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.
O’Hara, Forester and Rohde looked down on the bridge from the cover of a group of large boulders near the edge of the river gorge. Below, the river rumbled, a green torrent of ice-water smoothly slipping past the walls it had cut over the aeons. The gorge was about fifty yards wide.
O’Hara was still shaking from the shock of being unexpectedly fired upon. He had thrown himself into the side of the road, winding himself by falling on to a can in the pocket of his overcoat. When he recovered his breath he had looked with stupefaction at the punctured can in the middle of the road, bleeding a red tomato and meat gravy. That could have been me, he thought – or Benedetta.
It was then that he started to shake.
They had crept back round the corner, keeping in cover, while rifle bullets flicked chips of granite from the road surface. Rohde was waiting for them, his gun drawn and his face anxious. He looked at Benedetta’s face and his lips drew back over his teeth in a snarl as he took a step forward.
‘Hold it,’ said Forester quietly from behind him. ‘Let’s not be too hasty.’ He put his hand on O’Hara’s arm. ‘What’s happening back there?’
O’Hara took a grip on himself. ‘I didn’t have time to see much. I think the bridge is down; there are some trucks on the other side and there seemed to be a hell of a lot of men.’
Forester scanned the ground with a practised eye. ‘There’s plenty of cover by the river – we should be able to get a good view from among those rocks without being spotted. Let’s go.’
So here they were, looking at the ant-like activity on the other side of the river. There seemed to be about twenty men; some were busy unloading thick planks from a truck, others were cutting rope into lengths. Three men had apparently been detailed off as sentries; they were standing with rifles in their hands, scanning the bank of the gorge. As they watched,
