The Last Place God Made

FIFTEEN

There was still the radio, but according to Avila, he had tried to raise Landro on several occasions since he'd last had contact at noon and I knew Figueiredo had been trying to get through to him which meant something was wrong with the damn thing.

I did what I could considering my limited technical knowledge, unscrewed the top and checked that no wires were loose and that all valves fitted tightly which was very definitely my limit. I left Avila to keep trying and went and sat with my back against the wall beside Joanna Martin who was making coffee on a spirit stove.

Sister Maria Teresa knelt at the altar in prayer. ‘Still at it, is she?’ I said. ‘Faith unshaken.’

Joanna gave me a cigarette and sat back, waiting for the water to boil. ‘What happened, Neil?’

‘To me?’ I said. ‘Oh, I jumped ship as the Navy say, before I got to where they were taking me.’

‘Won't they be after you — the authorities, I mean?’

‘Not any more. You see, strange to relate, I didn't do it. I was framed. Isn't that what Cagney's always saying in those gangster movies?’

She nodded slowly. ‘I think I knew from the beginning. It never did make any kind of sense.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ I said. ‘You and Mannie both. I could have done with it a little earlier, mind you, but that's all water under the bridge.’

‘And Sam?’

‘Poured out the whole story in front of Figueiredo and his wife and Mannie in the hotel bar earlier this afternoon when I confronted him. So drunk he didn't know what he was doing. He's finished, Joanna.’

She poured coffee into a mug and handed it to me. ‘I think he was finished a long, long time ago, Neil.’

She sat there, sitting on her heels, looking genuinely sad, a different sort of person altogether from the woman I was accustomed to. Somehow it seemed the right moment to break it to her.

‘I've got something for you.’ I took the identity disc on its chain from my pocket and held it out to her.

The skin of her face tightened visibly before my eyes. She started to tremble. ‘Anna?’ she said hoarsely.

I nodded. ‘I found what was left of her and her friend in a canoe on the riverbank. They must have been killed in the original attack after all and drifted down-river.’

‘Thank God,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, thank God.’

She reached out for the disc and chain, got to her feet and fled to the other end of the church. Sister Maria Teresa turned to meet her and I saw Joanna hold out the identity disc to her.

At the same moment Avila called to me urgently. ‘I'm getting something. Come quickly.’

He kept the headphones on and turned up the speaker for me. We all heard Figueiredo at once quite clearly in spite of some static.

‘Santa Helena, are you receiving me?’

‘Mallory here,’ I said. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘I hear you clearly, Senhor Mallory. How are things?’

‘As bad as they can be. The Huna were waiting for me when I landed and set fire to the plane. I'm in the church at the mission now, with Avila and the two women. We're completely stranded. No boats.’

‘Mother of God.’ I could almost see him crossing himself.

‘We've only one hope,’ I said. ‘You'll have to raise some sort of volunteer force and come up-river in that launch of yours. We'll try to hang on till you get here.’

‘But even if I managed to find men willing to accompany me, it would take us ten or twelve hours to get there.’

‘I know. You'll just have to do the best you can.’

There was more from his end, but so drowned in static that I couldn't make any sense out of it and after a while I lost him altogether. When I turned I found that Joanna and Sister Maria Teresa had joined Avila. They all looked roughly the same, strained, anxious, afraid. Even Sister Maria Teresa had lost her customary expression of quiet joy.

‘What happens now, Neil?’ Joanna said. ‘You'd better tell us the worst.’

‘You heard most of it. I've asked Figueiredo to try and raise a few men and attempt to break through to us in the government launch. At least twelve hours if everything goes right for him. To be perfectly frank, my own feeling is we'd be lucky to see them before dawn tomorrow.’

Avila laughed harshly. ‘A miracle if they even started, senhor. You think they are heroes in Landro, to come looking for a Huna arrow in the back?’

‘You came, Senhor Avila,’ Sister Maria Teresa said.

‘For money, Sister,’ he told her. ‘Because you paid well and in the end what has it brought me? Only death.’

I stood by the window, peering out through the half-open shutter across the compound, past the hospital and the bungalows to the edge of the forest, dark in the evening light. The sun was a smear of orange beyond the trees and the drum throbbed monotonously.

Joanna Martin leaned against the wall beside me smoking a cigarette. In the distance, voices drifted on the evening air, mingling with the drumming, an eerie sound.

‘Why are they singing?’ she asked.

‘To prepare themselves for death. It's what they call a courage chant. It means they'll have a go at us sooner or later, but there's a lot of ritual to be gone through beforehand.’

Sister Maria Teresa moved out of the shadows. ‘Are you saying they welcome death, Mr Mallory?’

‘The only way for a warrior to die, Sister. As I told you once before, death and life are all part of a greater whole for these people.’

Before she could reply, there was a sudden exclamation from Avila who was sitting at the radio. ‘I think I've got Figueiredo again.’

He turned up the speaker and the static was tremendous. I crouched beside it, aware of the voice behind all that interference, trying to make some sense of it all. Quite suddenly it stopped, static and all and there was an uncanny quiet. Avila turned to me, removing the headphones slowly.

‘Could you get any of that?’ I said.

‘Only a few words, senhor, and they made no sense at all.’

‘What were they?’

‘He said that Captain Hannah was on his way.’

‘But that's impossible,’ I said. ‘You must have got it wrong.’

Outside, the drum stopped beating.

The church was a place of shadows now. There was a lantern by the radio and the candles at the other end which Sister Maria Teresa had lit.

It was completely dark outside, just the faint line of the trees discernible against the night sky. There wasn't a sound out there. It was all quite still.

A jaguar coughed somewhere in the distance. Avila said, ‘Was that for real, senhor?’

‘I don't know. It could be some sort of signal.’

As long as we could keep them out we stood a chance. We were both well armed. There was a rifle for Joanna Martin and a couple of spares, laid out on a table next to the radio to hand for any emergency. But nothing stirred in all that silent world. The only sound was the faint crackle of the radio which Avila had left on with the speaker turned up to full power.

The light up at the altar was very dim now. The Holy Mother seemed to float out of the darkness bathed in a soft white light and Sister Maria Teresa's voice in prayer was a quiet murmur. It was all very peaceful.

Something rattled on the roof above my head. As I glanced up a Huna swung in through one of the upper windows, poised on the sill, the light glistening on his ochre-painted body, then jumped with a cry like a soul in torment, a machete ready in his right hand.

I gave him a full burst from the Thompson, driving him back against the wall. Joanna screamed, I was aware of Avila cursing savagely as he worked the lever of his old carbine, pumping bullet after bullet into another Huna who had dropped in on his side.

I moved to help him, Joanna screamed again and I turned, too late, to meet the new threat. The Thompson gun was knocked from my hand, I went down in a tangle of flying limbs, aware of the stink of that ochre-painted body, slippery with sweat, the machete raised to strike.

I got a hand to his wrist and planted an elbow solidly in the gaping mouth. God, but he was strong, muscles like iron as with most forest Indians. Stronger than I was. Suddenly his face was very close, the pressure too much for me. The end of things and the muzzle of a rifle jabbed against the side of his head, the top of his skull disintegrated, his body jumped to one side.

Joanna Martin backed away clutching her rifle, horror on her face. Beyond her, Sister Maria Teresa turned and a black wraith dropped from the shadows above her, landing in front of the altar. I grabbed for the Thompson, already too late and Avila shot him through the head.

He was gasping for breath, the sound of it hoarse in the silence as he feverishly reloaded his carbine. ‘Maybe some more on the roof, eh, senhor?’

‘I hope not,’ I said. ‘We can't take much of this. Cover me and I'll take a look.’

I rammed a fresh clip into the Thompson, opened the door and slipped outside. I ran some little distance away, turned and raked the roof with a long burst, ran to the other side and repeated the performance. There was no response — not even from the forest and I went back inside.

Sister Maria Teresa was on her knees again, prayers for the dead from what I could make out. Joanna had slumped down against the wall. I dropped to one knee beside her.

‘You were pretty good in there. Thanks.’

She smiled wanly. ‘I'd rather do it on Stage 6 at M.G.M. any day.’

There was a sudden crackling over the loudspeaker, a familiar voice sounded harsh and clear. ‘This is Hannah calling Mallory! This is Hannah calling Mallory! Are you receiving me?’

I was at the mike in an instant and switched over. ‘I hear you, Sam, loud and clear. Where are you?’

‘About five minutes away down-river if my night navigation's anything like as brilliant as it used to be.’

‘In the Bristol?’

‘That's it, kid, just like old times.’

There was something different in his voice, something I'd never heard before. A kind of joy, if you like, although I know that sounds absurd.

‘I'm going to try and land on that big sandbank in the middle of the river. The one directly in front of the jetty, but I'm going to need some light on the situation.’

‘What do you suggest?’

‘Hell, I don't know. What about setting fire to the bloody place?’

I glanced at Avila. He nodded. I said, ‘Okay, Sam, we're on our way.’

His voice crackled back sharply, ‘Just one thing, kid. I can squeeze two in the observer's cockpit — no more. That means you and Avila lose out.’

‘I came floating down-river once,’ I said. ‘I can do it again.’

But there was no hope of that. I knew it and so did Joanna Martin. She put a hand on my sleeve and I straightened. ‘Neil, there must be a way. There's got to be.’

It was Avila who answered for me. ‘If we don't go out now, senhor, there is no point in going at all.’

There was a can of paraffin for the lantern in the vestry. I spilled some on the floor and ran a trail out to the front door. Avila slung his carbine over his shoulder, turned down the storm lantern and held it under his jacket. I opened the door and he slipped out into the darkness, making for the bungalows.

I gave him a moment, then went out myself, the can of paraffin in one hand, the Thompson in the other, my target, the hospital and administrative building.

Somewhere quite close at hand as if from nowhere, there was the drone of the Bristol's engine. Time was running out. Of the Huna there was no sign. It was as if they had never existed. The door into the hospital was open. I unscrewed the cap of the can, splashed paraffin inside, then moved back out and flung the rest up over the roof.

On the other side of the compound, flames flowered in the night as one of the bungalows started to burn. I saw Avila quite clearly running to the next one, a burning brand in one hand, reaching up to touch the thatch.

I struck a match, dropped it into the entrance and jumped back hurriedly as a line of flames raced across the floor. With a sudden whoof and a kind of minor explosion, it broke through to the roof.

And then all hell broke loose. Those shrill Huna voices buzzed angrily over there in the forest like bees disturbed in the hive. They burst out in a ragged line, I loosed off a long burst, turned and ran towards the church as the arrows started to hum.

Avila was on a converging course. I heard him cry out, was aware, out of the corner of my eye, that he had stumbled. He kept on running for a while, then pitched on his face a few feet away from the church steps, an arrow in his back under the left shoulder blade.

I turned, dropping to one knee and emptied the magazine in a wide arc across the compound and yet there was nothing to see. Only the voices crying shrilly beyond the flames, the occasional arrow curving through the smoke.

Avila was hauling himself painfully up the steps, Joanna already had the door open. I took him by the collar and dragged him inside, kicking the door shut behind me. I rammed home the bolt and when I turned, Sister Maria Teresa was on her knees beside him, trying to examine the wound. He turned over, snapping the shaft. There was blood on his mouth. He pushed her away violently and reached a hand out to me.

I dropped to one knee beside him. He said, ‘Maybe you can still make it, senhor. Torch the church and run for it. God won't mind.’ His other hand groped in his jacket pocket, came out clutching a small linen bag. ‘Have a drink on me, my friend. Good luck.’

And then he brought up more blood than I would have thought possible and lay still.

Hannah's voice boomed over the speaker. ‘Beautiful, kid, just beautiful. What a show. Are you getting this?’

I reached for the mike. ‘Loud and clear, Sam. Avila just bought it. I'm bringing the women out now.’

‘Wait on the bank and don't cross till I'm down,’ he said. ‘I've got the other Thompson with me. I'll give you covering fire. Christ, I wish I'd a couple of Vickers on this thing. I'd give the bastards something to remember.’ He laughed out loud. ‘I'll be seeing you, kid.’

Sister Maria Teresa was on her knees beside Avila, lips moving in prayer. I dragged her up roughly. ‘No time for that now. We'll leave by the vestry door. Once you're outside run for the river and don't look back. And I'd get that habit off if I were you, Sister, unless you want to drown.’

She seemed dazed as if not understanding what was happening, her mind, I think, temporarily rejecting the terrible reality. Joanna took charge then, literally tearing the habit off her, turning her within seconds to another person entirely. A small, frail woman in a cotton shift with iron-grey hair close-cropped to the head.

I hustled them into the vestry, opened the door cautiously and peered out. The Bristol was very close now, circling somewhere overhead. The river was perhaps sixty or seventy yards away.

I pushed them out into the darkness, struck a match, dropped it into the pool of paraffin I had left earlier. Flames roared across the floor into the church. I had a final glimpse of the altar, the Holy Mother standing above it, the Child in her arms, a symbol of something surely, then I turned and ran.

I slid down the bank to join Joanna and Sister Maria Teresa in the shallows below. Flames danced in the dark waters, smoke drifted across in a billowing cloud, a scene from hell.

I could not hear the Huna for there was only one sound then, the roaring of the engine as the Bristol came in low. And suddenly he was there, bursting out of the smoke a hundred feet above the river, the Black Baron coming in for his last show.

It needed a genius and there was one on hand that night. He judged the landing with absolute perfection, his wheels touched down at the very ultimate tip of the sandbank, giving himself the whole two-hundred-yard length to pull up in.

He rushed past, water spraying up from the wheels in two great waves and I saw him clearly, the black leather helmet, the goggles, white scarf streaming out behind him.

I shoved the women out into the water, held the Thompson over my head and went after them. It wasn't particularly deep, four or five feet at the most, but the current was strong and it was taking them all their time to force a passage.

Hannah was already taxing back to the other end of the sandbank. He turned into the wind, ready for take-off, and then the engine cut. Out of the night behind us, voices lifted high above the flames, the Huna in full cry.

Hannah was out of the Bristol now, standing at the edge of the sandbank, firing his Thompson gun across the channel. I didn't look back, I had other things on my mind. Sister Maria Teresa slipped sideways, caught by the current. I flung myself forward getting a hand to her just in time, another to Joanna. For a moment things hung in the balance, the current pushing against us and then we were ploughing through the shallows and up on to the sandbank.

There must have been a hundred Huna at least on the river-bank, outlined clearly against the flames. At that distance most of their arrows were falling short, but already some were sliding down into the water.

When the Thompson emptied, he slipped in another magazine and commenced firing again. I gave Joanna a leg up into the observer's cockpit, then shoved Sister Maria Teresa up after her.

Hannah backed up to join me. ‘Better get in and get this thing started, kid.’

‘What about you?’

‘Can you turn that prop on your own?’

There was no argument there. I climbed up into the cockpit and made ready to go. He emptied the Thompson gun at the dark line now halfway across the channel, then dropped it to the sand and ran round to the front of the machine.

‘Ready,’ he yelled.

I nodded and wound the starting magneto. He heaved on the propeller. The engine roared into life. Hannah jumped to one side.

I leaned out of the cockpit. ‘The wing,’ I cried. ‘Get on the wing.’

He waved, ducked under the lower port wing and flung himself across it, grasping the leading edge with his gloved hands. There was a chance, just a chance that it might work.

I thrust the throttle open and started down the sandbank as the first of the Huna came up out of the water. Fifty or sixty yards and I had the tail up, but that was going to be all for the drag from his body was too much to take. I knew it and so did he — he was too good a pilot not to.

One moment he was there, the next he had gone, releasing his grip on the leading edge, sliding back to the sand. The Bristol seemed to leap forward, I pulled the stick back and we lifted off.

I had time for one quick glance over my shoulder. He had got to his feet, was standing, feet apart facing them, firing his automatic coolly.

And then the dark wave rolled over him like the tide covering the shore.