Get a Load of This Page 11

  Holtz nodded. “Yes, Your Excellency, my very dear friend.” He spoke very slowly, and the General was startled at the emotion that shook his voice. “If you should see her—perhaps you could say that… that I was doing my duty…. I think it would please her.”

  The General put the letter in his pocket. “Of course, of course,” he said, suddenly impatient to be off. “You can rely on it. I will tell her you died a brave man. You did your duty and you saved the gun. There, that should please her.”

  Holtz took a step forward and put his hand on the General’s arm. “Not the gun,” he said earnestly, “don’t tell her about the gun. You see, she would not understand. She values me more than a gun. Just tell her I was doing my duty. That will be enough.”

  The General suddenly flushed. He nodded abruptly and rode away. He did not look back.

  The courtyard was nearly empty now. Holtz felt lonely. He walked slowly across to where Mendetta was waiting for the last of the men to march out. Mendetta saw him coming and scowled. He did not relish any further sarcasm from Holtz.

  Holtz, however, came up to him and held out his hand. “Good-bye,” he said quietly, “I’m afraid you’re going to have a very hard time getting the gun over the hills. I would rather be here than work so hard.” He gave a little laugh. “It would be a fine thing if you let the goddamned thing fall over the pass, wouldn’t it? I mean after all the fuss that has been made about it.”

  Mendetta looked at him suspiciously. “That won’t happen, you can rely on me not to do that. It would be a bad thing after sacrificing so much.”

  Holtz kicked a stone. “I’m afraid I hurt his Excellency’s feelings just now,” he said. “Never mind, he is not likely to worry me much longer, is he?”

  Mendetta saw the last man walk through the gate and he gathered up his reins with relief. “Good-bye,” he said, “you will come through all right. I am sure of it.”

  “Good-bye,” Holtz said; “you must hurry.”

  Mendetta rode after the army and Holtz turned to look for his men. They were waiting for him in the shade of the farmhouse. The Lewis gun and a large wooden box stood near by.

  Holtz went over to them. “We will fortify the house,” he said. “No one can pass so long as the Lewis gun can fire. Have it taken to the top room, and board up the windows. I will leave it to you. It is where we will make our stand. Take water and food there. You know what to do. Leave Dedos with me, and take the others.” He turned to Dedos, who was very young, but his thin cruel mouth, and hard flat eyes, flat like those of a snake, made him look a lot older than he was. “You understand dynamite?”

  Dedos nodded. “Yes, Lieutenant,” he said, “I understand it very well.”

  “Over there is dynamite; fetch it. You will find also an exploder and some caps. Bring a spade too.”

  Dedos went over to the farmhouse and came back soon with a big sack on his back and a spade in his hand. Holtz took the spade from him. “Come with me,” he said.

  They walked a short distance down the rough road, away from the farm and in the opposite direction to the way the army had gone. At two hundred paces, Holtz stopped. “Here, you will prepare a mine,” he said. “You must be very careful that it is not seen easily. Use all the dynamite. When you have done this, lay a cable back to the farm. I don’t know how much wire you have there, but I think it will reach the farm all right. This you must do very quickly. There is no time to waste. Do you understand?”

  Dedos smiled. The idea pleased him. “Immediately, Lieutenant,” he said.

  Holtz hurried back to the farmhouse. Rather to his surprise, he found that he was enjoying this. He felt that, after so many dreary days of retreat, this new activity acted as a tonic to his depression.

  Upstairs, in the farmhouse, Castra had set up the gun. Fernando was boarding up the remaining window, and Golz was staggering to and fro with buckets of water.

  The walls of the farmhouse were thick, and unless Pablo brought his artillery into action they had a very fair chance of holding the place for some hours.

  Holtz checked over the stores that the General had left for them. There were sufficient rations for four meals. It was enough. Holtz had no intention of holding the place longer than necessary. Not that he was going to surrender; he made a little face at the thought. Pablo was noted for his cruelty. He would have no mercy on prisoners.

  There was a story told about this Pablo. Holtz had heard it several times. He remembered quite well the first time he heard it. It was while he was spending a few days away from the actual front line preparing for an offensive which proved later to be unsuccessful. He had spent the day inspecting horses, guns and men, and in the evening he was glad to sit by the fire, relaxing his aching limbs. It was Santez, his brother officer, who began talking about Pablo.

  “I have studied this man,” Santez said, holding two bony hands towards the fire. “He interested me. I wanted to know why he is so successful in the field. Why it is that Cortez has tried so often to trap him and has failed each time. So, for some time I made it my business to find out things about him, and although I never succeeded in finding out why he is a better general than Cortez, I heard a little story about him which supports my theory that a General who is feared is more successful than a General who is merely admired.”

  Holtz had said, rather impatiently: “But no one admires Cortez. Are you comparing these two men?”

  “No. Cortez is a fool. Comparison is out of the question between them.”

  “I have heard it said that Pablo is very cruel,” Holtz said. “He has done many barbarous things in his time.”

  Santez nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I will tell you. I have heard it from a good source. It was told me by one of Pablo’s men who fell into our hands a few weeks ago. It happened like this. There was an engagement; Pablo’s advance was checked by a small band of our troops who had become separated from the main body. Pablo was very annoyed that such a small band could hold up an army as large as his. At the same time, he was determined that he would not lose any more men attacking this band who were on the top of a rocky hill which afforded excellent cover.

  “Not very far away there was a colony, and Pablo sent some of his soldiers and brought from this colony a large number of old men, women and children. These he forced to approach the hill with his own men sheltering behind them. Our men, of course, were very unwilling to fire on these innocent people, but as they kept coming closer they had no alternative. It is a bad thing to see women and children fall before a volley of rifle-fire. After the first volley the remaining soldiers refused to fire any more and they stood up and surrendered. The officer in charge begged them to continue the fighting, but the soldiers would not do so. They were not to know that some of these people were their own relations. It was a very difficult situation. So they surrendered, and they were brought before Pablo. There were sixteen of them. They were brave men and they had done their duty. Pablo decided that they should all die. They stood before him, in two rows, waiting for him to decide how they were going to die.

  “The officer was a very brave man and he stood stiffly to attention, looking at Pablo with scorn in his eyes. Pablo ordered sixteen horses to be brought and each man was tied by the feet to the horse’s saddle. Then, at Pablo’s command, the horses were ridden across the rough country at a furious pace, dragging these men behind them. It is not a nice death, and it is only one example of Pablo’s cruelty. Perhaps the wickedest thing he ever did was when he took a small village and slaughtered everyone. The women had a very bad time. When his men had finished with them, he made them parade naked in the village street, and he flogged them with barbed wire until they died. The children were all thrown into a large fire, where they perished, screaming for their mothers; and the men were buried in the sand, alive, and left to suffocate. That indeed was a black day in Pablo’s life.”

  Those and other stories Holtz had heard about Pablo. It would not do to surrender, rather, to keep a bullet for himself, if th
e worst came. He wondered if he would have the courage to kill himself if the time came for him to do so; he didn’t know. He thought that he would; but until he had to press the cold barrel against his temple he really didn’t know. He hoped that he would find the courage, anyway.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Sergeant Castra, who came in at that moment. “The gun is set up, Lieutenant,” he said. “Shall I post one of the men as sentry?”

  Holtz nodded. “Yes,” he said; “send Golz. Send him down the road where he can observe for some distance. If he sees the enemy advancing, he is to come back here immediately. See how Dedos is getting on. I left him with the dynamite.”

  Castra went away. Holtz felt satisfied with him. He could be relied on to take the responsibilities of preparing for the attack.

  Holtz checked over the Lewis gun and then went to the window and peered through the small opening that commanded an uninterrupted view of the road. He could see Dedos kneeling in the dust, his hands busy. Further on, Golz was moving towards the slight crest to take up his position as sentry.

  The sun was very hot and threw sharp black shadows. Overhead there were no clouds. It was an unwarlike day, and looking across the courtyard Holtz felt a sudden pang of nostalgia. How absurd all this was. What a farce. At that moment his white-and-gold uniform meant nothing to him. He wanted, very badly, to see Nina again. He could see her very clearly. Tall, dark and vivacious. Yes, you would say she was vivacious. She had a tremendous spirit of gaiety. He had only seen her sad once, and that was just before he said good-bye to her. Neither of them knew when they would meet again. It was the knowledge of not knowing that is the canker of war. Holtz knew that it was she who must suffer in his absence. The privation of her company and of her love were as nothing to the long days of suspended waiting that she must endure. Long before the news could reach her, he would have passed through his pain, and would have been beyond the reach of anything that could harm him more.

  He wondered how long she would remain faithful to his memory. It was absurd to expect her to give up her life in mourning for him. He would not like that, or would he? He didn’t know. If he had been like Mendetta, he would not be thinking of her at all. Mendetta had never really loved anyone. He had not a lover’s vulnerability. He could go into action caring only for himself. He had no haunting thought that with his death someone else would die a little too. It was an added responsibility, this being in love. Yet he had no regrets. He would not have had it otherwise. When one loved as he loved, the pattern of life was sharp-etched. The lines ran sharply and life for him had intensified. Within him dwelt a rock-like feeling of security. He was sure of something. Yes, that was it. In this world of uncertainty, of revolution, of distrust and violent death, he was sure of one thing. He knew that Nina loved him and that he loved her. It wasn’t a passing moment of heady, ecstatic love, but a genuine feeling between them that made them as one. That established an affinity between them, binding them close and giving to their love an understanding that is very rare.

  Why had he bothered about this stupid revolution? Why had he taken sides in such a hopeless, unequal struggle? Perhaps it was that he wanted to justify himself by taking the hardest road. Nina had listened to him talk, night after night. They sat in the cafes or in their big bedroom, talking and discussing the revolution. She could see him gradually moving in his mind towards the moment when he had to rejoin his regiment. They could have slipped away easily enough over the border into America and have left this all behind. But she knew he wouldn’t do that. She knew he would be unhappy unless he stood with his General. Not that he thought a great deal of Cortez—he didn’t; but he felt that, as an officer, he had no right to shirk his responsibilities, and, finally, he went.

  They parted at night. She joined some friends not far from Cortez’ headquarters, and he reported to Cortez with the knowledge that no matter how well they fought, Pablo was certain to prove too much for them. It was an uneasy beginning, but that did not matter. He knew that he was doing right by himself.

  He had to stop thinking about the past, because Dedos had finished his work and was coming back to the farm. He moved slowly backwards, unwinding the coil of wire as he went. Holtz turned and went down the uneven stairs and crossed the courtyard to meet him.

  “The wire reaches so far,” Dedos said, stopping a few feet beyond the farm gate.

  Holtz considered that it would do. “You will have to conceal yourself here,” he said. “As soon as the enemy passes over the mine in sufficient numbers you are to explode it. Then come back to the farmhouse as quickly as possible.”

  Dedos smiled. His thin, cruel little face looked quite animated. “It is well, Lieutenant,” he said. “That I will do very well.”

  Holtz inspected the mine and found that Dedos had done very well. There was nothing more he could do to better it. He said as much to Dedos, who again smiled. Today had been kind to him.

  Holtz helped him connect the wires to the exploder. “You will wait for my signal,” he said. “Sit here in the shade. When Golz signals the enemy are approaching, you must take up your position by the exploder. When I blow a blast on my whistle you must explode the mine. Do you understand?”

  Dedos nodded. “It is very simple,” he said, and went to sit down as if he had not a care in the world.

  Holtz went back to the room where the Lewis gun was and sat down behind it. He checked over the ammunition belt and rejected three cartridges that he thought might jam, then he lit a cigarette and relaxed. It was always the same in war. Long hours of nothing to do, waiting for orders, or for the enemy, or to go home on leave. That was the sweetest wait of all. He had not seen Nina for three months; it was a long time. His body ached for the moment when he would hold her again in his arms.

  Usually, long spells of celibacy did not affect him, but that was before he had known Nina. Now, this privation was hard to bear. Not because his body clamoured for relief; it was not that. Nina was so lovely. Lying with her was an experience that no other woman had ever offered him. It was as if he had been swept up by an angry sea. The roar of the surf pounding in his ears, and he could let himself relax to her without reservation. That was it. He could relax whereas, before, he was always a spectator, nervous of criticism, anxious that he should be a great lover. And it was so hard to bear, this privation, because it might never happen again. It was precious, because he did not know when he would see her again. He did not even know if he would ever see her again.

  He glanced at his wrist-watch. Cortez had been gone an hour. Eleven more hours to wait, and then he could go too. Suppose Pablo didn’t attack? Suppose, after all, he could get away from this farm and follow Cortez into safety over the hill. If that happened, he would not risk another day like this. He would go immediately to Nina and together they would slip across the border and forget all about the revolution. They would live, then, for themselves. Hadn’t he done enough for the revolution? One man couldn’t make it a success. No matter how hard he fought, it wasn’t enough. No, he would go with Nina and forget about it for ever.

  Golz, on the crest of the hill, was standing very still with his back turned to the farm. Holtz watched him idly. Then his heart gave a sudden lurch as Golz spun on his heel and began to run towards the farm. Holtz could see the dust spurting up under his feet as he came. He beat the air with one hand and held his rifle a little away from his body with the other.

  Holtz knew what it meant. He felt a cold sweat break out under his arms and his mouth went very dry. He sat by the gun, holding the shaped firing lever tightly. Golz pounded past Dedos, and Holtz heard him shout something to him as he passed. Dedos scrambled to his feet and ran over to the box-exploder. Holtz could see the flash of his teeth as he grinned delightedly. He didn’t care about Pablo. He had no fear. Perhaps, when he was killed, he had no one who would die a little because of his death.

  Golz had reached the farm, and Holtz could hear him speaking to Castra. The sergeant came upstairs. His face was immovable
as he saluted stiffly. “A body of horsemen are approaching,” he said. “They are some way off. Am I to go forward and ascertain their strength?”

  Holtz nodded. “Report to me immediately,” he said. He hoped Castra hadn’t seen fear in his face. “Be careful that they do not see you.”

  It was an absurd thing to have said, but he wanted to show Castra that he was intent on the operation, instead of wishing that he was miles away from it.

  Castra came back after several minutes. “It is a patrol,” he said; “about fifteen men. There is no sign of the main body of the army.”

  Holtz got to his feet. This was unexpected. He had laid a big mine, expecting the whole of Pablo’s army. How long it would be before Pablo arrived on the scene he couldn’t guess, but it was useless to use the mine on a mere handful of men. He told Castra to recall Dedos. “The Lewis gun will be enough for them. Take your rifles and cover the road as well. When they come within range, I will do what I can to wipe them all out, and then you can finish the rest by rifle-fire.”

  He watched Castra place his men under cover. Dedos had taken his rifle and had gone behind a large iron barrel which had been used to store gasoline. Holtz could see him quite clearly. There was a heavy, savage frown on his face, and Holtz guessed he was very disappointed that he was not to fire the mine.

  Holtz laid the Lewis gun’s sights directly on the middle of the road. He hoped the approaching patrol would be massed together. He mustn’t take any chances. He knew that he might have Pablo’s main army to deal with very shortly. The patrol would have to be wiped out immediately and no one to escape to warn Pablo.

  It seemed a long time before the horsemen suddenly appeared over the crest of the hill. They came down the road in two files. They seemed in no hurry and they sat their horses easily. Their rifles were across their backs, and they seemed to be quite unaware that they might run into an ambush at any moment.

  Holtz adjusted the sight of the gun. Two long bursts ought to do it, he thought. He was aware that his heart was bounding and fluttering against his ribs. He was holding the firing lever so tightly that his hands ached. He would wait until they were within twenty feet of the mine. It wouldn’t do for them to disturb Dedos’ work. He could see them quite plainly now. They were all very young looking, hard and cruel. One of them was singing in a mournful way as he jogged along. The horses looked as if they had come far. Their black hides glistened with sweat and they kept tossing their heads impatiently. They were good horses, and Holtz automatically shifted the sights of the gun a little higher. He loved horses and it meant more to him to kill a horse than it did to kill one of Pablo’s men.