Seven Lies South

15

Beecher carried Lynch up the ladder into the plane and stretched him out on the floor in front of the luggage compartment. The effort took the last of his strength; he was panting and flushed, and his heart hammered at his ribs like a wild prisoner. Lynch was obviously suffering from shock; his breathing was quick and shallow, and his eyes bulged from their sockets like polished globes of glass.

Beecher sent Ilse for water, and covered Lynch with blankets. He tried to remember what else to do; in preflight training he had sat through dozens of first-aid lectures, absorbing enough to pass exams, but never quite visualizing himself as a participant in the life-or-death dramas which their medical officers staged with such bored and impersonal precision. And he had been lucky in combat; he had never got into trouble that a Band-Aid or an aspirin couldn’t get him out of.

Laura had eased herself onto a blanket and was sitting upright with her hands braced behind her against the floor. Her legs stuck out stiff as posts. She was crying weakly.

“Please help me,” she said.

“You’re next.”

“But he’s as good as dead, you fool!”

“He’s still suffering.”

“Do you think I’m dancing a jig! Damn you! You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“Shut up,” Beecher said wearily. “Think of something pleasant. Like lying on the beach in Spain. Or just lying, period.”

“Mike, I’m sorry.” She shook her head frantically. “They made me do it.”

Beecher didn’t bother answering her. He opened up the first-aid kit and looked through it. There were penicillin tablets and sulfa powder, thermometers and scissors, rolls of tape and gauze, and a rack of hypodermic syringes. The syringes were of a disposable model, with slim rubber tanks, and needles protected by sealed plastic sheaths. Each held ten milligrams of morphine. Beecher wasn’t familiar with milligram strengths, but he assumed that each syringe contained a normal dose — something around a quarter of a grain. He rolled back the sleeve of Lynch’s coveralls, removed the sheaths from four syringes, and squeezed a full grain of morphine into the ropy muscles of his biceps. It seemed pointless to worry about the effects of an overdose; the thing was to cut the pain as quickly as possible.

Ilse came back with water in paper cups she had got from the lavatory. Beecher pulverized a half-dozen penicillin tablets and stirred them into a cup of water. He moistened Lynch’s lips and let the water trickle into his mouth. Lynch rolled his head weakly, and some of the liquid spilled down his chin. But his throat muscles contracted involuntarily and Beecher managed to get most of the cupful into him. Then he cut the coveralls away from his throat and shoulder and looked at his burns. They were serious, he knew that much; vivid and ghastly. With the edge of a wet handkerchief he cleaned away the sand and grime, then dusted the burned areas with sulfa powder. There was nothing more he could do for him.

Beecher turned to Laura. In the dim light of the plane, her eyes seemed enormous. “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I didn’t mean what I said.”

“You never do,” Beecher said.

“What’s going to happen to us?”

“They’ll find us. They’ll take us back to Spain.” He glanced at Lynch’s sharp, waxy profile. “Not him, unless they hurry. But that’s a break of sorts. They still use the garrote in Spain, I believe.”

She closed her eyes. “I know I’m a rotten bitch. But good God, haven’t I been through enough?”

“Not yet,” Beecher said. He remembered how she had sat in the truck, leaning forward for a better view of the smoke-filled cockpit. There had been a casual excitement in her eyes, an impersonal relish at the prospect of seeing him roasted alive.

“You’re a filthy sadist,” she cried. “You know I’ve been through a bit of hell. What more do you want from me?” She had told them what had happened while he was getting Lynch into the plane, and wrapping him with blankets.

The landrover had gone over a ridge of lava about five miles from the C-47. Bruno had lost the road in the sandstorm, and they had crashed twenty feet into a rocky draw. Lynch had been scalded by gasoline exploding from the jerry cans strapped to the side of the landrover. Bruno’s skull had been broken against the steering column, but Don Willie had died more spectacularly, thrown clear at first, and then crushed to death by the rolling truck. Laura had escaped with a strained shoulder and gashed knees.

The truck had landed upright, and the gasoline in the cans had burned out without setting off its fuel tanks. She had helped Lynch into the rear of the truck, and had managed to drive it back to the road. There was nothing to do but return to the C-47. She didn’t know where Don Willie had landed his plane. Finding the C-47 gone, she had followed the tracks of its take-off into the desert. The landrover had broken down after twenty miles, and they had covered the last five miles on foot.

Laura wet her cracked lips. “Could I have some water?”

Ilse knelt beside her and held a cup of water to her mouth. Beecher looked through the first-aid kit for the supplies he would need: tape, gauze, the scissors and sulfa powder. When she finished drinking he told her to lie down.

“This will hurt,” he said.

She turned her head to one side, and he saw the slim tendons straining in her throat. “You’ll like that, I imagine,” she said.

The coveralls were glued to the hardened blood about her knees. Beecher cut through the fabric around her thighs, while Ilse opened the buckles which held the trousers snugly about her ankles. Laura screamed when they pulled them from her legs.

Beecher held her until she stopped struggling and began to cry weakly. Then he cleaned the cuts with water, dusted them with sulfa powder. Ilse had prepared strips of gauze and tape. Beecher bandaged Laura’s knees, while Ilse went to get more water.

He looked clinically at his work. The dressings were neat and snug, brilliantly white against her slim blonde legs. “You’ll be all right,” he said, and returned to Lynch. He adjusted the blankets over his chest and checked his pulse; it was faint and slow, but surprisingly steady.

“Mike?”

“Yes?”

Laura had raised herself on one elbow. She pushed stiff blonde hair away from her eyes. “I’m a mess,” she said. “But you were very gentle. I wonder why. Did you enjoy it?” Beecher didn’t bother to answer her. He walked to the doorway of the ship and lit a cigarette.

“Jimmy’s going to die here, isn’t he?” she asked him.

“Maybe we all will. Where were you two heading?”

“We planned to drive down to Dakar. Jimmy had some scheme about going into the interior and working with native politicians. Government people. He said it flattered them to have white advisers.”

“And Bruno and Don Willie would fly back to Mirimar. Was that it?”

“Yes.” She sighed and touched the bandages on her knees. “But nothing worked out, did it?”

“Better luck next time,” he said dryly.

“Listen to me, Mike.” She sat up suddenly and caught his hand. “Give me a chance. No one needs to know I was in on it. Don Willie and Bruno are dead. And Jimmy’s dying. What’s the good of making me pay for their stupid mistakes? Please give me a break. I’ll do anything for you, I swear it. I’ll make you forget everything that’s happened.” She began to weep helplessly, the tears shimmering on her soft eyelashes. “Please help me, Mike.” She clung frantically to his hand. “Please, Mike.”

Beecher pulled his hand free. “Save it,” he said.

She sank back on the blankets and braced her hands behind her on the floor. Her breasts strained against the fabric of her jacket, and the soft evening light gleamed like gold on her slim bare legs. “You’re a fool!” she said, smiling bitterly. She was breathing hard, and her eyes were hard and bright as diamonds in her dirt-streaked face. “You never knew how it could be with me. And you never will.”

Beecher grinned faintly. “You mean you’ve got the best merchandise in the back room? You missed your calling, Laura. You’d have made a great rug merchant.”

She cursed him as he went down the ladder. Beecher walked to the mouth of the clearing and sat down on a rock to finish his cigarette. The harsh glare of the desert was fading with the sun; the rocks had lost their sullen glitter, and the gnarled rows of cactus merged together in a gentle blur of pearl and yellow tones; the earth stretched to infinity, rolling like a calm sea under waves of shimmering light. The savage ridges of lava were streaked with colors of lemon and rose, and their leaping peaks and crests stood out in black relief against the soft white sky.

Beecher heard footsteps behind him, and looked around; Ilse was coming toward him.

“I brought her more water,” she said. “I think she’s feeling better.”

“How do you feel?”

“I don’t know.” She sat beside him on the rock. “Don Willie was my whole life. Now he’s dead, and I don’t feel anything at all. It’s strange.”

“If he’d lived, he’d have been caught.”

“Yes. I’m relieved he doesn’t have that to suffer. But about myself, I feel nothing. It’s like being in a cage with the door open. Staring at freedom and doing nothing about it.”

As the shadows deepened, the wind began to stir, and the sand skittered dryly over the baking earth. Beecher took her arm and they walked back to the plane. The ground was deceptively smooth in the growing darkness, and she accepted his help gratefully.

“Will they look for us in the night?” she asked him.

Beecher glanced at the heavy gray sky. The wind was picking up and the palm trees were twisting under its weight. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Let’s get inside.”