The Vivero Letter

I

There was an odd quality in the light that morning. In spite of the high cloud which moved fast in the sky everything was crystal clear, and the usual heat haze, which lay over the forest even at dawn, was gone. The sun was just rising and there was a lurid and unhealthy yellow tinge to the sky, and a slight breeze from the west bent the branches of the trees beyond the cleared ruins of Uaxuanoc.

As I focused the glasses on Gatt I found to my disgust that my hands were trembling, and I had to rest the glasses on the window-sill to prevent the image dancing uncontrollably. Gatt was taking his time. He strolled along as unconcernedly as though he were taking his morning constitutional in a city park, and stopped occasionally to look about at the uncovered mounds. He was dressed as nattily as he had been when he flew into Camp One, and I even saw the tiny point of whiteness that was a handkerchief in his breast pocket.

Momentarily I ignored him and swept the glasses around the perimeter of the ruins. No one else showed up and it looked as though Gatt was alone, a deceptive assumption it would be wise to ignore. I handed the glasses to Rudetsky, who had come into the hut. He raised them to his eyes, and said, ‘Is that the guy?’

‘That’s Gatt, all right.’

He grunted. ‘Taking his time. What the hell is he doing? Picking flowers?’

Gatt had bent down and was groping at something on the ground. I said, ‘He’ll be here in five minutes. I’m going out there to talk to him.’

‘That’s taking a risk.’

‘It has to be done — and I’d rather do it out there than back here. Can anyone use that rifle we’ve got?’

‘I’m not too bad,’ said Fowler.

‘Not too bad — hell!’ rumbled Rudetsky. ‘He was a marksman in Korea.’

‘That’s good enough for me,’ I said with an attempt at a grin. ‘Keep your sights on him, and if he looks like pulling a fast one on me, let him have it.’

Fowler picked up the rifle and examined the sights. ‘Don’t go too far away,’ he said. ‘And keep from between me and Gatt.’

I walked to the door of the hut ‘Everyone else keep out of sight,’ I said, and stepped outside, feeling like a condemned man on his way to the gallows. I walked towards Gatt across the cleared ground, feeling very vulnerable and uncomfortably aware that I was probably framed in someone’s rifle sights. Obeying Fowler’s instructions, I walked slowly so Gatt and I would meet a little more than two hundred yards from the hut, and I veered a little to give Fowler his open field of fire.

Gatt had lit a cigar and, as he approached, he raised his elegant Panama hat politely. ‘Ah, Mr. Wheale; lovely morning, isn’t it?’ I wasn’t in the mood for cat-and-mouse chitchat so I said nothing. He shrugged, and said, ‘Is Professor Fallon available?’

‘No,’ I said shortly.

He nodded understandingly. ‘Ah, well! You know what I’ve come for, of course.’ It wasn’t a question, but a flat statement.

‘You won’t get it,’ I said equally flatly.

‘Oh, I will,’ he said with certainty. ‘I will.’ He examined the ash on the end of his cigar. ‘I take it that you are doing the talking for Fallon. I’m surprised at that — I really am. I’d have thought he was man enough to do his own talking, but I guess he’s soft inside like most people. But let’s get down to it. You’ve pulled a lot of stuff out of that cenote. I want it. It’s as simple as that. If you let me have it without trouble, there’ll be no trouble from me.’

‘You won’t harm us in any way?’ I queried.

‘You just walk out of here,’ he assured me.

‘What guarantees do I have of that?’

He spread his hands and looked at me with honesty shining in his eyes. ‘My word on it.’

I laughed out loud. ‘Nothing doing, Gatt. I’m not that stupid.’

For the first time anger showed in him and there was a naked, feral gleam in his eyes. ‘Now, get this straight, Wheale. I’m coming in to take that loot, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me. You do it peaceably or not — it’s your choice.’

I caught a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye and turned my head. Some figures in white were emerging from the forest slowly; they were strung out in a straggling line and they carried rifles. I swung my head around to the other side and saw more armed men coming across from the forest.

Clearly the time had come to put some pressure on Gatt. I felt in my shirt pocket for cigarettes, lit one and casually tossed the matchbox up and down in my hand. ‘There’s a rifle sighted on you, Gatt,’ I said. ‘One wrong move and you’re a dead man.’

He smiled thinly. ‘You’re under a gun, too. I’m not a fool.’

I tossed the matchbox up and down, and kept it going. ‘I’ve arranged a signal,’ I said: ‘If I drop this matchbox, you get a bullet. Now, if those men out there move ten more yards, I drop this box.’

He looked at me with the faintest shadow of uncertainty. ‘You’re bluffing,’ he said. ‘You’d be a dead man, too.’

‘Try me’ I invited. ‘There’s a difference between you and me. I don’t particularly care whether I live or die, and I’m betting that you do. The stakes are high in this game, Gatt — and those men have only five more yards to go. You had my brother killed, remember! I’m willing to pay a lot for his life.’

Gatt looked at the matchbox with fascination as it went up into the air, and winced involuntarily as I fumbled the next catch. I was running a colossal bluff and to make it stick I had to impress him with an appearance of ruthlessness. I tossed the box again. ‘Three more yards and neither of us will have to worry any more about the treasure of Uaxuanoc.’

He broke! ‘All right; it’s a stand-off,’ he said hoarsely, and lifted both arms in the air and waved them. The line of men drifted to a halt and then turned to go back into the forest. As I watched them go I tossed the matchbox again, and Gatt said irritably, ‘For Christ’s sake, stop doing that!’

I grinned at him and caught the box, but still held it in my fingers. There was a slight film of sweat on his forehead although the heat of the day had not yet started. ‘I’d hate to play poker with you,’ he said at last.

‘That’s a game I haven’t tried.’

He gave a gusty sigh of exasperation. ‘Listen, Wheale: you don’t know the game you’re in. I’ve had tabs on Fallon right from the beginning. Christ, I laughed back there at your airstrip when you all played the innocent. You really thought you were fooling me, didn’t you? Hell, I knew everything you did and everything you thought — I didn’t give a damn what action you took. And I’ve had that fool Harris chasing all over Mexico. You see, it’s all come down to one thing, one sharp point — I’m here and I’m on top. Now, what about it?’

‘You must have had some help,’ I said.

‘Didn’t you know?’ he said in surprise, and began to laugh. ‘Jesus! I had that damned fool, Halstead. He came to me back in Mexico City and made a deal. A very eager guy, Halstead; he didn’t want to share this city with Fallon — so we made the deal. He could have the city and I’d pick up the gold and get rid of Fallon for him.’ The corners of his mouth downturned in savage contempt. ‘The guy was too chicken to do his own killing.’

So it had been Halstead just as Pat Harris suspected and when we found Uaxuanoc he had tipped off Gatt. No wonder Pat had been running round in circles when Gatt knew our every move. It made me sick to realize how ambition could so corrupt a man that he would throw in his lot with a man like Gatt. The funny part about it was that Halstead had meant to cheat Gatt all along; he had never expected anything of value to turn up for Gatt to get his hands on.

I said in a hard voice, ‘Where is Halstead now?’

‘Oh, the guy’s dead’ said Gatt casually. ‘When you chased him out my chicleros got a little trigger-happy and he caught one.’ He grinned. ‘Did I save you the trouble, Wheale?’

I ignored that. ‘You’re wasting your time here. You’re welcome to come and take your loot but you’ll get wet doing it.’

‘Not me,’ said Gatt. ‘You! Oh, I know what you’ve done with it. Halstead didn’t die right away and he told me where the stuff was — after a bit of persuasion. It took time or I’d have been here sooner before you put the stuff in the water. But it doesn’t matter, not really.’ His voice was calm and soft and infinitely menacing. ‘You can get it back, Wheale; you’re a diver, and so is that Halstead bitch. You’ll swim down and get it back for me.’

‘You don’t know much about deep diving. It’s not a five-minute job.’

He made a slashing motion with his hand. ‘But you’ll do it all the same.’

‘I don’t see how you can make me.’

‘Don’t you? You’ll learn.’ His smile was terrible. ‘Let’s say I get hold of Fallon and go to work on him, hey? You’ll watch what I do to him and then you’ll go down. I promise you.’ He dropped the stub of his cigar and tapped me on the chest. ‘You were right when you said there’s a difference between you and me. I’m a hard man, Wheale; and you just think you’re hard. You’ve been putting up a good imitation lately and you had me fooled, but you’re like all the rest of the common punks in the world — soft in the middle, like Fallon. When I start taking Fallon apart slowly — or the girl, maybe — or that big ox, Rudetsky — then you’ll dive. See what I mean?’

I saw. I saw that this man used cruelty as a tool. He had no human feeling himself but knew enough to manipulate the feelings of others. If I really had made an arrangement with Fowler I’d have dropped that matchbox there and then and taken my chance on being killed as long as he was eliminated. And I cursed my thoughtlessness in not bringing a pistol to shoot the bastard with.

I caught my breath and strove to speak evenly. ‘In that case you must be careful not to kill me,’ I said. ‘You’ve heard of the goose and the golden eggs.’

His lips curled back from his teeth. ‘You’ll wish I had killed you,’ he promised. ‘You really will.’ He turned and strode away and I went back to the hut — fast.

I tumbled in the door and yelled, ‘Shoot the bastard!’ I was in a blind rage.

‘No good,’ said Fowler from the window. ‘He ducked for cover.’

‘What gives?’ asked Rudetsky.

‘He’s mad — staring stone mad! We’ve balked him and he’s done his nut. He can’t get his loot so he is going to take it out in blood.’ I thought of that other madman who had shouted crazily, ‘Weltmacht oder Niedergang!’ Like Hitler, Gatt had blown his top completely and was ready to ruin us and himself out of angry spite. He had gone beyond reason and saw the world through the redness of blood.

Rudetsky and Fowler looked at me in silence, then Rudetsky took a deep breath. ‘Makes no difference, I guess. We knew he’d have to kill us, anyway.’

‘He’ll be whipping up an attack any minute,’ I said. ‘Get everyone back in the hut by the cenote.’

Rudetsky thrust a revolver into my hand. ‘All you gotta do is pull the trigger.’

I took the gun although I didn’t know if I could use it effectively and we left the hut at a dead run. We had only got halfway to the cenote when there was a rattle of rifle fire and bits of soil fountained up from the ground. ‘Spread out!’ yelled Rudetsky, and turned sharply to cannon into me. He bounced off and we both dived for cover behind a hut.

A few more shots popped off, and I said, ‘Where the hell are they?’

Rudetsky’s chest heaved. ‘Somewhere out front.’

Gatt’s men must have gone on to the attack as soon as Gatt had gone into cover, probably by prearranged signal. Shots were popping off from all around like something in a Western movie and it was difficult to tell precisely where the attack was coming from. I saw Fowler, who was crouched behind an abandoned packing case on the other side of the clearing, suddenly run in the peculiar skittering movement of the experienced soldier. Bullets kicked up dust around him but he wasn’t hit and he disappeared from sight behind a hut.

‘We’ve gotta get outa here,’ said Rudetsky rapidly. His face was showing strain. ‘Back to the hut.’

He meant the hut by the cenote and I could see his point. There wasn’t any use preparing a hut against attack and then being caught in the open. I hoped the others had had the sense to retreat there as soon as they heard the first shots. I looked back and cursed Rudetsky’s neat and tidy mind — he had built the camp with a wide and open street which was now raked with bullets and offered no cover.

I said, ‘We’d better split up, Joe; two targets are more difficult than one.’

‘You go first’ he said jerkily. ‘I might be able to cover you.’

This was no time to argue so I ran for it, back to the hut behind us. I was about two yards from it when a chiclero skidded around the corner from an unexpected direction. He was as surprised as I was because he literally ran on to the gun which I held forward so that the muzzle was jammed into his stomach.

I pulled the trigger and my arm jolted convulsively. It was as though a great hand plucked the chiclero off his feet and he was flung away and fell with all limbs awry. I dithered a bit with my heart turning somersaults in my chest before I recovered enough from the shock to bolt through the doorway of the hut. I leaned against the wall for a moment gasping for breath and with the looseness of fear in my bowels, then I turned and looked cautiously through the window. Rudetsky was gone — he must have made his break immediately after I had moved.

I looked at the revolver; it had been fully loaded and there were now five shots left. Those damned thugs seemed to be coming from all directions. The man I had shot had come from behind — he had apparently come up from the cenote. I didn’t like the implications of that.

I was wondering what to do when the decision was taken from me. The back door of the hut crashed open under the impact of a booted foot. I jerked up my head and saw, framed in the doorway, a chiclero just in the act of squeezing off a shot at me with a rifle. Time seemed frozen and I stood there paralysed before I made an attempt at lifting the revolver, and even as my arm moved I knew I was too late.

The chiclero seemed to flicker — that movement you see in an old film when a couple of frames have been cut from the action producing a sudden displacement of an actor. The side of his jaw disappeared and the lower half of his face was replaced by a bloody mask. He uttered a bubbling scream, clapped his hands to his face and staggered sideways, dropping his rifle on the threshold with a clatter. I don’t know who shot him; it could have been Fowler or Rudetsky, or even one of his own side — the bullets were flying thick enough.

But I wasted no time wondering about it. I dived forward and went through that doorway at a running crouch and snatched for the fallen rifle as I went. Nobody shot at me as I scurried hell for leather, angling to the left towards the edge of camp. I approached the hut by the cenote at a tangent, having arrived by a circuitous route, and I could not tell if the door was open or even if there was anyone inside. But I did see Fowler make a run for it from the front.

He nearly made it, too, but a man appeared from out of nowhere — not a chiclero but one of Gatt’s elegant thugs who carried what at first I thought was a sub-machine-gun. Fowler was no more than six paces from the hut when the gangster fired and his gun erupted in a peculiar double booom. Fowler was hit by both charges of the cut-down shotgun and was thrown sideways to fall in a crumpled heap.

I took a snap shot at his killer with no great hope of success and then made a rush for the door of the hut. A bullet chipped splinters from the door frame just by my head, and one of them drove into my cheek as I tumbled in. Then someone slammed the door shut.

When I looked out again I saw it was useless to do anything for Fowler. His body was quivering from time to time as bullets hit it. They were using him for target practice.

II

The rifle fire clattered to a desultory stop and I looked around the hut. Fallon was clutching a shotgun and crouched under a window; Smith was by the door with a pistol in his hand — it was evidently he who had shut it. Katherine was lying on the floor sobbing convulsively. There was no one else.

When I spoke my voice sounded as strange as though it came from someone else. ‘Rudetsky?’

Fallon turned his head to look at me, then shook it slowly. There was pain in his eyes.

‘Then he won’t be coming,’ I said harshly.

‘Jesus!’ said Smith. His voice was trembling. ‘They killed Fowler. They shot him.’

A voice — a big voice boomed from outside. It was Gatt, and he was evidently using some sort of portable loudhailer. ‘Wheale! Can you hear me, Wheale?’

I opened my mouth, and then shut it firmly. To argue with Gatt — to try to reason with him — would be useless. It would be like arguing against an elemental force, like trying to deflect a lightning bolt by quoting a syllogism. Fallon and I looked at each other along the length of the hut in silence.

‘I know you’re there, Wheale,’ came the big shout. ‘I saw you go in the hut. Are you ready to make a deal?’

I compressed my lips. Fallon said creakily, ‘A deal! Did he mention a deal?’

‘Not the kind you’d appreciate,’ I said grimly.

‘I’m sorry that guy was killed,’ shouted Gatt. ‘But you’re still alive, Wheale. I could have killed you right there by the door, but I didn’t. You know why.’

Smith jerked his head and looked at me with narrowed eyes. There was a question in them which he didn’t put into words. I closed my hand tighter round the butt of the revolver and stared him down until his glance slid away.

‘I’ve got another guy here,’ boomed Gatt. ‘Big Joe Rudetsky. Are you prepared to deal?’

I knew very well what he meant. I moistened my lips and shouted, ‘Produce him alive — and I might.’

There was a long pause. I didn’t know what I’d do if he were still alive and Gatt carried out his threats. Whatever I did would be useless. It would mean putting the four of us into Gatt’s hands and giving him all the aces. And he’d kill us all in the end, anyway. But if he produced Joe Rudetsky and began to torture him, could I withstand it? I didn’t know.

Gatt laughed. ‘You’re smart, Wheale. You sure are smart. But not tough enough. Is Fallon still alive?’

I motioned to Fallon to keep quiet.

‘Oh, I suppose he’s there — with maybe one or two more. I’ll leave them to argue with you, Wheale, and maybe you’ll be ready to make a deal. I’ll give you one hour — and no more. I don’t think you’ll be tough enough for that, Wheale.’

We stood there, quite still, for two full minutes and he said nothing more. I was thankful for that because he’d already said enough — I could see it in Smith’s eyes. I looked at my watch and realized with a sense of shock that it was only seven o’clock in the morning. Less than fifteen minutes earlier I’d been talking to Gatt outside the camp. His attack had come with a ruthless suddenness.

Fallon eased himself down until he was sitting on the floor. He laid the shotgun aside carefully. ‘What’s the deal?’ he asked, looking at his feet. The voice was that of an old man.

I paid far less attention to Fallon than I did to Smith. Smith held an automatic pistol; he held it loosely enough, but he could still be dangerous. ‘Yeah, what’s this deal?’ he echoed.

‘There’s no deal,’ I said shortly.

Smith jerked his head towards the window. ‘That guy says there could be.’

‘I don’t think you’d like to hear it,’ I said coldly.

I saw his gun hand tighten up and I lifted my revolver. He wasn’t standing very far away but I don’t even know if I could have hit him. They tell me that revolvers are very inaccurate in inexperienced hands. Still, Smith wasn’t to know I wasn’t a gunman. I said, ‘Let’s all kill each other and save Gatt the trouble.’

He looked at the gun in my hand which was pointed at his stomach. ‘I just want to know about this deal,’ he said steadily.

‘All right; I’ll tell you — but put the gun down first. It makes me uneasy.’

The thoughts that chased through Smith’s mind were reflected on his face and were as clear as though he had spoken them, but at last he made his decision, stooped and laid the pistol at his feet. I relaxed and put my revolver on the table, and the tension eased. Smith said, ‘I guess, we’re all jumpy.’ It was an apology of sorts.

Fallon was still regarding the tips of his bush boots as though they were the most important things in the world. He said quietly, ‘Who does Gatt want?’

‘He wants me,’ I said. ‘He wants me to go down and retrieve the loot.’

‘I thought he might. What happened to Rudetsky?’

‘He’s dead. He’s lucky.’

Smith hissed in a sudden intake of breath. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Gatt’s way of persuading me to dive isn’t pretty. He’ll take any of us — you, Fallon or Mr.s Halstead, it doesn’t matter — and torture him to put pressure on me. He’s quite capable of doing it, and I think he’d relish using his imagination on a job like that’ I found myself looking at it in a detached manner. ‘He might burn your feet off with a blow lamp; he might chop you up joint by joint while you’re still alive; he might — well, there’s no end to that kind of thing.’

Smith had averted his face. He jerked nervously. ‘And you’d let him do it? Just for the sake of a few lousy trinkets?’

‘I couldn’t stop him,’ I said. ‘That’s why I’m glad Rudetsky and Fowler are dead. You see, we got rid of the air bottles, and diving without them would be bloody difficult. All we have are a few charged aqualung bottles — the big bottles are at the bottom of the cenote. If you think I’m going to dive in those conditions, with someone screaming in my ears every time I come up, then you’re even crazier than Gatt.’

Smith whirled on Fallon. ‘You got me into this, you crazy old man. You had no right — do you hear me? You had no right.’ His face collapsed into grief. ‘Jesus, how am I going to get out of this? I don’t wanna be tortured.’ His voice shook with a passion of self-pity and tears streamed from his eyes. ‘Good Christ, I don’t want to die!’ he wept.

It was pitiful to watch him. He was disintegrating as a man. Gatt knew very well how to put pressure on a man’s innermost core, and the hour’s grace he had given us was not intended to be a relief. It was the most sadistic thing he had done and he was winning. Katherine had collapsed; Fallon was eaten up with cancer and self-recrimination, and Smith had the pith taken out of him by the fear of death by torture.

I was all knotted up inside, tormented by my sheer impotence to do anything about it. I wanted to strike out and tear and smash — I wanted to get at Gatt and tear his bloody heart out. I couldn’t and the sense of helplessness was killing me.

Smith looked up craftily. ‘I know what we’ll do,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll give him Fallon. Fallon got us into this, and he’d like to have Fallon, wouldn’t he?’ There was a mad gleam in his eyes. ‘He could do things with Fallon — and he’d leave us alone. We’d be all right then, wouldn’t we?’

‘Shut up!’ I yelled, and then caught hold of myself. This was what Gatt wanted — to break us down with a calculated cold cruelty. I pushed down the temptation to take out my frustrations on Smith with an awful violence, and spoke, trying to keep my voice firm and level. ‘Now, you look here, Smith. We’re all going to die, and we can die by torture or by a bullet. I know which I prefer, so I’m going to fight Gatt and I’m going to do my best to kill him.’

Smith looked at me with hatred. ‘It’s all right for you. He’s not going to torture you. You’re safe.’

The ridiculousness of what he’d just said suddenly struck me, and I began to laugh hysterically. All the pent-up emotions suddenly welled up in laughter, and I laughed uncontrollably. ‘Safe!’ I cried. ‘My God, but that’s funny!’ I laughed until the tears came and there was a pain in my chest. ‘Oh, safe!’

The madness in Smith’s eyes was replaced by a look of astonishment and then he caught on and a giggle escaped him, to be followed by a more normal chuckle. Then we both dissolved in gales of laughter. It was hysterical and it hurt in the end, but it did us good, and when the emotional spasm was over I felt purged and Smith was no longer on the verge of madness.

Even Fallon had a grim smile on his face, remarkable in a man whose life and manner of death had just been debated by a semi-lunatic. He said, ‘I’m sorry I got you into this, Smith; but I’m in it myself, too. Jemmy is right; the only thing to do is to fight’

‘I’m sorry I kicked off like that Mr. Fallon,’ said Smith awkwardly, ‘I guess I went nuts for a while.’ He stooped and picked up the pistol, took out the magazine and flipped the action to eject the round in the breech. ‘I just want to take as many of those bastards with me as I can.’ He examined the magazine and inserted the loose cartridge. ‘Five bullets — four for them and one for me. I reckon it’s best that way.’

‘You may be right,’ I said and picked up the revolver. I wasn’t at all certain whether I’d have the guts to put a bullet into my own head if it came to the push. ‘Keep a check on what’s happening outside. Gatt said he’d give us an hour but I don’t trust him that far.’

I crossed over to Katherine and dropped to my knees beside her. Her eyes were now dry although there were traces of tears on her cheeks. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry I broke down — but I was afraid — so afraid.’

‘Why shouldn’t you be afraid?’ I said. ‘Everyone else is. Only a damn fool has no fear at a time like this.’

She swallowed nervously. ‘Did they really kill Rudetsky and Fowler?’

I nodded, then hesitated. ‘Katherine, Paul is dead, too. Gatt told me.’

She sighed and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. ‘Oh, my God! Poor Paul! He wanted so much — so quickly.’

Poor Paul, indeed! I wasn’t going to tell her everything I knew about Halstead, about the ways he went in getting what he wanted so quickly. It would do no good and only break her heart. Better she should remember him as he was when they married — young, eager and ambitious in his work. To tell her otherwise would be cruel.

I said, ‘I’m sorry, too.’

She touched my arm. ‘Do we have a chance — any chance at all, Jemmy?’

Privately I didn’t think we had a snowball’s chance in hell. I looked her in the eye. ‘There’s always a chance,’ I said firmly.

Her gaze slipped past me. ‘Fallon doesn’t seem to think so,’ she said in a low voice.

I turned my head and looked at him. He was still sitting on the floor with his legs outstretched before him and gazing sightlessly at the toe-caps of his boots. ‘He has his own problems,’ I said, and got up and crossed over to him.

At my approach he looked up. ‘Smith was right,’ he said wanly. ‘It’s my fault we’re in this jam.’

‘You had other things to think about.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Selfishly — yes. I could have had Gatt deported from Mexico. I have that much pull. But I just let things slide.’

‘I don’t think that would have worried Gatt,’ I said, trying to console him. ‘He would have come back anyway — he has quite a bit of pull himself, if what Pat Harris says is correct. I don’t think you could have stopped him.’

‘I don’t care for myself,’ said Fallon remorsefully. ‘I’ll be dead in three months, anyway. But to drag down so many others is unforgivable.’ He withdrew almost visibly and returned into his trance of self-accusation.

There wasn’t much to be done with him so I arose and joined Smith at the window. ‘Any sign of action?’

‘Some of them are in those huts.’

‘How many?’

He shook his head. ‘Hard to say — maybe five or six in each.’

‘We might give them a surprise,’ I said softly. ‘Any sign of Gatt?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Smith. ‘I wouldn’t even know what he looks like. Goddamn funny, isn’t it?’ He stared across at the huts. If they open fire from so close, the bullets will rip through here like going through a cardboard box.’

I turned my head and looked at the plunger box and at the wires which led to it wondering how much explosive Rudetsky had planted in the huts and whether it had been found. As a kid I’d always been overly disappointed by damp squibs on Guy Fawkes Night.

The hour ticked away and we said very little. Everything that had to be said had been torn out of us in that explosive first five minutes and we all knew there was little point in piling on the agony in futile discussion. I sat down and, for want of something better to do, checked the scuba gear, and Katherine helped me. I think I had an idea at the back of my mind that perhaps we would give in to Gatt in the end, and I would have to go down into the cenote again. If I did, then I wanted everything to work smoothly for the sake of the survivors in Gatt’s hands.

Abruptly, the silence was torn open by the harsh voice of Gatt magnified by the loudhailer. He seemed to be having trouble with it because it droned as though the speaker was overloaded. ‘Wheale! Are you ready to talk?’

I ran at a crouch towards the plunger box and knelt over it, hoping that our answer to Gatt would be decisive. He shouted again. ‘Your hour is up, Wheale.’ He laughed boomingly. ‘Fish, or I’ll cut you into bait.’

‘Listen!’ said Smith urgently. ‘That’s a plane.’

The droning noise was much louder and suddenly swelled to a roar as the aircraft went overhead. Desperately I gave the plunger handle a ninety-degree twist and rammed it down and the hut shook under the violence of the explosion. Smith yelled in exultation, and I ran to the window to see what had happened.

One of the huts had almost literally disappeared. As the smoke blew away I saw that all that was left of it was the concrete foundation. White figures tumbled from the other hut and ran away, and Smith was shooting fast. I grabbed his shoulder. ‘Stop that! You’re wasting bullets.’

The plane went overhead again, although I couldn’t see it. ‘I wonder whose it is,’ I said. ‘It could belong to Gatt.’

Smith laughed excitedly. ‘It might not — and, Jeez, what a signal we gave it!’

There was no reaction from Gatt; the loud voice had stopped with the explosion and I desperately hoped I’d blown him to hell.

III

It was too much to hope for. Everything was quiet for another hour and then there came a slow and steady hail of rifle fire. Bullets ripped through the thin walls of the hut, tearing away the interior insulation, and it was very dangerous to move away from the cover of the thick baulks of timber Rudetsky had installed. The chief danger was not from a direct hit but from a ricochet. From the pace of the firing I thought that not more than three or four men were involved, and I wondered uneasily what the others were doing.

It was also evident that Gatt was still alive. I doubted if the chicleros would still keep up the attack without him and his bully boys behind them. They wouldn’t have the motive that drove Gatt, and, besides, an unknown number had been killed in the hut. I was reasonably sure that none of the men in that hut could have survived the explosion, and it must have given the rest a hell of a shock.

The fact that the attack had been resumed after an hour also demonstrated that Gatt, no matter what else he was, could lead — or drive — men. I knew personally of three chicleros that had died; say another four, at a low estimate, had been killed in the hut, and add to that any that Fowler or Rudetsky had killed before being slaughtered themselves. Gatt must be a hell of a man if he could whip the chicleros into another attack after suffering losses like that.

The aircraft had circled a couple of times after the hut blew up and then had flown off, heading north-west. If it belonged to Gatt then it wouldn’t make any difference; if it belonged to a stranger then the pilot might be wondering what the hell was going on — he’d certainly been interested enough to overfly the camp a couple of times — and he might report it to the authorities when he got to wherever he was going. By the time anything got done about it we’d all be dead.

But I didn’t think it was a stranger. We’d been in Quintana Roo for quite some time and the only aircraft I’d seen were those belonging to Fallon and Gatt’s little twin-engined job that had landed at Camp One. There’s not much call for an air service in Quintana Roo, so if it wasn’t Gatt’s plane then it might be someone like Pat Harris, come down to see why Fallon had lost communication with the outer world. And I couldn’t see that making any difference to our position either.

I winced as a bullet slammed through the hut and a few flakes of plastic insulation drifted down to settle on the back of my hand. There were two things we could do — stay there and wait for it, or make a break and get killed in the open. Not much of a choice.

Smith said, ‘I wonder where all the other guys are? There can’t be more than four of them out front.’

I grinned tightly. ‘Want to go outside and find out?’

He shook his head emphatically. ‘Uh-uh! I want them to come and get me. That way they’re in the open.’

Katherine was crouched behind a thick timber, clutching the revolver I had given her. If she had not lost her fear at least she was disguising it resolutely. Fallon worried me more; he just stood there quietly, grasping the shotgun and waiting for the inevitable. I think he had given up and would have welcomed the smashing blow of a bullet in the head which would make an end to everything.

Time passed, punctuated by the regular crack of a rifle and the thump of a bullet as it hit thick timber. I bent down and applied my eye to a ragged bullet hole in the wall, working on the rather dubious principle that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. The marksmen were hidden and there was no way of finding their positions; not that it would have done us any good if we knew because we had but one rifle, and that had only two rounds in the magazine.

Fowler’s body was lying about thirty feet from the hut. The wind plucked at his shirt and rippled the cloth, and tendrils of his hair danced in the breeze. He lay quite peacefully with one arm outflung, the fingers of the hand half-curled in a natural position as though he were asleep; but his shirt was stained with ugly blotches to mark the bullet wounds.

I swallowed painfully and lifted my eyes higher to the ruined hut and the litter about it, and then beyond to the ruins of Uaxuanoc and the distant forest. There was something about the scene which looked odd and unnatural, and it wasn’t the ugly evidence of violence and death. It was something that had changed and it took me a long time to figure what it was.

I said, ‘Smith!’

‘Yeah?’

‘The wind’s rising.’

There was a pause while he looked for himself, then he said tiredly, ‘So what?’

I looked again at the forest. It was in motion and the tree-tops danced, the branches pushed by moving air. All the time I had been in Quintana Roo the air had been quiet and hot, and there had been times when I would have welcomed a cool breeze. I turned carefully and strained my head to look out of the window without exposing my head to a snap shot. The sky to the east was dark with thick cloud and there was a faint and faraway flicker of lightning.

‘Fallon!’ I said. ‘When does the rainy season start?’

He stirred briefly. ‘Any time, Jemmy.’

He didn’t seem very interested in why I had asked.

I said, ‘If you saw clouds and lightning now — what would you think?’

‘That the season had started,’ he said.

‘Is that all?’ I said, disappointed.

‘That’s all.’

Another bullet hit the hut and I swore as a wood splinter drove into my calf. ‘Hey!’ shouted Smith in alarm. ‘Where the hell did that one come from?’ He pointed to the ragged hole in the wooden floor.

I saw what he meant. That bullet had hit at an impossible angle, and it hadn’t done it by a ricochet. Another bullet slammed in and a chair jerked and fell over. I saw a hole in the seat of the chair, and knew what had happened. I listened for the next bullet to hit and distinctly heard it come through the roof. The chicleros had got up on the hillside behind the cenote and were directing a plunging fire down at the hut.

The situation was now totally impossible. All our added protection was in the walls and it had served, us well, but we had no protection from above. Already I could see daylight showing through a crack in the asbestos board roofing where a bullet had split the brittle panel. Given enough well-aimed bullets and the chicleros could damn near strip the roof from the top of us, but we’d most likely be dead by then.

We could find a minimum shelter by huddling in the angle of the floor and the wall on the side of the hut nearest the hill, but from there we could not see what was happening at the front of the hut. If we did that, then all that Gatt would have to do was to walk up and open the door — no one would be in a position to shoot him.

Another bullet hit from above. I said, ‘Smith — want to break for it? I’ll be with you if you go.’

‘Not me,’ he said stubbornly. ‘I’ll die right here.’

He died within ten seconds of uttering those words by taking a bullet in the middle of his forehead which knocked him back against the wall and on to the floor. He died without seeing the man who killed him and without ever having seen Gatt, who had ordered his death.

I stooped to him, and a bullet smacked into the wall just where I had been standing. Fallon shouted, ‘Jemmy! The window!’ and I heard the duller report of the shotgun blasting off.

A man screamed and I twisted on the ground with the revolver in my hand just in time to see a chiclero reel away from the already long-shattered window and Fallon with the smoking gun in his hand. He moved right to the window and fired another shot and there was a shout from outside.

He dropped back and broke open the gun to reload, and I leaped forward to the window. A chiclero was jumping for cover while another was staggering around drunkenly, his hands to his face and crying in a loud keening wail. I ignored him and took a shot at a third who was by the door not four feet away. Even a tyro with a gun couldn’t miss him and he grunted and folded suddenly in the middle.

I dropped back as a bullet broke one of the shards of glass remaining in the window, and shuddered violently as two more bullets came in through the roof. Any moment I expected to feel the impact as one of them hit me.

Fallon had suddenly come alive again. He nudged me with his foot and I looked up to find him regarding me with bright eyes. ‘You can get out,’ he said quickly. ‘Move fast!’

I gaped, and he swung his arm and pointed to the scuba gear. ‘Into the cenote, damn it!’ he yelled. ‘They can’t get at you there.’ He crawled to the wall and applied his eye to a bullet hole. ‘It’s quiet out front. I can hold them for long enough.’

‘What about you?’

He turned. ‘What about me? I’m dead anyway. Don’t worry, Gatt won’t get me alive.’

There wasn’t much time to think. Katherine and I could go into the cenote and survive for a little longer, safe from Gatt’s bullets, but then what? Once we came out we’d be sitting targets — and we couldn’t stay down forever. Still, a short extension of life meant a little more hope, and if we stayed where we were we would certainly be killed within the next few minutes.

I grabbed Katherine’s wrist. ‘Get into your gear,’ I yelled. ‘Get a bloody move on.’

She looked at me with startled eyes, but moved fast. She ripped off her clothes and got into the wet-suit and I helped her put on the harness. ‘What about Fallon?’ she said breathlessly.

‘Never mind him,’ I snapped. ‘Concentrate on what you’re doing.’

There was a diminution in the rate of rifle fire which I couldn’t understand. If I’d have been in Gatt’s place now was the time when I’d be pouring it on thick and heavy, but only one bullet came through the roof while Katherine and I were struggling with the harnesses and coupling up the bottles.

I turned to Fallon. ‘How is it outside?’

He was looking through the window at the sky in the east and a sudden gust of wind lifted his sparse hair. ‘I was wrong, Jemmy,’ he said suddenly. ‘There’s a storm coming. The wind is already very strong.’

‘I doubt if it will do us any good,’ I said. The two-bottle pack was heavy on my shoulders and I knew I couldn’t run very fast, and Katherine would be even more hampered. There was a distinct likelihood that we’d be picked off running for the cenote.

‘Time to go,’ said Fallon, and picked up the rifle. He had assembled all the weapons in a line near the window. He shrugged irritably. ‘No time for protracted farewells, Jemmy. Get the hell out of here.’ He turned his back on us and stood by the window with the rifle upraised.

I heaved away the table which barricaded the door, then said to Katherine, ‘When I open the door start running. Don’t think of anything else but getting to the cenote. Once you are in it dive for the cave. Understand?’

She nodded, but looked helplessly at Fallon. ‘What about...?’

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘Move... now!’

I opened the door and she went out, and I followed her low and fast, twisting to change direction as soon as my feet hit the soil outside. I heard a crack as a rifle went off but I didn’t know if that was the enemy or Fallon giving covering fire. Ahead, I saw Katherine zip round the corner of the hut and as I followed her I ran into a gust of wind that was like a brick wall, and I gasped as it got into my mouth, knocking the breath out of me. There was remarkably little rifle fire — just a few desultory shots — and no bullets came anywhere near that I knew of.

I took my eyes off Katherine and risked a glance upwards and saw the possible reason. The whole of the hillside above the cenote was in violent motion as the wind lashed the trees, and waves drove across as they drive over a wheatfield under an English breeze. But these were hundred-foot trees bending under the blast — not stalks of wheat — and this was something stronger than an English zephyr. It suddenly struck me that anyone on the hillside would be in danger of losing his skin.

But there was no time to think of that. I saw Katherine hesitate on the brink of the cenote. This was no time to think of the niceties of correct diving procedure, so I yelled to her, ‘Jump! Jump, damn it!’ But she still hesitated over the thirty-foot drop, so I rammed my hand in the small of her back and she toppled over the edge. I followed her a split-second later and hit feet first. The harness pulled hard on me under the strain and then the water closed over my head.