Flames Coming out of the Top (23 page)

Dunnett was trying to forget Captain Leach. But it was no use. The man's face distorted as he had last seen it remained in front of him like a ghost's; Captain Leach was still sleeping it off when Dunnett had left him, and the process of sleeping off looked like being a long one.

Dunnett turned and looked at his escort. They were native Indians. They rode with eyes half shut and shoulders drooping under their ponchos. Soon Dunnett found himself drowsing, too, as he rode. His head sagged forward on his chest and his shoulders drooped: his eyes were half closed. He realised to his surprise that he was riding like an Indian. But there was still a difference. The thin dark eyes of the Indians kept slanting from side to side as they rode. They were as much awake as cats.

It was silent in the forest. The only sound was the noise
of the horses' hoofs as they were pulled out of the warm sodden ground: they came away with the sound of great smacking kisses. But soon even that became too familiar to be noticed. They moved on in a noiseless, steaming world.

At noon they came to a clearing in the jungle. It had been a village once and there were still traces of huts that had not yet rotted back into the ground. The soldiers did not venture near them; they had the primitive terror of any place that had once been inhabited and is now deserted. They just squatted down in the first open space they came to and consumed their midday meal. It was dried goat's flesh, hard and rubbery. But they taught Dunnett how to eat it. He grew tired of chewing it; but it was only after being in the mouth for some minutes that it began to taste like meat at all. And then, as though by a miracle, the blood began to flow from it again. One of the soldiers lit a fire and began to boil some water: he was doing the thing properly. He removed his
maté
and started to make tea. The tea-pot was a gourd with
yerba
in it. Dunnett found that he was meant to drink from the tea-pot; there was a small metal tube, a
bombilla
, provided especially for this purpose. The soldier who served it was very polite: he took a long drink and spat it out again just for formality's sake before handing the
maté
to his guest.

When they moved on they travelled more slowly than before; it seemed that the rest had broken the rhythm of the thing. And there were still fifteen miles to be covered. It was hotter, too. Admittedly the sun couldn't find them; its long fingers couldn't reach through the everlasting ceiling of branches. But the ceiling itself was blazing hot: it was roasting up there in the tree tops. Walking beneath it was like trying to keep cool under the bottom plate of a boiler furnace. Dunnett felt himself swaying. One of the soldiers soaked a strip of cloth in a pool and applied it to the back of Dunnett's neck. The water was tepid as though it had been heated for a bath, but once on the neck it felt like an ice pack. Dunnett noticed that the man who put it there was not even sweating.

Their afternoon ride was interrupted suddenly by an
ambulance convoy following the same road. Only there was no ambulance. The wounded were getting along as best they could, aided by the encouragement of their officers. They were not a pleasant sight—wounds putrefy quickly in the tropics— and the flies were pestering them. The two soldiers stood politely to windward as their brothers passed. The men marched on with their heads bent forward on their chests, their blood-stained bandages black with midges. They were all on their way to avail themselves of the incomparable medical facilities of Canagua.

They slept that night at a military post on the route. It was not much of a post. It was a two-roomed affair, and the first thing to catch the eye was a corrugated iron roof that had rusted a deep crimson in places and now gave the appearance of having burst out into a blotching skin disease.

The main room was about eighteen feet square and the back room, the dormitory, was the size of a passenger lift in a small hotel. A double row of benches ran round three sides of it. The officer in charge had the look of surprised blankness which settled on the faces of those who have been stationed too long in the jungle. He came out putting on his belt as he came and examined the credentials which the soldiers carried. As soon as he was satisfied he took off his belt again and went back to his work.

His was not easy work, and he appeared to resent interruption. What he was doing was trying to teach a toucan to remove a cork from a bottle. The first part was easy; nothing could shake the immense beak once it had got its hold, but the bird's claws kept slipping up and down the bottle with a noise like a slate pencil. The soldiers turned in early and Dunnett with them. The last sound he heard before dropping off to sleep was the rattle of bony plumage and the soft words of encouragement with which the officer was urging his pet to try again: he could not help but admire the perseverance of the Bolivian gentleman in the outer room who was diligently and assiduously preventing himself from going mad in the jungle.

They started early and rode all day. It was a grim, untalking ride: they simply rode to get there. The only break in the monotony of those close green walls that slid past them like scenery wound on some gigantic spool, was when an armadillo ran across the path. It was an oddity, an armour-plated pixie from another aeon. It paused sniffing delicately in their direction and then, on small, telescopic legs made for the opposite side of the path. One of the soldiers took out his revolver and fired at it. The shot missed but the noise of it collided with every tree in the forest. After that, the jungle closed in silently again, and they plodded on silently over the blotting-paper surface.

They reached the secondary military post at sundown. For the last five miles the soldiers had been heeling their horses all the time; apparently they did not relish being caught on the trail after dusk. And it was small wonder. The jungle had reversed the natural order of things. It slept by day. After sunset the track was wanted by other bodies, not human. It was just coming into life as they left it. Things could be heard moving about where there had been silence before. And, sure sign of evening, large cockroaches, four inches long, came rattling through the air like clockwork.

The military post was like the first they had met, except that someone had carted a small brass cannon up to the front door and left it there. The cannon itself had grown green from age and exposure, but its presence was symbolical. It stood for the whole terror of gunpowder over unprotected native races. The officer here was less resigned than his brother-in-arms up the line. His first question was whether the soldiers had brought any newspapers with them. On hearing that they had not done so he lost all interest in the party and sat with his back to them preparing some obscure official report.

They left him next morning before he was up. At six o'clock the same evening they were in Subrico. The path had wandered off at right angles to itself to find the river— the military river from which civilians, even favoured ones, were debarred—and they could see Subrico from a distance.
It was a frontier rather than a town; and moored alongside the landing pier was its navy, a thirty-foot launch with an old-fashioned ten-pounder mounted in the bows. It was, Dunnett imagined, about the heaviest piece of artillery in these parts.

The presence of Subrico became more formidable the closer they approached. They had to show their passes three times before they were allowed to enter. Even so they were admitted only as far as the gates of the barracks. There they were stuck until the officer commanding had been advised. The two soldiers who had ridden with Dunnett remained close behind in the gateway. He gradually had the uncomfortable feeling that they were less of a bodyguard than an escort; they seemed all ready to plug him if he moved into the inner military zone without permission. When the sentry returned he was accompanied by an intelligence officer. The man was wearing the green ribbon of the Bolivian staff. He saluted formally and asked Dunnett to follow him. When Dunnett turned to say a last word to the two soldiers who had accompanied him, the officer appeared surprised; he allowed his two jet eyebrows to go up into his forehead in an arc and made it quite clear that in his time he had experienced every manner of human folly except that of thanking noncommissioned ranks. He slapped his field boots with his cane in impatience and began to move off.

Dunnett followed grimly, his heart beating a little faster. He was ready for anything now. The trip had long since stopped being an adventure and had become a nightmare. A useless nightmare, he suspected, now that Señor Muras had been given warning. But he wasn't going to give up. He wasn't going to fail now.

The officer pushed back the canvas flap of a hut in front of them and signalled for Dunnett to enter.

The room was a large one, dimly seen through a blue screen of tobacco smoke. An oil lamp in a green shade burned on the table, and there were maps and syphons and a typewriter. Vague forms with chalky patches for faces were grouped
around the room. But Señor Muras was clearly visible. In a white duck suit he seemed larger than ever. He half filled the room. He almost glowed in the darkness. As soon as he saw Dunnett, he came tottering forward.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I want you to meet my friend from England, Mr. Dunnett, the explorer.”

As Dunnett stood there his eyes grew accustomed to the broken uncertain light and he took in some of the scene around him—the unbuckled swords of the officers, the ash-tray full of the broken stumps of cigars, and on the table a heap of documents, all bound together with sealed tape and covered with clumsy official seals. It was evidently a conference of an important sort that he had broken into.

“Am I interrupting you, Señor Muras?” he asked.

The question appeared to amuse Señor Muras. He expanded his sodden tussore jacket—Dunnett could see now that it was clinging to him as though he had been running— and laughed. “The English!” he said. “Señor Dunnett comes five hundred miles into the jungle at the peril of his life, and he asks if he is interrupting.”

“It looked as though you had some business on hand,” Dunnett explained.

“Our business is completed,” Señor Muras replied. “If only you had been earlier you could have witnessed our signatures. But these gentlemen did not feel able to wait. In war, everything is urgent.” He paused, and passed a coloured handkerchief across his forehead. “You had a good journey?” he asked.

“I got here,” Dunnett said.

“But you should have told me that you were coming,” Señor Muras protested. “I could have got you a pass on the military river. No one comes to Subrico by the road. Perhaps you'll let me help you when you go back.” He paused again and began mopping his face once more. “How long are you stopping?” he asked.

“Only until we've finished
our
business,” Dunnett told him.

Señor Muras did not reply. He stood, swaying backwards and forwards on his tiny feet, contemplating Dunnett through narrowed eyes. In the half light he looked like a nodding Buddha in a more than life-size waxwork show. When he did speak his voice was casual and a little surprised.

“So you made this journey simply to see me?” he asked.

“I did,” Dunnett told him.

“I see,” Señor Muras continued. “I thought perhaps you had undertaken a little something on the side. Most men do out here. There is plenty of money to be made in official circles if only you go the right way about it. My friends here can tell you that.” He turned and smiled expansively at the officer seated at the head of the table: the man dropped his eyes and played with his pen-holder.

“I'm here,” said Dunnett, “on behalf of Govern and Fryze. That's the only business I'm engaged on.”

Señor Muras nodded his head appreciatively. “I admire you,” he said simply. “Such single-heartedness! Such perseverance!” He bent over and said a few words to one of the seated officers. Then he faced Dunnett again. “General Orero,” he said, “has invited you to consider yourself at home anywhere in the camp. In the meantime as we have something to discuss perhaps you would accompany me to our hotel.” He smiled as he said the words, and resumed, “It is not quite what you have been used to, but Subrico is not Buenos Aires. Unfortunately it is not even Amricante.”

“I'm ready whenever you are,” Dunnett answered. Then he turned to General Orero. “I am much indebted to you for your kindness,” he said. “I shall look forward to our next meeting.”

The General bowed. He was a short, sallow-faced man, rather like a sinister head-waiter at some dubious riverside hotel; but Dunnett felt very strongly that it would be as well to remain on the right side of the military. At the back of his mind there was an uncomfortable awareness of the fact that he was rather embarrassingly cut off from the world.

The walk across to the hotel was not a long one. Subrico
was simply a barracks with a civilian quarter attached. A
mercado
that sold every kind of purgative patent medicine and an insecticide guaranteed to kill ticks even under the skin, had been the centre of the town before the hotel came. The town itself was no more than a collection of mud huts, a discoloured tin church and a leper colony. International events, however, had promoted it to a new kind of importance: it now enjoyed the distinction of being regarded by the Bolivian higher command as the nearest that anyone of the rank of General could afford to go to the firing line without being in any danger. The exact position of the Paraguayans was, of course, uncertain. Reports conflicted, as the reports of spies always do. But it was generally agreed that the opposing forces were lined up somewhere between fifty and one hundred miles away; and that distance suited the Bolivian General Staff to a nicety.

When Dunnett saw the hotel he admitted that Señor Muras's misgivings had been well founded. It was a square box of a building hastily built on stilts to save it from ground rot. There were no foundations; only four enormous sections of tree trunk, one at each corner. But something in even that simple design had evidently gone wrong, and already the entire hotel was leaning over foolishly in the direction of the river.