Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John
of surprise by land, water, and air.
One thing only gave her comfort. She had decided weeks before to make herself a good pistol shot, and now she assiduously practised, under Roger Grayne’s tuition. Grayne, large, rugged, shaggy, and imperturbable, was a fortunate companion for a nervous girl. Janet had always been a fine rifle shot, and now she became a very fair marksman with a revolver, and learned to shoot in any position.
“That’s fine!” Grayne would say. “I shouldn’t like to be up against you in a rough-house, Lady Roylance. Say, you’re not worrying about this little business? It’s all as right as rain.” And when, moved by his friendliness, she confided to him her doubts, he laughingly disposed of them. The weather was far worse for Lossberg than for them. Supposing his planes arrived on a compass course, they were morally certain to come to grief, for the plateau was tricky in a dead calm, and certain death in foul weather to anyone who did not know it… An attack from Loa! It would take weeks for the enemy to fight his way through the most difficult country on God’s earth, and there were roads by which every ounce of supplies could be got off before Lossberg was within thirty miles… The sea! He admitted that there was a risk there, but there could be no surprise. There was just the one narrow avenue of approach, and that could be held against the whole darned Olifa navy long enough to give them ample time to move.
“You see,” he concluded, “we’re so fixed that we can’t be surprised. Olifa’s got to come in force to take our sea approach, and coming in force means early notice. We’re it worrying about stray guardacostas. It’s not as if one man could wriggle through and bomb us in our beds. That’s the kind of game I don’t fancy, but it’s about as likely here for an army corps to come over Choharua.”
But if Grayne was a solid comfort to the girl, the Gobernador was very much the reverse. He, like her, seemed to be the victim of nerves ever since D’Ingraville’s plane had vanished seaward. He was no longer friendly in forthcoming, a pleasant companion indoors and abroad. He had become silent and preoccupied, and meals were Trappist—like banquets. Nor did he, as at the beginning his sojourn on the plateau, spend much of his time in own room. He seemed to dislike to be alone, and to have nothing on which he could fix his mind. From morning till night he roamed about the settlement, constantly turning eyes to the sky, always intent and listening. There were no restrictions on his movements, so he went many times to the sea-ravine, and sat on the rocks at the top of it staring downward and seaward.
Once Janet found him sitting huddled there in a water-proof coat, when a shower had passed and a watery sun was trying to shine. The air was stuffily raw, oppressive to the walker, but chilly when movement ceased. He was squatting like a figure of Buddha, and his eyes seemed trying to pierce the clouds which drooped low over the sea.
“You are looking for your deliverers, Excellency?” the girl asked.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“I told you,” he said, “that folly is always punished. But its punishment may be also a foolish business. This holiday camp seems to be coming to an end.”
“Perhaps. Do you know, your voice sounds as if you were rather sorry?”
He did not reply, but unbuttoned the collar of his water-proof as if the weather choked him.
“I have seen you shooting at a target,” he said at last. “You can use a pistol?”
“Pretty well. I’m improving every day.”
“Then you have the ultimate safeguard. You need not fear the worst.”
“I hope for the best,” she said with enforced gaiety. “Perhaps I may shoot General Lossberg.”
“Lossberg!” he repeated almost bitterly. “You need not fear Lossberg. I was thinking of something very different, and I am glad to know that in the last resort you will be safe… Most women are afraid of pistols, but you are different from most women. After all, it is a merciful death.”
Janet shivered, for the eyes which the Gobernador turned upon her had that in them which she had never seen before There was anxiety in them, and something which was almost tenderness. She understood that if she feared the coming of his deliverers, so also did he—and not for his own sake “I’m afraid we are giving you a miserable time,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “We have dragged you out of your comfortable groove into an anxious place.”
“You have upset the work of my life,” he said gravely. Then he added, as if by an afterthought, “and the foundations.”
“The foundations?”
“Yes. I had a clear course marked out, like a chart. Now the chart is overboard, and the rudder is swinging loose.”
“There may be other charts,” she said gently.
Then she averted her face and began to talk nonsense rapidly, for she realised that she herself must be the chart-maker.
VII
On the evening of August 19th the rain, which had fallen all day, ceased, and a thin fog oozed out of the ground. By six o’clock night had fallen and a small wind had risen, and, since the sky was heavily overcast, the darkness was soon like the bottom of a cellar… The moon would not rise for an hour or two, and, unless the weather changed, it would give little light.
At the foot of the sea-ravine, in a log hut above the jetty, the coast garrison was preparing supper. Behind was a short space of flat ground, much of which had been feared, but a grove of dead fan-palms remained, whose withered leaves rustled and creaked in the wind. It was in noisy spot, for the torrent after its breakneck descent drove through the boulders of the beach in a fury of loud white waters. In that sheltered bay the sea was calm, but the stream made a perpetual clamour as of beating surf.
The garrison consisted of six Indians of the hills, four of Luis’s haciendados, whom he specially trusted, and two of Grayne’s ex-marines. The whole was in charge of one of the Alhuema engineers, a gnarled Ulsterman called Corbett, who had come to the Gran Seco from Rhodesia, and whose experiences went back to the Matabele wars. There was a small stove in the hut, and, since supper had just been cooked, the air in that tropical spot on the sea-level was like an orchid-house. A lantern stood on the trestled table, but windows and door were closed so that from the sea no light could have been observed. Only the white men and the mestizos sat at the table; the Indians ate their meal of boiled millet and syrup in their own circle apart.
Corbett mopped his brow. He had begun to fill a pipe and had stopped as if in a sudden distaste. “I can’t smoke in this blasted conservatory,” he said “Shade the light, Bill. I’m for a little fresh air.”
He unbarred one of the windows and let in a current of steamy wind which stirred but did not cool the thick atmosphere of the hut. Outside the night was hot, noisy, and impenetrably dark. He stuck head and shoulders out, and promptly drew them back.
“Bill,” he whispered, “come here! First stick the lantern under the table… Look straight ahead. D’you see a light?”
The man called Bill stared into the blackness and then shook his head.
“Nix,” he said.
“Funny,” said the other. “I could have sworn I caught a spark of something. It might have been on the water, or on the land across the channel. No, not at the seaward end—at the end under the big red rock… Here, Jones, you have a look-see. You’re like a cat and can see in the dark.”
The Indian addressed as Jones had a long look. “I see no light,” he said. “But I can hear something which is not the wind or the stream. Bid the others be quiet.” He remained motionless for several minutes, like a wild animal that has been alarmed. Then he too shook his head. “It has gone,” he said. “For a second I thought I heard a man’s voice and the noise of a ship.”
“But