The Vivero Letter

Suddenly the trail took a sharp turn to the left, went on a hundred yards, and petered out. I stopped, uncertain of where to go, and suddenly became aware of a man lying on top of a hillock to my right. He was staring at something through field glasses, and as I convulsively brought up the rifle, he half-turned his head and said casually, 'Es usted, Pedro?'

I moistened my lips, 'Si!' I said, hoping that was the right answer.

He put the glasses to his eyes again and resumed his contemplation of whatever was on the other side of the hillock. 'Tiene usted fosforos y cigarrillos?'

I didn't know what he was saying, but it was obviously a question, so I repeated again, 'Si!' and climbed up the hillock boldly until I was standing over him, just a little behind.

'Gracias,' he said. 'Que hora es?' He put down the glasses and turned to look at me just as I brought the rifle butt down on his head. It hit him just above the right eye and his face creased in sudden pain. I lifted the rifle and slammed it down harder in a sudden passion of anger. This is what would have happened to Harry. The sound that came from him was midway between a wail and a grunt, and he rolled over down the hillock and was still.

I gave him a casual glance and stirred him with my foot. He did not move, so I turned to see what he had been looking at. Spread out below was Uaxuanoc and Camp Three, not a quarter of a mile away across open ground. I looked at it as the Israelities must have looked upon the Promised Land; tears came to my eyes and I took a few stumbling steps forward and shouted in a hoarse croak at the distant figures strolling about the huts.

I began to run clumsily and found that all the strength seemed to have suddenly drained from my body. I felt ridiculously weak and, at the same time, airy and buoyant and very light-headed. I don't know if the man I had stunned -- or killed, for all I knew -- was the only chiclero overlooking the camp, or whether he had companions. Certainly it would have been a simple matter for a man with a rifle to shoot me in the back as I stumbled towards the huts, but mere was no shot.

I saw the big figure of Joe Rudetsky straighten as he turned to look at me and there was a faint shout. Then there was a bit of a blankness and I found myself lying on the ground looking up at Fallon, who wore a concerned expression. He was speaking, but I don't know what he said because someone was beating a drum in my ear. His head shrank and then ballooned up hugely, and I passed out again.

II

Water -- clean, cold, pure water -- is a marvellous substance I've used it sometimes to make those packet soups; you get the dry. powdery stuff out of the packet which looks as unappetizing as the herbs from a witch doctor's pouch, add water and hey presto! -- what were a few dry scrapings turn into luscious green peas and succulent vegetables.

I was very dehydrated after my week in the forest, and I'd lost a lot of weight, but within a few hours I felt remarkably chirpy. Not that I drank a lot of water because Fallon wouldn't let me and rationed it out in sips, but the sight of that water jug next to my bed with the cold condensation frosting the outside of the glass did me a world of good because I knew that all I had to do was to stretch my arm and there it was. A lovely feeling! So I was feeling better although, perhaps, like the packet soup I had lost a bit of flavour.

Fallon, of course, wanted to know what had happened in more detail than in the brief incoherent story I told when I stumbled into camp. He pulled up a chair and sat by the edge of the bed. 'I think you'd better tell me all of it,' he said.

'I killed a man,' I said slowly.

He raised his eyebrows. 'Rider? You mustn't think of it like that.'

'.No, not Harry.' I told him what had happened.

As I spoke the expression on his face changed to startled bewilderment, and when I finally wound down he said, 'So we're under observation -- and Gatt's out mere.'

'With an army,' I said. 'That's what Pat Harris was trying to tell you -- but you wouldn't listen. Gatt has brought his own men from the States and recruited chicleros to help him in the forest. And the fire in the radio shack wasn't an accident -- nor was the crash of the chopper.'

'You're certain it was sabotage?'

'Harry was,' I said. 'And I believe him. I also think the other chopper -- the big one at Camp One -- was sabotaged. Your jet is stranded in Mexico City, too. We're isolated here.'

Fallon looked grim. 'How many men did you see with Gatt?'

'I didn't stop to count -- but from first to last I must have seen twenty-five. Some of those I might have bumped into more than once, of course, but I'd say that's a fair reckoning.' I stretched my hand and laid it against the coolness of the water jug. 'I can make a fair guess at what they'll do next.'

'And what's your guess?'