Thing to Love (31 page)

“I can see we'll never agree there, Captain General. And don't think I'm blindly prejudiced. I started off by believing that you and Vidal had bought whatever was coming to you. Your father-in-law switched my opinion right round. I've always wondered why he did, since he supports Avellana.”

“His friendship for me and his great love of his daughter may have counted. But Juan's policies are beyond us all.”

“They say he is providing drugs and medical supplies to the Avellanistas, but I don't see how he gets them there.”

“His trucks have so far managed to avoid my patrols. Wounds rot up here. Have you ever watched gangrene run through a field hospital?”

“No, thank God!”

“Well, I have. And I wouldn't wish it on even Pedro Valdés.”

“But his trucks might be carrying anything.”

“I have Juan's word of honor, Don Andrés.”

He noticed that the American looked doubtful. Well, after all, he only knew Juan as a politician.

“They couldn't slip something over on him?”

“Avellana wouldn't try once Juan had given his word. Valdés might. But Juan's people would find him out at once and report it. How are you getting back?”

“Drive. Time's short, and I'm not going in convoy this time.”

“Very well. You'll be perfectly safe as far as Advanced Headquarters. When you get there, ask Colonel Nicuesa to provide you with an escort on to Hermosillo.”

“Hermosillo? So far behind the lines?” MacKinlay asked in surprise.

“There are no lines. Valdés can raid north and even south of Hermosillo if he wants to. If he chooses to play Lawrence of Arabia with the railway I don't much care. He can't interrupt the road traffic without being shot to pieces. Oh, and I will send a signal to Basilio Ferrer. He's at Hermosillo in person, and here and everywhere” — Miro waved a hand to the steel bridge which had just been dropped into position — “in action.”

The force crossed. MacKinlay's car and the empty trucks headed back to Advanced Headquarters, forming a second ribbon of raw sienna alongside the former track, which was beginning to wear. Over the river, rolling across the grass to the northeast, was the half-moon of jeeps and troop carriers, followed by a battery of self-propelled 88-mm. guns and a troop of the invaluable Saracens.

His preferred war of movement, Miro thought ironically, but nightmare movement. He had all the transport, material and ammunition that the distances allowed him to use, and no men. He was employing the armor for static defense. All wrong, but extremely economical. That released a force of six thousand men for active operations. Pedro Valdés had more than four times that number, but most of them were poor devils on half-starved horses, doomed if they attempted a concentration of any size and able to vanish into the landscape only so long as they were too few to do any damage.

The easy advance continued till five in the evening, when the forward patrols brought back bad news. Where there should have been a mere stream — and that suspected rather than sure — a long belt of marsh cut off Miro's column from the position he wanted it to be in, when Chaves struck from the blue at that
mysterious camp of Avellanistas. To go round to the east might compromise the whole operation; they would be too close to the enemy, and sound carried far in the stillness of the evening. To the west, across a chain of shallow lagoons, there was certainly a passage to be found — but not in the hour of daylight which remained.

A disappointment. Yet it could have been worse, for the marsh also confined the enemy's escape route to a much narrower belt of country than would otherwise have been open. Miro decided to stay where he was and deploy the guns and the Saracens under cover of a belt of palms. Whatever got away from Chaves was bound to come under fire, and with luck the range would be close.

Apart from the marsh, luck had been above average. His own advance seemed to be undetected except by a couple of llaneros who had been run down and captured. Chaves's force, advancing close under the foothills of the Cordillera, was preserving wireless silence, and the fact that the silence was still unbroken indicated that he, too, had not been discovered. He ought now to be within fifteen or twenty kilometers of the Avellanistas. If he was, his attack would go in soon after dawn.

The morning flight of duck had settled when the noise of battle came downwind. They were not disturbed by the staccato chatter, at that distance not unlike their own conversational clackings, but took off in alarm at the cough of guns. As the squadrons of pink and white, black and emerald, wheeled overhead, Miro too was uneasy. Rosalindo had nothing with him as heavy as the battery which was in action, and might be getting more than he had bargained for. On the other hand, if the enemy had thought it worth while to haul artillery into such remoteness, something had been trapped that was worth having.

He tuned in to the battle. Rosalindo's voice was short, excited and triumphant. It sounded as if the guns — eight of them, Miro gathered — had been overrun in the first rush. They were certainly silent now. Then came a blast of Rosalindo's choicest blasphemy, partly directed at the Almighty and partly at a company commander who had halted the troop carriers and deployed before, in Rosalindo's opinion, he need have done. The chance of encirclement
had gone but, knowing his colonel, Miro reckoned that the company was probably in the right. In any case it had been plain when they planned the operation that complete encirclement was most unlikely. The enemy's left flank was protected by a considerable river over which, somewhere, he must have a bridge.

Rosalindo then gave a situation report, ostensibly for his own column, but intended for Miro to pick up. Transport, horse and motor, was escaping to the west covered by two determined pockets of defense.

Mortar fire could now be faintly heard, which suggested that the first rush was over and that Rosalindo had been compelled to mount a more formal assault — and, for any money, against infantry of Sixth Division. This time, at least, they would have to die where they stood or surrender, though it was too much to hope that Valdés was with them. Then the enemy came into sight across the marsh and close to its edge.

First there was a ragged stream of little figures on horseback, either fugitives or cavalry falling back to form a bridgehead at the river crossing. Not worth it yet. Then came an irregular bunch of motor transport — there must have been more petrol in Los Venados than anyone suspected — followed by horsed wagons. On this target the guns came down. After the first burst of fire, what had been patternless spread out into the shape of a rising sun as every vehicle which could still move fled away from the burning center across the plain. The guns fired independently, picking and chasing individual targets. It was the end. Not more than one in six of the vehicles carried charmed lives away to the horizon. To the northeast there was silence. Rosalindo reported that the last of the defenders had surrendered as soon as they understood that their sacrifice was useless.

Miro drove up along the edge of the marsh, crossed it and joined the victorious column. Wherever he went he was received with cheers, for most of Rosalindo's force had not seen him since they crossed the Jaquiri. They had taken more punishment than he liked in this campaign, where casualties were normally very light and had to be kept so; but Rosalindo in attack always intoxicated his command with speed and savagery.

This time it was worthwhile. What they had captured was a long airstrip of packed earth and its camp. Huts, transport and a dump of precious petrol were burning. A Dakota which had flown in too early was lying slewed round with a smashed wing. But the strip had been nearing completion and was probably good enough already to receive a long-distance transport.

“We can't garrison this, Rosalindo,” Miro said. “Too far. But I suppose our amateur pilots can keep it under observation.”

“It won't do the enemy much good, Chief. Prisoners tell me they have used all Twentieth Cavalry's pontoons on the bridge, which is twelve kilometers downstream. Demolish that and patrol the river from time to time to stop them building another. Then anything they land here will have to be shifted by packhorses.”

Along the river, being inefficiently herded by jeeps, were over a thousand head of cattle. From Avellana's point of view that might be his worst loss. They could not be driven to Advance HQ and on to Hermosillo at the pace of the column, but to leave them for collection by the llanero horsemen was unthinkable. Miro shrank from giving the order to machine-gun the lot.

His pity for the free and sturdy beasts, now grazing peacefully after their terror, clouded him with depression, compelled him to see himself as the center of a picture of appalling cruelty and waste. Waste? Of food only? There were the dead, the enemy bunched where the attack had hit them and in their final defensive positions, his own scattered over the plain in ones and twos. Waste? No, it was not waste. It was what happened when men were possessed by two passionate beliefs which were incompatible, and it would go on so long as men were still capable of love.

He looked at Salvador, fine-drawn and careless, standing a little behind Rosalindo Chaves.

“San Vicente is very short of beef,” Salvador said. “Every rise of ten pesos a kilo is a vote for Avellana.”

Miro knew very well that this virile boy with his astonishing gift of feminine intuition, had correctly translated his own set face and was fighting for his peace of mind.

“Salvador, there is a limit to mercy in war.”

“Mercy never occurred to me, my General. No, I was thinking
of myself! When I go into politics after the war it won't gain me a single vote to have shown mercy. But when I flourish your certificate that I was the man who took ten pesos off the kilo of beef — there I am elected and all ready to take a commission on Colonel Chaves's pay before I graciously hand it over to him.”

“Where you will finish, my revered Captain, is in a deep grave with your latest whore in your arms!”

“It seems hard on her, my most esteemed Colonel, but at least she would be assured of the permanency of my affection.”

Colonel Chaves pulled at his mandarin mustache and could almost be heard thinking. Miro expected a retort, but instead came out the surprising remark:

“I could find some herdsmen among the prisoners, and there is no shortage of horses. A truck and two scout cars for escort, which can be spared, and sometime the herd would reach Hermosillo.”

“Well, if you think it's worth trying, Rosalindo . . .” said Miro gratefully.

“Worth trying? Of course it is! The escort may have to shoot one or two of the prisoners when they try to gallop off. But if they prefer to die that way, it is their business.”

Miro continued his tour of the captured base, sent out a party to bring in the wounded from the escaping transport shattered by his guns, and began to arrange with Rosalindo the pooling of supplies.

“There is just one other little matter, Chief, to be reported,” Rosalindo said. “Air Force personnel.”

“What about them?”

“They took too long trying to get their precious petrol away.”

“And surrendered?”

“It was very doubtful what they meant. They had pistols in their hands. So we let them have it.”

“The fools! Anybody we know?”

“Ledesma and five of his staff.”

“Where are their bodies?”

“The petrol went up at the same time, Chief. It is very regrettable for men of such distinction.”

“They were dead when it went up?”

“But of course, Chief! Quite dead. I was there and saw it myself.”

So that was the reason why Rosalindo, clean out of character, had been politic in the matter of the cattle. There was nothing to be done. It was very likely that Ledesma, always on his dignity, had given half an excuse by drawing his pistol while his staff were surrendering. As for the unfortunate and inconvenient witnesses — well, again there was nothing to be done.

“Report them as lost gallantly trying to save the petrol, Rosalindo, and attach formal statements from any officers and men whom you can trust.”

“The whole force will sign anything you like, Chief. They have not forgotten Cumana.”

“Colonel Chaves, that is a most improper remark. In future if your command should have the good fortune to capture Avellana, Valdés or any of their commanders, they will be delivered to me alive and unhurt. And you will keep in mind that if a court-martial tries you for murder, the members of it will, as you say, sign anything I like. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Chief.”

The colonel saluted. He was a man who sweated easily and profusely. The perspiration was dripping off his forehead on to his mustache, and from the points on to his hairless, Indian chest. It occurred to Miro that never before had he reprimanded Rosalindo with anything more than a genial, fatherly curse, accepted with a shamefaced grin and eyes that were warm with friendship.

He put an arm round the colonel's shoulders.

“Rosalindo, there is no other man in all Guayanas whom I could have trusted to be in position on time and to attack with whatever he had left. Let us go down to the bridge and see to the demolition. Salvador, go back to Signals and bring us anything that has come in.”

Out on the plain between marsh and river, Miro found detachments of his own force who had managed to work out a route for light vehicles across the drying reedbeds and were collecting prisoners and wounded. Little but cavalry had got away over the pontoon
bridge. Most of the trucks and wagons which had escaped the unexpected blast of gunfire seemed to have been driven in panic straight for the river, where the men abandoned their vehicles and tried to swim. One party which had not had the help of horses was waist-deep on a sandbar weeping for fear of piraña, of which there were none, and of electric eel which had in fact caused a few casualties.