Passage by Night - Jack Higgins [32]
And then the agony was too much to bear and Manning cried out and pushed with all his strength against the table. One of the soldiers slipped to one knee, losing his grip, and the chair went over backwards. Manning got to his feet, swung a wild punch at the man on the floor and lunged for the door. As he touched the handle, the other soldier moved fast and swung the butt of his machine gun into the small of his back.
Manning crouched on the floor against the wall, waves of pain flooding through his body, and struggled for breath. Faintly through the roaring he was aware that Rojas was laughing.
'Stubborn people, the English,' he said in Spanish, 'but he will learn. Bring him upstairs.'
Manning had grazed his head against the wall in falling and blood trickled into his eye. He brushed it away with one hand and the soldiers jerked him roughly to his feet and followed Rojas through the door.
They mounted the stone steps and turned along a flagged corridor. Outside a door at the far end, a sentry was standing and he opened it quickly.
Anna and her father were sitting on a wooden bench against the wall. Rojas walked past them, opened another door, went in and closed it behind him. One of the soldiers gave Manning a push forward and they stationed themselves by the door.
Manning's brain was still not functioning properly. He staggered against the wall, almost losing his balance and leaned against the whitewashed stonework.
'Are you all right, Harry?' Anna asked anxiously.
'Only just. They're a pretty rough crowd.'
The blood from the graze on his forehead trickled down the whitewashed wall, a vivid splash of colour, and he slumped to the bench and managed a tired grin.
Papa Melos looked angry. 'They'd better remember we're British citizens, that's all. They can't hold us here indefinitely. We've done nothing wrong.'
'That kind of talk went out with the last of the gunboats,' Manning said. 'The British Government doesn't mean a thing to this bunch.'
'We'll see about that.'
Anna folded her handkerchief into a pad and dabbed at the blood on Manning's forehead. He smiled. 'Worried?'
'Not as much as I should be.'
He took one of her hands and said awkwardly, 'I'm sorry, Anna. I got you into this mess and right now, I can't see any way out.'
'Not your fault, son,' Papa Melos cut in. 'We knew what we were doing.'
Before Manning could reply, the door to the colonel's office opened and a small, seedy-looking clerk in a rumpled gabardine suit appeared.
He jerked his head. 'Inside, all of you.' They got to their feet and moved past him, and the guards followed.
The room was panelled in sapele wood and simply furnished with a plain desk and a carpet that covered the floor wall-to-wall. Rojas was standing by the window and he turned, his face serious, and sat behind his desk. He leafed through some papers then looked up at Manning.
'I asked you a question a short time ago. At that time you seemed unwilling to cooperate.'
'I still am,' Manning said flatly.
Rojas picked up a pen, wrote something on a pad in front of him and put the pen down again.
He turned to Papa Melos. 'I have considered your offence most carefully and am prepared to believe you were the unwitting tool of this man. Under the circumstances, I have decided to be lenient. You and your daughter will be released, the boat will be confiscated.'
A shudder seemed to pass through the old man's body and his head moved slightly from side-to-side as if he found difficulty in understanding what Rojas had said. Anna moved forward quickly.
'But this is monstrous. We have done nothing! Nothing!'
Rojas arched his eyebrows in surprise. 'Is it nothing to bring an American spy into our country? The agent of an unfriendly nation?'
She flinched, the shock of it like a physical blow. Slowly she turned and looked at Manning. 'Harry?'
There was nothing he could say and Rojas laughed harshly. 'So you believed his story, my dear. How very unfortunate.'
She rushed forward, grabbing Manning by the shirt