ‘Of course he was. That explains his last words. He was a communist, all right — Latin-American blend; when he said “vivaca” he was trying to say “Viva Castro”.’ His voice hardened. ‘And we can expect his buddies along any minute.’

‘We must leave here quickly,’ said the girl. ‘They must not find my uncle.’

O’Hara suddenly swung round and regarded Rohde, who had remained conspicuously silent. He said, ‘What do you import, Señor Rohde?’

‘It is all right, Señor O’Hara,’ said Aguillar weakly. ‘Miguel is my secretary.’

Forester looked at Rohde. ‘More like your bodyguard.’

Aguillar flapped his hand limply as though the distinction was of no consequence, and Forester said, ‘What put you on to him, O’Hara?’

‘I don’t like men who carry guns,’ said O’Hara shortly. ‘Especially men who could be communist.’ He looked around the cabin. ‘All right, are there any more jokers in the pack? What about you, Forester? You seem to know a hell of a lot about local politics for an American businessman.’

‘Don’t be a damn fool,’ said Forester. ‘If I didn’t take an interest in local politics my corporation would fire me. Having the right kind of government is important to us, and we sure as hell don’t want a commie set-up in Cordillera.’

He took out his wallet and extracted a business card which he handed to O’Hara. It informed him that Raymond Forester was the South American sales manager for the Fairfield Machine Tool Corporation.

O’Hara gave it back to him. ‘Was Grivas the only communist aboard?’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m getting at. When we were coming in to land, did any of the passengers take any special precautions for their safety?’

Forester thought about it, then shook his head. ‘Everyone seemed to be taken by surprise — I don’t think any of us knew just what was happening.’ He looked at O’Hara with respect. ‘In the circumstances that was a good question to ask.’

‘Well, I’m not a communist,’ said Miss Ponsky sharply. ‘The very idea!’

O’Hara smiled. ‘My apologies, Miss Ponsky,’ he said politely.

Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin; now he stood up. ‘This lady is dying,’ he said. ‘She has lost much blood and she is in shock. And she has the soroche — the mountain-sickness. If she does not get oxygen she will surely die.’ His black eyes switched to Aguillar, who seemed to have fallen asleep. ‘The Señor also must have oxygen — he’s in grave danger.’ He looked at them. ‘We must go down the mountain. To stay at this height is very dangerous.’

O’Hara was conscious of a vicious headache and the fact that his heart was thumping rapidly. He had been long enough in the country to have heard of soroche and its effects. The lower air pressure on the mountain heights meant less oxygen, the respiratory rate went up and so did the heart-beat rate, pumping the blood faster. It killed a weak constitution.

He said slowly, ‘There were oxygen cylinders in the plane — maybe they’re not busted.’

‘Good,’ said Rohde. ‘We will look, you and I. It would be better not to move this lady if possible. But if we do not find the oxygen, then we must go down the mountain.’

Forester said, ‘We must keep a fire going — the rest of us will look for wood.’ He paused. ‘Bring some petrol from the plane — we may need it.’

‘All right,’ said O’Hara.

‘Come on,’ said Forester to Peabody. ‘Let’s move.’

Peabody lay where he was, gasping. ‘I’m beat,’ he said. ‘And my head’s killing me.’

‘It’s just a hangover,’ said Forester callously. ‘Get on your feet, man.’

Rohde put his hand on Forester’s arm. ‘Soroche,’ he said warningly. ‘He will not be able to do much. Come, señor.’

O’Hara followed Rohde from the cabin and shivered in the biting air. He looked around. The airstrip was built on the only piece of level ground in the vicinity; all else was steeply shelving mountainside, and all around were the pinnacles of the high Andes, clear-cut in the cold and crystal air. They soared skyward, blindingly white against the blue where the snows lay on their flanks, and where the slope was too steep for the snow to stay was the dark grey of the rock.

It was cold, desolate and utterly lifeless. There was no restful green of vegetation, or the flick of a bird’s wing — just black, white and the blue of the sky, a hard, dark metallic blue as alien as the landscape.

O’Hara pulled his jacket closer about him and looked at the other huts. ‘What is this place?’

‘It is a mine,’ said Rohde. ‘Copper and zinc — the tunnels are over there.’ He pointed to a cliff face at the end of the airstrip and O’Hara saw the dark mouths of several tunnels driven into the cliff face. Rohde shook his head. ‘But it is too high to work — they should never have tried. No man can work well at this height; not even our mountain indios.’

‘You know this place then?’

‘I know these mountains well,’ said Rohde. ‘I was born not far from here.’

They trudged along the airstrip and before they had gone a hundred yards O’Hara felt exhausted. His head ached and he felt nauseated. He sucked the thin air into his lungs and his chest heaved.

Rohde stopped and said, ‘You must not force your breathing.’

‘What else can I do?’ said O’Hara, panting. ‘I’ve got to get enough air.’

‘Breathe naturally, without effort,’ said Rohde. ‘You will get enough air. But if you force your breathing you will wash all the carbon dioxide from your lungs, and that will upset the acid base of your blood and you will get muscle cramps. And that is very bad.’

O’Hara moderated his breathing and said, ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

‘I studied medicine once,’ said Rohde briefly.

They reached the far end of the strip and looked over the edge of the cliff. The Dakota was pretty well smashed up; the port wing had broken off, as had the entire tail section. Rohde studied the terrain. ‘We need not climb down the cliff; it will be easier to go round.’

It took them a long time to get to the plane and when they got there they found only one oxygen cylinder intact. It was difficult to get it free and out of the aircraft, but they managed it after chopping away a part of the fuselage with the axe that O’Hara found on the floor of the cockpit.

The gauge showed that the cylinder was only a third full and O’Hara cursed Filson and his cheese-paring, but Rohde seemed satisfied. ‘It will be enough,’ he said. ‘We can stay in the hut tonight.’

‘What happens if these communists turn up?’ asked O’Hara.

Rohde seemed unperturbed. ‘Then we will defend ourselves,’ he said equably. ‘One thing at a time, Señor O’Hara.’

‘Grivas seemed to think they were already here,’ said O’Hara. ‘I wonder what held them up?’

Rohde shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

They could not manhandle the oxygen cylinder back to the huts without help, so Rohde went back, taking with him some mouthpieces and a bottle of petrol tapped from a wing tank. O’Hara searched the fuselage, looking for anything that might be of value, particularly food. That, he thought, might turn out to be a major problem. All he found was half a slab of milk chocolate in Grivas’s seat pocket.

Rohde came back with Forester, Willis and Armstrong and they took it in turns carrying the oxygen cylinder, two by two. It was very hard work and they could only manage to move it twenty yards at a time. O’Hara estimated that back in San Croce he could have picked it up and carried it a mile, but the altitude seemed to have sucked all the strength from their muscles and they could work only a few minutes at a time before they collapsed in exhaustion.

When they got it to the hut they found that Miss Ponsky was feeding the fire with wood from a door of one of the other huts that Willis and Armstrong had torn down and smashed up laboriously with rocks. Willis was particularly glad to see the axe. ‘It’ll be easier now,’ he said.

Rohde administered oxygen to Mrs Coughlin and Aguillar. She remained unconscious, but it made a startling difference to the old man. As the colour came back to his cheeks his niece smiled for the first time since the crash.

O’Hara sat before the fire, feeling the warmth soak into him, and produced his air charts. He spread the relevant chart on the floor and pin-pointed a position with a pencilled cross. ‘That’s where we were when we changed course,’ he said. ‘We flew on a true course of one-eighty-four for a shade over five minutes.’ He drew a line on the chart. ‘We were flying at a little over two hundred knots — say, two hundred and forty miles an hour. That’s about twenty miles — so that puts us about — here.’ He made another cross.

Forester looked over his shoulder. ‘The airstrip isn’t marked on the map,’ he said.

‘Rohde said it was abandoned,’ said O’Hara.

Rohde came over and looked at the map and nodded. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘That is where we are. The road down the mountain leads to the refinery. That also is abandoned, but I think some indios live there still.’

‘How far is that?’ asked Forester.

‘About forty kilometres,’ said Rohde.

‘Twenty-five miles,’ translated Forester. ‘That’s a hell of a long way in these conditions.’

‘It will not be very bad,’ said Rohde. He put his finger on the map. ‘When we get to this valley where the river runs we will be nearly five thousand feet lower and we will breathe more easily. That is about sixteen kilometres by the road.’

‘We’ll start early tomorrow,’ said O’Hara.

Rohde agreed. ‘If we had no oxygen I would have said go now. But it would be better to stay in the shelter of this hut tonight.’

‘What about Mrs Coughlin?’ said O’Hara quietly. ‘Can we move her?’

‘We will have to move her,’ said Rohde positively. ‘She cannot live at this altitude.’

‘We’ll rig together some kind of stretcher,’ said Forester. ‘We can make a sling out of clothing and poles — or maybe use a door.’

O’Hara looked across to where Mrs Coughlin was breathing stertorously, closely watched by Miss Ponsky. His voice was harsh. ‘I’d rather that bastard Grivas was still alive if that would give her back her legs,’ he said.

II

Mrs Coughlin died during the night without regaining consciousness. They found her in the morning cold and stiff. Miss Ponsky was in tears. ‘I should have stayed awake,’ she sniffled. ‘I couldn’t sleep most of the night, and then I had to drop off.’

Rohde shook his head gravely. ‘She would have died,’ he said. ‘We could not do anything for her — none of us.’

Forester, O’Hara and Peabody scratched out a shallow grave. Peabody seemed better and O’Hara thought that maybe Forester had been right when he said that Peabody was only suffering from a hangover. However, he had to be prodded into helping to dig the grave.

It seemed that everyone had had a bad night, no one sleeping very well. Rohde said that it was another symptom of soroche and the sooner they got to a lower altitude the better. O’Hara still had a splitting headache and heartily concurred.

The oxygen cylinder was empty.

O’Hara tapped the gauge with his finger but the needle stubbornly remained at zero. He opened the cock and bent his head to listen but there was no sound from the valve. He had heard the gentle hiss of oxygen several times during the night and had assumed that Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin or Aguillar.

He beckoned to Rohde. ‘Did you use all the oxygen last night?’

Rohde looked incredulously at the gauge. ‘I was saving some for today,’ he said. ‘Señor Aguillar needs it.’

O’Hara bit his lip and looked across to where Peabody sat. ‘I thought he looked pretty chipper this morning.’

Rohde growled something under his breath and took a step forward, but O’Hara caught his arm. ‘It can’t be proved,’ he said. ‘I could be wrong. And anyway, we don’t want any rows right here. Let’s get down this mountain.’ He kicked the cylinder and it clanged emptily. ‘At least we won’t have to carry this.’

He remembered the chocolate and brought it out. There were eight small squares to be divided between ten of them, so he, Rohde and Forester did without and Aguillar had two pieces. O’Hara thought that he must have had three because the girl did not appear to eat her ration.

Armstrong and Willis appeared to work well as a team. Using the axe, they had ripped some timber from one of the huts and made a rough stretcher by pushing lengths of wood through the sleeves of two overcoats. That was for Aguillar, who could not walk.

They put on all the clothes they could and left the rest in suitcases. Forester gave O’Hara a bulky overcoat. ‘Don’t mess it about if you can help it,’ he said. ‘That’s vicuna — it cost a lot of dough.’ He grinned. ‘The boss’s wife asked me to get it this trip; it’s the old man’s birthday soon.’

Peabody grumbled when he had to leave his luggage and grumbled more when O’Hara assigned him to a stretcher-carrying stint. O’Hara resisted taking a poke at him; for one thing he did not want open trouble, and for another he did not know whether he had the strength to do any damage. At the moment it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.

So they left the huts and went down the road, turning their backs on the high peaks. The road was merely a rough track cut out of the mountainside. It wound down in a series of hairpin bends and Willis pointed out where blasting had been done on the corners. It was just wide enough to take a single vehicle but, from time to time, they came across a wide part where two trucks could pass.

O’Hara asked Rohde, ‘Did they intend to truck all the ore from the mine?’

‘They would have built a telfer,’ said Rohde. ‘An endless rope with buckets. But they were still proving the mine. Petrol engines do not work well up here — they need superchargers.’ He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground.

In a patch of snow was the track of a tyre.

‘Someone’s been up here lately,’ observed O’Hara. ‘Supercharged or not. But I knew that.’

‘How?’ Rohde demanded.

‘The airstrip had been cleared of snow.’

Rohde patted his breast and moved away without saying anything. O’Hara remembered the pistol and wondered what would happen if they came up against opposition.

Although the path was downhill and the going comparatively good, it was only possible to carry the stretcher a hundred yards at a time. Forester organized relays, and as one set of carriers collapsed exhaustedly another took over. Aguillar was in a comatose condition and the girl walked next to the stretcher, anxiously watching him. After a mile they stopped for a rest and O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘I’ve got a flask of spirits. ‘I’ve been saving it for when things really get tough. Do you think it would help the old man?’

‘Let me have it,’ said Rohde.

O’Hara took the flask from his hip and gave it to Rohde, who took off the cap and sniffed the contents. ‘Aguardiente,’ he said. ‘Not the best drink but it will do.’ He looked at O’Hara curiously. ‘Do you drink this?’

‘I’m a poor man,’ said O’Hara defensively.

Rohde smiled. ‘When I was a student I also was poor. I also drank aguardiente. But I do not recommend too much,’ He looked across at Aguillar. ‘I think we save this for later.’ He recapped the flask and handed it back to O’Hara. As O’Hara was replacing it in his pocket he saw Peabody staring at him. He smiled back pleasantly.

After a rest of half an hour they started off again. O’Hara, in the lead, looked back and thought they looked like a bunch of war refugees. Willis and Armstrong were stumbling along with the stretcher, the girl keeping pace alongside; Miss Ponsky was sticking close to Rohde, chatting as though on a Sunday afternoon walk, despite her shortness of breath, and Forester was in the rear with Peabody shambling beside him.

After the third stop O’Hara found that things were going better. His step felt lighter and his breathing eased, although the headache stayed with him. The stretcher-bearers found that they could carry for longer periods, and Aguillar had come round and was taking notice.

O’Hara mentioned this to Rohde, who pointed at the steep slopes about them. ‘We are losing a lot of height,’ he said. ‘It will get better now.’

After the fourth halt O’Hara and Forester were carrying the stretcher. Aguillar apologized in a weak voice for the inconvenience he was causing, but O’Hara forbore to answer — he needed all his breath for the job. Things weren’t that much better.

Forester suddenly stopped and O’Hara thankfully laid down the stretcher. His legs felt rubbery and the breath rasped in his throat. He grinned at Forester, who was beating his hands against his chest. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘It should be warmer down in the valley.’

Forester blew on his fingers. ‘I hope so.’ He looked up at O’Hara. ‘You’re a pretty good pilot,’ he said. ‘I’ve done some flying in my time, but I don’t think I could do what you did yesterday.’

‘You might if you had a pistol at your head,’ said O’Hara with a grimace. ‘Anyway, I couldn’t leave it to Grivas — he’d have killed the lot of us, starting with me first.’

He looked past Forester and saw Rohde coming back up the road at a stumbling run, his gun in his hand. ‘Something’s happening.’

He went forward to meet Rohde, who gasped, his chest heaving. ‘There are huts here — I had forgotten them.’

O’Hara looked at the gun. ‘Do you need that?’

Rohde gave a stark smile. ‘It is possible, señor.’ He waved casually down the road with the pistol. ‘I think we should be careful. I think we should look first before doing anything. You, me, and Señor Forester.’

‘I think so too,’ said Forester. ‘Grivas said his pals would be around and this seems a likely place to meet them.’

‘All right,’ said O’Hara, and looked about. There was no cover on the road but there was a jumble of rocks a little way back. ‘I think everyone else had better stick behind that lot,’ he said. ‘If anything does break, there’s no point in being caught in the open.’

They went back to shelter behind the rocks and O’Hara told everyone what was happening. He ended by saying, ‘If there’s shooting you don’t do a damned thing — you freeze and stay put. Now I know we’re not an army but we’re likely to come under fire all the same — so I’m naming Doctor Willis as second-in-command. If anything happens to us you take your orders from him.’ Willis nodded.

Aguillar’s niece was talking to Rohde, and as O’Hara went to join Forester she touched him on the arm. ‘Señor.’

He looked down at her. ‘Yes, señorita.’

‘Please be careful, you and Señor Forester. I would not want anything to happen to you because of us.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ said O’Hara. ‘Tell me, is your name the same as your uncle’s?’

‘I am Benedetta Aguillar,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I’m Tim O’Hara. I’ll be careful.’

He joined the other two and they walked down the road to the bend. Rohde said, ‘These huts were where the miners lived. This is just about as high as a man can live permanently — a man who is acclimatized such as our mountain indios. I think we should leave the road here and approach from the side. If Grivas did have friends, here is where we will find them.’

They took to the mountainside and came upon the camp from the top. A level place had been roughly bulldozed out of the side of the mountain and there were about a dozen timber-built huts, very much like the huts by the airstrip.

‘This is no good,’ said Forester. ‘We’ll have to go over this miniature cliff before we can get at them.’

‘There’s no smoke,’ O’Hara pointed out.

‘Maybe that means something — maybe it doesn’t,’ said Forester. ‘I think that Rohde and I will go round and come up from the bottom. If anything happens, maybe you can cause a diversion from up here.’

‘What do I do?’ asked O’Hara. ‘Throw stones?’

Forester shook with silent laughter. He pointed down the slope to beyond the camp. ‘We’ll come out about there. You can see us from here but we’ll be out of sight of anyone in the camp. If all’s clear you can give us the signal to come up.’ He looked at Rohde, who nodded.

Forester and Rohde left quietly and O’Hara lay on his belly, looking down at the camp. He did not think there was anyone there. It was less than five miles up to the airstrip by the road and there was nothing to stop anybody going up there. If Grivas’s confederates were anywhere, it was not likely that they would be at this camp — but it was as well to make sure. He scanned the huts but saw no sign of movement.

Presently he saw Forester wave from the side of the rock he had indicated and he waved back. Rohde went up first, in a wide arc to come upon the camp at an angle. Then Forester moved forward in the peculiar scuttling, zigzagging run of the experienced soldier who expects to be shot at. O’Hara wondered about Forester; the man had said he could fly an aeroplane and now he was behaving like a trained infantryman. He had an eye for ground, too, and was obviously accustomed to command.

Forester disappeared behind one of the huts and then Rohde came into sight at the far end of the camp, moving warily with his gun in his hand. He too disappeared, and O’Hara felt tension. He waited for what seemed a very long time, then Forester walked out from behind the nearest hut, moving quite unconcernedly. ‘You can come down,’ he called. ‘There’s no one here.’

O’Hara let out his breath with a rush and stood up. ‘I’ll go back and get the rest of the people down here,’ he shouted, and Forester waved in assent.

O’Hara went back up the road, collected the party and took them down to the camp. Forester and Rohde were waiting in the main ‘street’ and Forester called out, ‘We’ve struck it lucky; there’s a lot of food here.’

Suddenly O’Hara realized that he hadn’t eaten for a day and a half. He did not feel particularly hungry, but he knew that if he did not eat he could not last out much longer — and neither could any of the others. To have food would make a lot of difference on the next leg of the journey.

Forester said, ‘Most of the huts are empty, but three of them are fitted out as living quarters complete with kerosene heaters.’

O’Hara looked down at the ground which was crisscrossed with tyre tracks. ‘There’s something funny going on,’ he said. ‘Rohde told me that the mine has been abandoned for a long time, yet there’s all these signs of life and no one around. What the hell’s going on?’

Forester shrugged. ‘Maybe the commie organization is slipping,’ he said. ‘The Latins have never been noted for good planning. Maybe someone’s put a spoke in their wheel.’

‘Maybe,’ said O’Hara. ‘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.’

O’Hara said, ‘Your uncle must have felt like another Trotsky. Joe Stalin had him bumped off in Mexico.’

‘That is right,’ she said with a grimace of distaste. ‘But they were communists, both of them. Anyway, Miguel stayed with us after that. He said that all he wanted was food to eat and a bed to sleep in, and he would help my uncle come back to Cordillera. And here we are.’

Yes, thought O’Hara; marooned up a bloody mountain with God knows what waiting at the bottom.

Presently Armstrong went out to relieve Rohde. Miss Ponsky came across to talk to O’Hara. ‘I’m sorry I behaved so stupidly in the airplane,’ she said crossly. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

O’Hara thought there was no need to apologize for being half frightened to death; he had been bloody scared himself. But he couldn’t say that — he couldn’t even mention the word fear to her. That would be unforgivable; no one likes to be reminded of a lapse of that nature — not even a maiden lady getting on in years. He smiled and said diplomatically, ‘Not everyone would have come through an experience like that as well as you have, Miss Ponsky.’

She was mollified and he knew that she had been in fear of a rebuff. She was the kind of person who would bite on a sore tooth, not letting it alone. She smiled and said, ‘Well now, Captain O’Hara — what do you think of all this talk about communists?’

‘I think they’re capable of anything,’ said O’Hara grimly.

‘I’m going to put in a report to the State Department when I get back,’ she said. ‘You ought to hear what Señor Aguillar has been telling me about General Lopez. I think the State Department should help Señor Aguillar against General Lopez and the communists.’

‘I’m inclined to agree with you,’ said O’Hara. ‘But perhaps your State Department doesn’t believe in interfering in Cordilleran affairs.’

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ said Miss Ponsky with acerbity. ‘We’re supposed to be fighting the communists, aren’t we? Besides, Señor Aguillar assures me that he’ll hold elections as soon as General Lopez is kicked out. He’s a real democrat just like you and me.’

O’Hara wondered what would happen if another South American state did go communist. Cuban agents were filtering all through Latin America like woodworms in a piece of furniture. He tried to think of the strategic importance of Cordillera — it was on the Pacific coast and it straddled the Andes, a gun pointing to the heart of the continent. He thought the Americans would be very upset if Cordillera went communist.

Rohde came back and talked for a few minutes with Aguillar, then he crossed to O’Hara and said in a low voice, ‘Señor Aguillar would like to speak to you.’ He gestured to Forester and the three of them went to where Aguillar was resting in a bunk.

He had brightened considerably and was looking quite spry. His eyes were lively and no longer filmed with weariness, and there was a strength and authority in his voice that O’Hara had not heard before. He realized that this was a strong man; maybe not too strong in the body because he was becoming old and his body was wearing out, but he had a strong mind. O’Hara suspected that if the old man had not had a strong will, the body would have crumpled under the strain it had undergone.

Aguillar said, ‘First I must thank you gentlemen for all you have done, and I am truly sorry that I have brought this calamity upon you.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It is the innocent bystander who always suffers in the clash of our Latin politics. I am sorry that this should have happened and that you should see my country in this sad light.’

‘What else could we do?’ asked Forester. ‘We’re all in the same boat.’

‘I’m glad you see it that way,’ said Aguillar. ‘Because of what may come next. What happens if we meet up with the communists who should be here and are not?’

‘Before we come to that there’s something I’d like to query,’ said O’Hara. Aguillar raised his eyebrows and motioned him to continue, so O’Hara said deliberately, ‘How do we know they are communists? Señorita Aguillar tells me that Lopez has tried to liquidate you several times. How do you know he hasn’t got wind of your return and is having another crack at you?’

Aguillar shook his head. ‘Lopez has — in your English idiom — shot his bolt. I know. Do not forget that I am a practical politician and give me credit for knowing my own work. Lopez forgot about me several years ago and is only interested in how he can safely relinquish the reins of power and retire. As for the communists — for years I have watched them work in my country, undermining the government and wooing the people. They have not got far with the people, or they would have disposed of Lopez by now. I am their only danger and I am sure that our situation is their work.’

Forester said casually, ‘Grivas was trying to make a clenched fist salute when he died.’

‘All right,’ said O’Hara. ‘But why all this rigmarole of Grivas in the first place? Why not just put a time bomb in the Dakota — that would have done the job very easily.’

Aguillar smiled. ‘Señor O’Hara, in my life as a politician I have had four bombs thrown at me and every one was defective. Our politics out here are emotional and emotion does not make for careful workmanship, even of bombs. And I am sure that even communism cannot make any difference to the native characteristics of my people. They wanted to make very sure of me and so they chose the unfortunate Grivas as their instrument. Would you have called Grivas an emotional man?’

‘I should think he was,’ said O’Hara, thinking of Grivas’s exultation even in death. ‘And he was pretty slipshod too.’

Aguillar spread his hands, certain he had made his point. But he drove it home. ‘Grivas would be happy to be given such work; it would appeal to his sense of drama — and my people have a great sense of drama. As for being — er — slipshod, Grivas bungled the first part of the operation by stupidly killing himself, and the others have bungled the rest of it by not being here to meet us.’

O’Hara rubbed his chin. As Aguillar drew the picture it made a weird kind of sense.

Aguillar said, ‘Now, my friends, we come to the next point. Supposing, on the way down this mountain, we meet these men — these communists? What happens then?’ He regarded O’Hara and Forester with bright eyes. ‘It is not your fight — you are not Cordillerans — and I am interested to know what you would do. Would you give this dago politician into the hands of his enemies or...’

‘Would we fight?’ finished Forester.

‘It is my fight,’ said O’Hara bluntly. ‘I’m not a Cordilleran, but Grivas pulled a gun on me and made me crash my plane. I didn’t like that, and I didn’t like the sight of the Coughlins. Anyway, I don’t like the sight of communists, and I think that, all in all, this is my fight.’

‘I concur,’ said Forester.

Aguillar raised his hand. ‘But it is not as easy as that, is it? There are others to take into account. Would it be fair on Miss — er — Ponsky, for instance? Now what I propose is this. Miguel, my niece and I will withdraw into another cabin while you talk it over — and I will abide by your joint decision.’

Forester looked speculatively at Peabody, who was just leaving the hut. He glanced at O’Hara, then said, ‘I think we should leave the question of fighting until there’s something to fight. It’s possible that we might just walk out of here.’

Aguillar had seen Forester’s look at Peabody. He smiled sardonically. ‘I see that you are a politician yourself, Señor Forester.’ He made a gesture of resignation. ‘Very well, we will leave the problem for the moment — but I think we will have to return to it.’

‘It’s a pity we had to come down the mountain,’ said Forester. ‘There’s sure to be an air search, and it might have been better to stay by the Dakota.’

‘We could not have lived up there,’ said Rohde.

‘I know, but it’s a pity all the same.’

‘I don’t think it makes much difference,’ said O’Hara. ‘The wreck will be difficult to spot from the air — it’s right at the foot of a cliff.’ He hesitated. ‘And I don’t know about an air search — not yet, anyway.’

Forester jerked his head. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

‘Andes Airlift isn’t noted for its efficiency and Filson, my boss, isn’t good at paperwork. This flight didn’t even have a number — I remember wondering about it just before we took off. It’s on the cards that San Croce control haven’t bothered to notify Santillana to expect us.’ As he saw Forester’s expression he added, The whole set-up is shoestring and sealing-wax — it’s only a small field.’

‘But surely your boss will get worried when he doesn’t hear from you?’

‘He’ll worry,’ agreed O’Hara. ‘He told me to phone him from Santillana — but he won’t worry too much at first. There have been times when I haven’t phoned through on his say-so and had a rocket for losing cargo. But I don’t think he’ll worry about losing the plane for a couple of days at least.’

Forester blew out his cheeks. ‘Wow — what a Rube Goldberg organization. Now I really feel lost.’

Rohde said, ‘We must depend on our own efforts. I think we can be sure of that.’

‘We flew off course too,’ said O’Hara. ‘They’ll start the search north of here — when they start.’

Rohde looked at Aguillar whose eyes were closed. ‘There is nothing we can do now,’ he said. ‘But we must sleep. It will be a hard day tomorrow.’

III

Again O’Hara did not sleep very well, but at least he was resting on a mattress instead of a hard floor, with a full belly. Peabody was on watch and O’Hara was due to relieve him at two o’clock; he was glad when the time came.

He donned his leather jacket and took the vicuna coat that Forester had given him. He suspected that he would be glad of it during the next two hours. Forester was awake and waved lazily as he went out, although he did not speak.

The night air was thin and cold and O’Hara shivered as he set off down the road. As Rohde had said, the conditions for survival were better here than up by the airstrip, but it was still pretty dicey. He was aware that his heart was thumping and that his respiration rate was up. It would be much better when they got down to the quebrada, as Rohde called the lateral valley to which they were heading.

He reached the corner where he had to leave the road and headed towards the looming outcrop of rock which Rohde had picked as a vantage point. Peabody should have been perched on top of the rock and should have heard him coming, but there was no sign of his presence.

O’Hara called softly, ‘Peabody!’

There was silence.

Cautiously he circled the outcrop to get it silhouetted against the night sky. There was a lump on top of the rock which he could not quite make out. He began to climb the rock and as he reached the top he heard a muffled snore. He shook Peabody and his foot clinked on a bottle — Peabody was drunk.

‘You bloody fool,’ he said and started to slap Peabody’s face, but without appreciable result. Peabody muttered in his drunken stupor but did not recover consciousness. ‘I ought to let you die of exposure,’ whispered O’Hara viciously, but he knew he could not do that. He also knew that he could not hope to carry Peabody back to the camp by himself. He would have to get help.

He stared down the mountainside but all was quiet, so he climbed down the rock and headed back up the road. Forester was still awake and looked up inquiringly as O’Hara entered the hut. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked, suddenly alert.

‘Peabody’s passed out,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ll need help to bring him up.’

‘Damn this altitude,’ said Forester, putting on his shoes.

‘It wasn’t the altitude,’ O’Hara said coldly. ‘The bastard’s dead drunk.’

Forester muffled an imprecation. ‘Where did he get the stuff?’

‘I suppose he found it in one of the huts,’ said O’Hara. ‘I’ve still got my flask — I was saving it for Aguillar.’

‘All right,’ said Forester. ‘Let’s lug the damn fool up here.’

It wasn’t an easy thing to do. Peabody was a big, flabby man and his body lolled uncooperatively, but they managed it at last and dumped him unceremoniously in a bunk. Forester gasped and said, ‘This idiot will be the death of us all if we don’t watch him.’ He paused. ‘I’ll come down with you — it might be better to have two pairs of eyes down there right now.’

They went back and climbed up on to the rock, lying side by side and scanning the dark mountainside. For fifteen minutes they were silent, but saw and heard nothing. ‘I think it’s okay,’ said Forester at last. He shifted his position to ease his bones. ‘What do you think of the old man?’

‘He seems all right to me,’ said O’Hara.

‘He’s a good joe — a good liberal politician. If he lasts long enough he might end up by being a good liberal statesman — but liberals don’t last long in this part of the world, and I think he’s a shade too soft.’ Forester chuckled. ‘Even when it’s a matter of life and death — his life and death, not to mention his niece’s — he still sticks to democratic procedure. He wants us to vote on whether we shall hand him over to the commies. Imagine that!’

‘I wouldn’t hand anyone over to the communists,’ said O’Hara. He glanced sideways at the dark bulk of Forester. ‘You said you could fly a plane — I suppose you do it as a matter of business; company plane and all that.’

‘Hell, no,’ said Forester. ‘My outfit’s not big enough or advanced enough for that. I was in the Air Force — I flew in Korea.’

‘So did I,’ said O’Hara. ‘I was in the R.A.F.’

‘Well, what do you know.’ Forester was delighted. ‘Where were you based?’

O’Hara told him and he said, ‘Then you were flying Sabres like I was. We went on joint operations — hell, we must have flown together.’

‘Probably.’

They lay in companionable silence for a while, then Forester said, ‘Did you knock down any of those Migs? I got four, then they pulled me out. I was mad about that — I wanted to be a war hero; an ace, you know.’

‘You’ve got to get five in the American Air Force, haven’t you?’

‘That’s right,’ said Forester. ‘Did you get any?’

‘A couple,’ said O’Hara. He had shot down eight Migs but it was a part of his life he preferred to forget, so he didn’t elaborate. Forester sensed his reserve and was quiet. After a few minutes he said, ‘I think I’ll go back and get some sleep — if I can. We’ll be on our way early.’

When he had gone O’Hara stared into the darkness and thought about Korea. That had been the turning point of his life: before Korea he had been on his way up; after Korea there was just the endless slide, down to Filson and now beyond. He wondered where he would end up.

Thinking of Korea brought back Margaret and the letter. He had read the letter while on ready call on a frozen airfield. The Americans had a name for that kind of letter — they called them ‘Dear Johns’. She was quite matter-of-fact about it and said that they were adult and must be sensible about this thing — all the usual rationalizations which covered plain infidelity. Looking back on it afterwards O’Hara could see a little humour in it — not much, but some. He was one of the inglorious ten per cent of any army fighting away from home, and he had lost his wife to a civilian. But it wasn’t funny at all reading that letter on the cold airfield in Korea.

Five minutes later there was a scramble and he was in the air and thirty minutes later he was fighting. He went into battle with cold ferocity and a total lack of judgment. In three minutes he shot down two Migs, surprising them by sheer recklessness. Then a Chinese pilot with a cooler mind shot him down and he spent the rest of the war in a prison cage.

He did not like to think of that period and what had happened to him. He had come out of it with honour, but the psychiatrists had a field day with him when he got back to England. They did what they could but they could not break down the shell he had built about himself — and neither, by that time, could he break out.

And so it went — invalided out of the Air Force with a pension which he promptly commuted; the good jobs — at first — and then the poorer jobs, until he got down to Filson. And always the drink — more and more booze which had less and less effect as he tried to fill and smother the aching emptiness inside him.

He moved restlessly on the rock and heard the bottle clink. He put out his hand, picked it up and held it to the sky. It was a quarter full. He smiled. He could not get drunk on that but it would be very welcome. Yet as the fiery fluid spread and warmed his gut he felt guilty.

IV

Peabody was blearily belligerent when he woke up and found O’Hara looking at him. At first he looked defensive, then his instinct for attack took over. ‘I’m not gonna take anything from you,’ he said shakily. ‘Not from any goddam limey.’

O’Hara just looked at him. He had no wish to tax Peabody with anything. Weren’t they members of the same club? he thought sardonically. Fellow drunks. Why, we even drink from the same bottle. He felt miserable.

Rohde took a step forward and Peabody screamed, ‘And I’m not gonna take anything from a dago either.’

‘Then perhaps you’ll take it from me,’ snapped Forester. He took one stride and slapped Peabody hard on the side of the face. Peabody sagged back on the bed and looked into Forester’s cold eyes with an expression of fear and bewilderment on his face. His hand came up to touch the red blotch on his cheek. He was just going to speak when Forester pushed a finger at him. ‘Shut up! One cheep out of you and I’ll mash you into a pulp. Now get your big fat butt off that bed and get to work — and if you step out of line again I swear to God I’ll kill you.’

The ferocity in Forester’s voice had a chilling effect on Peabody. All the belligerence drained out of him. ‘I didn’t mean to—’ he began.

‘Shut up!’ said Forester and turned his back on him. ‘Let’s get this show on the road,’ he announced generally.

They took food and a pressure stove and fuel, carrying it in awkwardly contrived packs cobbled from their overcoats. O’Hara did not think that Forester’s boss would thank him for the vicuna coat, already showing signs of hard use.

Aguillar said he could walk, provided he was not asked to go too fast, so Forester took the stretcher poles and lashed them together in what he called a travois. ‘The Plains Indians used this for transport,’ he said. ‘They got along without wheels — so can we.’ He grinned. ‘They pulled with horses and we have only manpower, but it’s downhill all the way.’

The travois held a lot, much more than a man could carry, and Forester and O’Hara took first turn at pulling the triangular contraption, the apex bumping and bouncing on the stony ground. The others fell into line behind them and once more they wound their way down the mountain.

O’Hara looked at his watch — it was six a.m. He began to calculate — they had not come very far the previous day, not more than four or five miles, but they had been rested, warmed and fed, and that was all to the good. He doubted if they could make more than ten miles a day, so that meant another two days to the refinery, but they had enough food for at least four days, so they would be all right even if Aguillar slowed them down. Things seemed immeasurably brighter.

The terrain around them began to change. There were tufts of grass scattered sparsely and an occasional wild flower, and as they went on these signs of life became more frequent. They were able to move faster, too, and O’Hara said to Rohde, ‘The low altitude seems to be doing us good.’

‘That — and acclimatization,’ said Rohde. He smiled grimly. ‘If it does not kill you, you can get used to it — eventually.’

They came to one of the inevitable curves in the road and Rohde stopped and pointed to a silvery thread. ‘That is the quebrada — where the river is. We cross the river and turn north. The refinery is about twenty-four kilometres from the bridge.’

‘What’s the height above sea-level?’ asked O’Hara. He was beginning to take a great interest in the air he breathed — more interest than he had ever taken in his life.

‘About three thousand five hundred metres,’ said Rohde.

Twelve thousand feet, O’Hara thought. That’s much better.

They made good time and decided they would be able to have their midday rest and some hot food on the other side of the bridge. ‘A little over five miles in half a day,’ said Forester, chewing on a piece of jerked beef. ‘That won’t be bad going. But I hope to God that Rohde is right when he says that the refinery is still inhabited.’

‘We will be all right,’ said Rohde. ‘There is a village ten miles the other side of the refinery. Some of us can go on and bring back help if necessary.’

They pushed on and found that suddenly they were in the valley. There was no more snow and the ground was rocky, with more clumps of tough grass. The road ceased to twist and they went past many small ponds. It was appreciably warmer too, and O’Hara found that he could stride out without losing his breath.

We’ve got it made, he thought exultantly.

Soon they heard the roar of the river which carried the meltwater from the snowfields behind them and suddenly they were all gay. Miss Ponsky chattered unceasingly, exclaiming once in her high-pitched voice as she saw a bird, the first living, moving thing they had seen in two days. O’Hara heard Aguillar’s deep chuckle and even Peabody cheered up, recovering from Forester’s tonguelashing.

O’Hara found himself next to Benedetta. She smiled at him and said, ‘Who has the pressure stove? We are going to need it soon.’

He pointed back to where Willis and Armstrong were pulling the travois. ‘I packed it in there,’ he said.

They were very near the river now and he estimated that the road would have one last turn before they came to the bridge. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what’s round the corner.’

They stepped out and round the curve and O’Hara suddenly stopped. There were men and vehicles on the other side of the swollen river and the bridge was down.

A faint babble of voices arose above the river’s roar as they were seen and some of the men on the other side started to run. O’Hara saw a man reach into the back of a truck and lift out a rifle and there was a popping noise as others opened up with pistols.

He lurched violently into Benedetta, sending her flying just as the rifle cracked, and she stumbled into cover, dropping some cans in the middle of the road. As O’Hara fell after her one of the cans suddenly leaped into the air as a bullet hit it, and leaked a tomato bloodiness.