Authors: Philip McCutchan
He called, “Aim to hit the tyres, or the petrol-tank. We must not harm the man if we can avoid it. Afterwards, we shall very likely hear from the señorita as to what she wants us to do with him.”
Bolts snicked, and rifles lined up on the roadway.
Shaw came back fast towards the wrecked car.
As he flashed past that cork-oak the window on his driving side suddenly flew into a thousand pieces, a shower of glass spattering over him. He felt the wind of the bullet as it zipped past his face, and he yelled out to Debonnair to duck, to get down on the boards. As she did so he felt the thud of heavy bullets smashing into the back of the car, and another bullet scored along the off-side front wing.
Keeping his own head low and trusting to luck, Shaw rammed his foot down hard, and the car bounded forward. A moment later they were clear and belting ahead along the Ronda road. Shaw felt his hands shaking on the wheel as he said to Debonnair:
“All right, darling—you can get up now. That was a near one.”
“What in hell was it?” Debonnair rubbed her shin— she’d scraped it during her hurried ducking manoeuvre.
“What was it?” he echoed above the racket of the engine and the whirling grit. “It was a nice little ambush, Debbie, but it didn’t come off!” Now that he knew where Ackroyd was, knew that he had the target, as it were, before him, his voice was almost boyish. “You all right?”
“Oh, I’m fine.”
He looked sideways at the girl. She was leaning towards him, staring intent into the driving-mirror, a hair-grip between her teeth, hands busy doing something to her hair. In a moment she was finished, and he saw her face, eager against the wooded background flashing past interspersed with the purplish open spaces, saw her hair come partly adrift again and blow out as the air drove in through the shattered, empty window on his left. She was fine all right—in more ways than one.
Shaw drove on.
He had one advantage in this chase, and that was that Karina would be at least half expecting him to have been caught by that ambush, so she might not be as alert as she would otherwise have been; that ambush must have been the reason why she hadn’t tried to stop him herself. Nevertheless, as they pushed on Shaw began to worry as to which way Karina would go; he had to catch up with her before she reached the turning into the San Pedro road—and either turned or kept straight on for Ronda. Except for its rail outlet, Ronda was a dead end, of course, but Karina might still take the precaution of trying to confuse the issue, just in case, before heading for Malaga or some other port. Shaw was still convinced that her ultimate destination must be a port.
In the car ahead Garcia was driving. Alongside him Massias, perpetually nervous, sat with one hand drooping to his sub-machine-gun. In the back with Karina, Ackroyd was lolling and moaning and crying a little now and then.
Karina was feeling calm, triumphant, gloating—this was going to be so easy now. She wasn’t in the least worried about Shaw. Once Ackroyd was clear of Spain, and safe, she would go back for Esmonde Shaw. El Caballero would take care of him until she sent instructions. She pushed Shaw from her mind.
A flicker of annoyance crossed her face as Ackroyd started his humming noise again. It was getting on her nerves. Turning sideways, she slapped the little man’s face viciously, a heavy ring on her finger cutting into his cheek.
She ordered, “Quiet!”
Ackroyd sagged, and whimpered a little. But he obeyed. Karina looked at him with contempt. This wretched madman wasn’t going to be worth all the trouble—for all the use he’d be, she might just as well throw him out of the car. She shrugged herself out of such thoughts—once Ackroyd was safely aboard the
Ostrowiec
, she’d have complied with her orders, done her job. It wasn’t her fault he’d proved such a weakling, not her fault that he’d gone crazy. Or was it?
Suddenly she laughed aloud. He’d probably recover—when he got away from her.
The two men of the Guardia Civil, walking abreast of each other along the road between Vercm and the San Pedro turning with their heavy carbines slung on their shoulders, their uniforms white with dust, had reached the end of their patrol area, had just turned back towards Ronda. They ambled on beneath the mounting sun and sweated into the thick green material which weighed them down like lead.
They were bored with life, these two—or rather, such part of life as compelled them to pound this endless beat—this endless hot march—of road patrols. And the corps d’elite of Spain had always to set an example, had always to look (more or less) alert, even though the head ached from the sun and the hard helmet, even though the upright, reinforced collar of the jacket bit into brown necks uncomfortably.
And the boots!
Holy Mother of God—the boots.
Pepe Caravolente, the
guardia
on the east side of the road—the one with the broad, good-humoured face and the ready, easy smile, who was so well-known to be ever willing to do a good turn or to give help where it was needed, who was the sole support of his old, widowed mother and the delight of her declining years—Pepe Caravolente could feel each individual corn and pad of hard skin aching and burning away like charcoals in a brazier. The stiff, unyielding leather touched up each one of them into a small but relentless volcano of pain which erupted every time his big feet clumped down on to the uneven surface of the Ronda road. Pepe, who had almost hobbled and minced along for the last couple of miles that morning, groaned aloud.
It was unjust. It was unfair.
Had there been a patron saint of corns and hard skin, Pepe would have prayed to him—or her. But as it was, he invoked the ubiquitous Santa Maria. It was murder—sheer murder. He longed and longed for that blessed, blissful moment when those boots would come off in the cool, dark room of the little whitewashed cabin which he occupied with his mother. His mother would bathe the feet, and Pepe Caravolente would be in Heaven.
Rolling his eyes in very present distress of hell-fire, Pepe glanced across the road at his companion, a morose and sedate
guardia
whose feet never seemed to trouble him, but whose long, thin frame seemed utterly weighed down with the heavy carbine. Carlos was a good man, saintly in his home life except when temptation pressed too heavily, and a most conscientious member of the
Guardia Civil
. But today he was feeling the strain too. As Pepe watched, a huge red handkerchief, not particularly clean, was swept out of Carlos’s pocket with a grand flourish, and Carlos’s helmet was lifted off. Carlos mopped his face, thus inducing yet more sweat to burst through into the vacated areas.
Carlos too groaned aloud.
In spite of the pain in his feet, Pepe mustered an encouraging grin. “Soon we will be back at the post, Carlos.”
“Uh.” Carlos flourished his handkerchief. They trudged on in silence. They faced, in fact, mile upon mile of white, scorching roadway which would have to be traversed before they reached the village where the
Guardia Civil
post was, the village where they would be able to sink to rest for a while, take off their helmets and their belts and lay down their arms, and quench their thirsts with some vino in the shop of Teresa Bandera—Pepe could almost taste that vino now, and he drooled slightly at the corners of his mouth at the mere thought of it, coming all cool and fresh from the stone jar behind that shady bar. And Teresa Bandera could, on the occasions when her husband was away on his own business—which concerned the smuggling of spirits—be persuaded into dispensing other comforts to the
Guardia Civil
as well. . . .
The two men walked for two more dreadful miles, and then Pepe stopped. He listened. It was a car coming up behind them, and now that the thud-thud of his enormous boots had ceased he could hear it more distinctly. It seemed to be in a hurry; all he could see for the moment was a cloud of white dust.
“Carlos,” said Pepe, grinning happily, “why should we walk when there is a car?”
Unslinging their rifles, they stood ready to wave the car down. Surely no one, whatever their hurry, would drive past two poor
hombres
asking for a lift—certainly no one ever had in Pepe’s experience.
“
Cuidado! Aqui viene la pareja!
” Massias drew Garcia’s attention to the two figures moving into the roadway. “The Guardia Civil.”
Karina, in the back, had seen the unslung carbines. She said curtly, “I don’t know what their business is, but I’m not having any delays. Fast as you can, Garcia.”
“Perhaps they merely want a lift—”
“They’re not getting one!” Karina sat forward, spoke sharply. “We can have no prying eyes in here.”
“Señorita, I shall hit them—they will be so sure we shall stop—”
“Hit them, then.”
The other man, Massias, looked back at her, scared at the inflexibility in her voice, saw that her eyes were diamond-hard and bright. He shuddered a little. He knew that Garcia was right, and not from humanity alone. It was dangerous, very dangerous, to take risks with the
Guardia Civil
. If one should get hurt every official hand in Spain would be against them. He said as much to Karina.
“Shut up.” Karina sat forward still, and now in her hand was the small pistol. She leant forward farther and prodded the pistol into the back of Garcia’s neck, and he jumped a little and the car rocked, and he drove on, drove on almost blindly, in a terrible fear.
Pepe and Carlos saw the big scarlet-and-silver shape leap from the dust-cloud, a tearing, hurtling monster lurching wildly on its springs as it hit the pot-holes and the ridges. Pepe jumped back just in time. The car, with Garcia sweating away behind the wheel and his eyes almost shut to blot out the horror of what he was doing, tore on as he rammed his foot down hard.
He hit Carlos fair and square, drove over him with a wild lurch and a bump that brought his passengers’ heads cracking against the roof; and then swept onward, leaving a red stain and a flattened hump on the road.
Behind them Pepe, curses pouring from his mouth, which was now all puckered up in his ashen face, felt tears pricking at his eyes. He felt sick, and his hands shook as he brought his carbine up. He wasn’t capable in that moment of taking very good aim, and his bullets zipped harmlessly away into the distance, well clear of the speeding car, which was almost out of range anyway by this time.
Pepe had forgotten his poor corns and his hard skin now; the main thing was to get his wobbly legs to hold him upright, hold him up so that he could chase after that car, run to the nearest
Guardia Civil
post with a telephone, so that these soulless murderers could be intercepted. He started running. Sick to the stomach, and with tears pouring down his face, he left that poor red mess that had been Carlos, the red mess that was beyond help, in its pool of blood round which the flies were congregating already, Carlos who must be avenged, Carlos who had been looking forward to a glass of
vino
in Teresa Bandera’s and who would never patrol that stretch of road with him again. . . .
Pepe pounded along.
Ahead of him Karina stopped the car, for she had had second thoughts—this
guardia
would be able to describe the car, have her stopped along the roads. She got out. And as Pepe came nearer a short burst of sound and light and smoke came from the sub-machine-gun in her hands. Only three bullets hit Pepe, but he fell; and the car drove on. As vultures fluttered up into the air from Carlos’s body, scared by the gunfire, Pepe staggered to his feet again, spitting out the welling blood, just in time to see the car swerve violently to the right to head along the San Pedro road.
A little later Shaw caught sight of the vultures hovering above the track ahead of him. When he saw the body he slowed, and when he came up to it, scattering the indignant birds from their grisly meal, he edged round it, telling Debonnair not to look, talking the car half on to the verge with difficulty. A little farther on he stopped. Leaving Debonnair in the car—telling her, when she asked, that there was nothing anybody could do—he got out, walked back to the body, and dragged it laboriously off the road and into the shade of some trees, where he hid it in the scrubby undergrowth.
When he got back to the car Debonnair asked, a little white about the lips and trembling, “Esmonde, why did you do that?”
He started the car up. He said between his teeth, “A dead
guardia’s
too risky to leave; it’s obvious to us that Karina did that, but if that body had been found by anyone else and reported, all cars on this road would have been suspect—and remember, we’ve not seen any other vehicles since we got on to the San Pedro road early this morning.” He gave a hard laugh. “What we’re doing is too important for us to risk getting hooked up on a charge like that.”
He drove just a shade more savagely than before. He could feel the girl’s body trembling against his. Then ahead he saw what he’d expected to see: the other
guardia
, second of the customary pair, and the man was lying on the dusty verge, gasping.
Shaw slid to a stop, and he and Debonnair got out quickly and went over to the man. Looking at the big, blood-drained face and now angry eyes of Pepe, Shaw, with an effort, controlled his burning impatience and waited for the man to pull himself together—he was obviously badly injured. Shaw said quietly, “I know your friend was killed . . . that much I saw. Was it a big car, scarlet and silver and black?”
Pepe nodded.
“We’ll take you with us,
amigo
, and we’ll catch up with the car that did this.” He added, as he got out to give Debonnair a hand with Pepe, “Which way did they go, did you notice?”
“Señor, they went along the San Pedro road.”
“Right,” said Shaw grimly. “That’s all I wanted to know.” There was a blood-flecked foam on Pepe’s lips as they helped him into the back of the car; Debonnair got in beside him, supported the dying man against her breast. As Shaw jumped in behind the wheel she told him that the man ought to be got to hospital at once. Shaw nodded, let in the clutch. He drove fast but carefully, trying to avoid the bad patches because of Pepe, swinging into the San Pedro road and heading for those wicked hairpin bends. Thank Heaven, the surface was pretty good in parts, perhaps the best in Andalusia.