The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes (21 page)

             
"When the locals realized that I could speak Basque and disliked Sandoval as much as they did, they began to warm up to me. Children would sometimes stop me on the street to tell me about an ibex they had seen or to inquire which birds interested me the most. And the adults smiled when they said good morning.

             
"The patriarch and ruler of the village was one
Macario
Urrutia
, the innkeeper in fact. There was no chapel and the children had no school save for one twelve miles away, which few attended. Thus the school teacher and the priest, traditional authorities of the village scene, were absent and the elderly innkeeper ruled instead.

             
"Perhaps he would have done so anyway. He was a squat, powerful man, clean-shaven with very broad cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes of a dark brown. I imagine he was around sixty, though I don't know: he could have been eighty, I suppose. The people live to a great age in this area. Certainly he was very strong and agile as well. I have seen him lift a great barrel of wine as if it were nothing, and as for his agility—well, that comes later.

             
"Even Sandoval rather feared him, although I don't think it was altogether physical. The
Guardia
sergeant was drunk one evening in the large room of the inn and began stigmatizing the whole Basque race as cowardly, treacherous scum. I was about to speak to him myself when
Llrrutia
appeared from somewhere and stood in the center of the room looking down at the seated man.

             
"Sandoval suddenly shut up quite abruptly, crossed himself and lurched out. The innkeeper had never said a word and it never happened again. It was a peculiar performance.

             
"But to my amazement, Sandoval, now quite sober, approached me on the street later that same night as I was getting some fresh mountain air before going to bed.

             
" 'Senor Ingles,'
he said abruptly, 'do not be deceived by these people. You may think them your friends, but I, whom you dislike, tell you they are not. Leave here, lest they involve you in their dirty conspiracies.'

             
"I was quite annoyed and showed it. 'Do you think them enemies of the State, Sergeant,' I said ironically, 'about to overthrow the
Caudillo
perhaps?'

             
"He wasn't annoyed, which surprised me again. 'Se
ñ
or,' he said, quite politely, I thought, 'you have lived in the Biscay provinces and in Spain elsewhere. Where, then, is their cemetery?' With that he turned on his heels and left.

             
"This was a puzzler! Of all the possible charges against these quiet, law-abiding folk, this seemed the most ludicrous. And yet, the man had been deadly serious. Moreover, his question was not so idiotic to a Spaniard. He must have had a dossier on me, for one thing, since I had told no one where I'd lived, and had implied I'd learnt Basque and Spanish at the University. However, that's by the by.

             
"Where
was
the damned cemetery? True, there was neither church nor priest, but I had never heard of any place, no matter how small, on the Iberian Peninsula, without a communal burial site. I resolved to ask
Urrutia
, since I was getting very tired of Sandoval.

             
"When I went back to the inn, I found him in the big room making out bills or receipts. He rose as I approached and courteously asked me to take wine, speaking in Basque, but slowly, so that I should be sure to understand. Even the children invariably were this polite, I may say.

             
"I addressed him as
'
Jaun
,'
the Basque title meaning 'Lord,' which every male Basque uses to every other, and explained in my poor Basque, helped out by Spanish, what it was I wanted to know.

             
" 'Our cemetery?' he said at length. 'You have been listening to that animal of a sergeant, whom the obscenity calling itself a government has sent to afflict us? I thought so.

             
" 'Friend,' he continued, laying his hand on my arm, 'the stones are thick and heavy in these parts. There is little soil and when the rain comes it washes that little away.

             
" 'As true children of Mother Church we send our dead to
______
(he named a town some miles away) where they can lie undisturbed in ground so deep the elements will not expose them to the mountain wolves and stray dogs. I tell you this much,' he added, his voice suddenly very stern, 'because you are a friend and honest. With others I would let them think what they wanted.'

             
"I appreciated his compliment and said so. He never smiled, but nodded and tapped my arm again, as if in dismissal. I went up to my room under the eaves wondering why the sergeant was so stupid.

-

             
"Late one afternoon, three days later, I found myself high in the mountains to the east of the village and quite suddenly realized that I was lost.

             
"I had a compass and wasn't too worried, just annoyed. I'd somehow gotten into a maze of gloomy canyons and deep gorges that lay between the village and the French frontier. No one much ever went there; it was trackless all through and not even Sandoval thought there was any smuggling. The route involved would have been so awful that platinum or diamonds wouldn't have been worth it. The villagers themselves didn't like the general area, and I'd been warned that several local men had been lost there and never found.

             
"Yet it was evident that I was in the exact same place I'd been warned to avoid. Night was coming on, but I wasn't much bothered. Plenty of bushes and stunted pine trees grew about the particular canyon I found myself in, and I resolved to sleep high, to avoid any flash flood coming down the gorge at me. The following day it should be easy enough to find my way out.

             
"I collected some dry wood with no trouble, found a place to sleep—a shallow cave to be exact, well above the marks of past waters on the canyon wall—and prepared to settle down. I had a chocolate bar and even a chunk of spicy, local sausage as well as my canteen, so I wasn't too badly off at all.

             
"The fire died down to a bed of coals and I curled up around it. I'd slept a lot worse than this, both before and since, I may say, and the sky was clear and full of stars. I fell asleep in no time.

             
"When I suddenly woke, it was past midnight by my watch. Clouds covered the stars and the fire had gone out completely so that I was in total darkness.

             
"But it was what awakened me that had me fully alert. It was a sound, and I knew that I hadn't dreamt it. Somewhere, not very far away, there had come a sound which had raised the hackles on my neck.

             
"I listened, straining every nerve. The sounds of the night were gentle, water falling in a tiny brook at the canyon's bottom, the wind in the bushes. I began to persuade myself that I had heard nothing.

             
"Then, just as I was dropping off again, it came. Rising to a crescendo and then dying away, the howl of a great wolf rang down the canyon. As it died away, it was answered, this time by a chorus of howls. The whole pack had gathered and were giving tongue. From the sheer volume of noise, they couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards off.

             
"D'you know, I was quite thrilled. Very few people have ever gotten this close to a wolf pack. There was no real danger; in summer, European wolves, even in Russia, are perfectly harmless. After a great battle or a winter famine, I suppose things can be different, but I wasn't a bit frightened.

             
"I was about to strike a light, since I was a trifle cold, and rekindle the fire, when something altogether different happened.

             
"Not from the direction of the wolves, but from down the canyon came first one shot, then a number close together. A scream rang out and to my horror, I realized that it came from a human throat. I sprang to my feet as I heard a hoarse voice shouting in Spanish, 'So, you Communist pig, that's one of you who won't bother the Government again.' The voice was that of Sergeant Sandoval!

             
"Then, as silence fell again, I heard from not far away, a low, pitiful moan and the sound of Sandoval's laugh. Wretched creature that he was, he never laughed without meaning ill to
someone.

             
"At the same time, I saw the glow of a torch, a flashlight you know, not more than fifty yards away down canyon, and heard the
Guardia
sergeant speak again.

             
" 'Stop pretending to be hurt, Animal. If you want to be
really
hurt, then don't answer my questions. Now, why are you in these mountains at night? I have followed many of you. Where do you go? Speak, you—' Here he used a stream of filthy epithets.

             
"There was no answer except that I again heard a low groan.

             
"This was altogether too much.

             
" 'Sandoval,' I bellowed. 'Sergeant Sandoval,' I bellowed. 'Sergeant Sandoval, it is I, the
Señor
Ingles.
I am coming over. Leave that man alone!'

             
"I scrambled down from my cave and following the flickering torchlight soon stumbled into a little pocket on the other side of the tiny rivulet. Two figures were revealed in the light.

             
"Sandoval had laid his torch on a big rock and it illuminated all of us. He stood with his carbine ready, aimed at my stomach, his face contorted with fury and suspicion. It relaxed a little when he saw that I was alone and unarmed, but not much, and the gun stayed aimed.

             
"Between us on the bare ground crouched the figure of a young man. He was one of the locals whose face I vaguely remembered seeing from the village, although his name escaped me.

             
"His uncured sheepskin jacket was oozing blood from the right shoulder and his eyes were wide with shock and pain. Why Sandoval had shot the lad I didn't know, but I was determined to stop any further beastliness.

             
" 'All right, Sergeant,' I said firmly. 'What's all this about? You woke me up with all your racket. What's this chap done, eh? Looks harmless enough, don't he?' My imitation of the authoritarian Pukka Sahib, I felt, was the best way to deal with Sandoval.

             
"It was only partially successful. The gun muzzle lowered a little and a speculative look replaced the venom in his eyes.

             
" 'Perhaps the
Señor
knows what this Basque dirt is doing here himself? Perhaps he was meeting the
Señor
for some secret purpose? Perhaps the
Señor
is an agent of the
Ingles
government, eh?'

             
"Sandoval was not half-witted and was well aware what the current Spanish hierarchy felt about England. This looked like a more than plausible chance to involve me in something illegal.

             
" 'Don't be a bigger damned fool than you can help, Sergeant,' I said briskly. 'I'm unarmed as you can see. If I were a spy or some such rot, I'd have shot you from ambush and no one would
be the wiser. I certainly wouldn't have shouted your name and come to be slaughtered.

             
" 'Now sling that gun and we'll see what we can do for this lad here. He's bleeding badly, can't you see?'

             
"It was a good try, but it missed by a mile. The carbine muzzle came up and again centered on my midriff.