The Golden Keel / The Vivero Letter (61 page)

So here we were, fulfilling the hypothetical prophecy of Pat Harris—Gatt and I alone in Quintano Roo with Gatt separated from his bodyguards. I was determined to make it as quick and as short as possible; I was going to kill Gatt as soon as I could. I didn’t forget, however, that he was still highly dangerous, and advanced on him with due caution.

He had the sense to manoeuvre sideways so he would not have the wreckage of the hut behind him. That suited me because he could not retreat very far without coming to the edge of the cenote. He was sweating and breathing heavily, standing square on with his feet apart. He moved again, fast, and chopped down in a swing that would have cleaved my skull had it connected. I parried in quinte and stood my ground, which he didn’t expect. For a split second he was very close and his eyes widened in fear as I released his blade and cut at his flank. It was only by a monstrous leap backwards that he avoided it, and the point of my machete ripped his shirt away.

I took advantage and pressed home the attack and he gave way slowly, his eyes looking apprehensively at my blade which is the wrong thing to watch—he ought to have been looking at my sword hand. In desperation he attacked again and I parried, but my foot slipped on a branch which rolled under the instep and I staggered sideways. I lost contact with his blade and it sliced downwards into my side in a shallow cut.

But I recovered and engaged his blade again and drove him back with a series of feints. He parried frantically, waving the machete from side to side. I gave ground then and put my hand to my side as though tiring and he
momentarily dropped his guard in relief. Then I went in for the kill—a flèche and a lunge in the high line; he parried and I deceived his parry and chopped at his head.

The edge of the machete hit the side of his head just below the ear and I instinctively drew it back into a cut as I had been taught, and the blade sliced deep into his neck. He was dead before he knew it because I had damn near cut his head off. He twisted as he fell and rolled to the edge of the cenote, then slowly toppled over to fall with a thump on the wooden dock.

I didn’t bother to look at him. I just staggered to the nearest support, which was a fallen tree, and leaned on the trunk. Then I vomited and nearly brought my heart up.

I must have passed out for a while because the next thing I knew was that I was lying on the ground, staring sideways at a column of industrious ants that looked as big as elephants from that angle. I picked myself up wearily and sat on the trunk of the tree. There was something nagging at the back of my head—something I had to do. My head ached abominably and little pointless thoughts chattered about like bats in an attic.

Oh, yes; that’s what I had to do. I had to make sure that Jack Edgecombe didn’t make a balls-up of the farm; he wasn’t too enthusiastic in the first place and a man like that could make an awful mess of all the Mayan rains. There was that pillar I’d found right next to the oak tree great-grand-father had planted—Old Cross-eyes I’d called him, and Fallon had been very pleased, but I mustn’t let Jack Edgecombe near him. Never mind, old Mr Mount would see to everything—he’d get a farm agent in to see to the excavation of the Temple of Yum Chac.

I put my hands to my eyes and wiped away the tears. Why the devil was I crying? There was nothing to cry about. I would go home now and Madge Edgecombe would make me tea, with scones spread thick with Devonshire cream and homemade strawberry jam. She’d use the Georgian silver set my mother had liked so much, and it would all be served on that big tray.

That big tray!

That brought it all back with a rush and my head nearly burst with the terror of it. I looked at my hand which was covered with drying blood and I wondered whose blood it was. I had killed a lot of men—I didn’t know how many—so whose blood was this?

There and then I made a vow. That I would go back to England, to the sheltered combes of Devon, and I would never leave Hay Tree Farm again. I would stick close to the land of my people, the land that Wheales had toiled over for generations, and never again would I be such a damned fool as to look for adventure. There would be adventure enough for me in raising fat cattle and sinking a pint in the Kingsbridge Inn, and if ever again anyone called me a grey little man I would laugh, agree that it was so, and say I wouldn’t have it otherwise.

My side hurt and I put my hand to it and it came away sticky with blood. When I looked down I saw that Gatt had cut a slice from my hide, chopping through the wet-suit as cleanly as a butcher with a cleaver. Bone showed—the bones of my ribs—and the pain was just beginning.

I suddenly thought of Katherine in the cave. Oh, God, I didn’t want to go into the cenote again! But a man can do anything he has to, particularly a grey little man. Gatt wasn’t a grey man—more like red in tooth and claw—but the grey men of the world are more than a match for the Gatts of this world—for one thing, there are more of them—and the grey men don’t like being pushed around.

I pulled my weary bones together, ready to go looking again for those compressor parts and brushed the back of my hand across my eyes to rid them of the trace of those tears of weakness. When I looked across the city of Uaxuanoc there were ghosts there, drifting about in the ruins and coming closer—indistinct white figures with rifles.

They came soft-footed and looked at me with hard eyes, attracting each other with faint shouts of triumph, until there were a dozen of them in a big semi-circle surrounding me—the chicleros of Quintana Roo.

Oh, God! I thought desperately. Is the killing never going to end? I bent down and groped for the machete, nestled the hilt in the palm of my hands, then rose creakingly to my feet. ‘Come on, you bastards!’ I whispered. ‘Come on! Let’s get it over with!’

They closed in slowly, with caution and an odd respect in their eyes. I lifted the machete and one man unslung his rifle and I heard the metallic noise as he slammed home a round into the breech. There was a great throbbing sound in my ears, my vision darkened, and I felt myself swaying. Through a dark mist I saw the circle of men waver, and some began to run, and they shouted loudly.

I looked up to see a cloud of locusts descending from the sky, and then I pitched forward and saw the ground coming up at me.

‘Wake up!’ said the voice distantly. ‘Wake up, Jemmy!’

I moved and felt pain. Someone, somewhere, was speaking crisp and fluent Spanish, then the voice said close to my ear, ‘Jemmy, are you okay?’ More distantly it said, ‘Someone bring a stretcher.’

I opened my eyes and looked at the darkening sky. ‘Who is the stretcher for?’

A head swam into view and I screwed up my eyes and saw it was Pat Harris. ‘Jemmy, are you okay? Who beat you up? Those goddamn chicleros?’

I eased myself up on one elbow and he supported my back with his arm. ‘Where did you come from?’

‘We came in the choppers. The army’s moved in.’ He moved a little. ‘Look, there they are.’

I stared at the five helicopters standing outside the camp, and at the busy men in uniform moving about briskly. Two of them were trotting my way with a stretcher. The locusts coming from heaven, I thought; they were helicopters.

‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner,’ said Pat. ‘It was that goddamn storm. We got a flick from the tail of a hurricane and had to put down half way.’

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Campeche—the other side of Yucatan. I flew over this morning and saw all hell breaking loose here—so I whistled up the Mexican army. If it hadn’t been for the storm we’d have been here six hours ago. Say, where is everybody?’

That was a good question. I said creakily, ‘Most of us are dead.’

He stared at me as I sat up. ‘Dead!’

I nodded wearily. ‘Fallon’s still alive—I think. He’s over there.’ I grabbed his arm. ‘Jesus! Katherine’s down in the cenote—in a cave. I’ve got to get her out.’

He looked at me as though I had gone mad. ‘In a cave! In the cenote!’ he echoed stupidly.

I shook his arm. ‘Yes, you damn fool! She’ll die if I don’t get her out. We were hiding from Gatt.’

Pat saw I was serious and was galvanized as though someone had given him an electric shock. ‘You can’t go down there—not in your condition,’ he said. ‘Some of these boys are trained swimmers—I’ll go see the teniente.’

I watched him walk across to a group of the soldiers, then I got to my feet, feeling every pain of it, and limped to the cenote and stood on the edge, looking down at the dark water. Pat came back at a run. ‘The teniente has four scubatrained swimmers and some oxygen bottles. If you’ll tell them where the girl is, they can take oxygen down to her.’ He looked down at the cenote. ‘Good Christ!’ he said involuntarily. ‘Who’s that?’

He was looking down at the body of Gatt which lay sprawled on the wooden dock. His mouth was open in a ghastly grin—but it wasn’t really his mouth. ‘It’s Gatt,’ I said unemotionally. ‘I told you I’d kill him.’

I was drained of all emotion; there was no power in me to laugh or to cry, to feel sorrow or joy. I looked down at the body without feeling anything at all, but Harris looked sick. I turned away and looked towards the helicopters. ‘Where are those bloody divers?’

They came at last and I explained haltingly what they were to do, and Pat interpreted. One of the men put on my harness and they jury-rigged an oxygen bottle and he went down. I hoped he wouldn’t frighten Katie when he popped up in the cave. But her Spanish was good and I thought it would be all right.

I watched them carry Fallon away on a stretcher towards one of the choppers while a medico bandaged me up. Harris said in wonder, ‘They’re still finding bodies—there must have been a massacre.’

‘Something like that,’ I said indifferently.

I wouldn’t move from that spot at the edge of the cenote until Katie was brought up, and I had to wait quite a while until they flew in proper diving gear from Campeche. After that it was easy and she came up from the cave under her own steam and I was proud of her.

We walked to the helicopter together with me leaning on her because suddenly all the strength had left me. I didn’t
know what was going to happen to us in the future—I didn’t know if such an experience as we had undergone was such a perfect beginning to a marriage, but I was willing to try if she was.

I don’t remember much about anything after that, not until I woke up in a hospital in Mexico City with Katie sitting by the bedside. That was many days afterwards. But I vaguely remember that the sun was just coming up as the chopper took off and I was clutching that little gold lady which Vivero had made. Christ was not to be seen, but I remember the dark shape of the Temple of Yum Chac looming above the water and drifting away forever beneath the heavily beating rotors.