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'Doomed to extinction, you mean?'

'Exactly.' He groaned and put a hand to his head. 'Christ, there's someone walking around inside with hob-nailed boots.'

I gave up. Maybe they were right and I was wrong - perhaps the Huna had to go under and there was no other choice. I pushed the thought away from me, eased back the stick and climbed into the sunlight.

*

The whole trip took no more than forty minutes, mostly in bright sunshine although as we approached our destination we ran into another of those sudden violent rainstorms and I had to go down fast.

Visibility was temporarily so poor that Hannah took over the controls in the final stages, taking her down to two hundred feet at which height we could at least see the river. He throttled back and side-slipped neatly into the landing strip which was a large patch of campo on the east bank of the river.

'They don't have a radio, so I usually fly in over the settlement just to let them know I'm here,' Hannah told me. 'The nuns enjoy it, but this isn't weather to fool about in.'

'It is of no consequence,' Alberto said calmly. 'They will have heard us land. The launch will be here soon.'

The mission, as I remembered, was a quarter of a mile upstream on the other side of the river. Alberto told Lima to go and wait the launch's arrival and produced a leather cigar case.

Hannah took one, but I declined and on impulse, opened the cabin door and jumped down into the grass. The rain hammered down relentlessly as I went after the sergeant. There was a crude wooden pier constructed of rough-hewn planks, extending into the river on piles, perhaps twenty or thirty feet long.

Lima was already at the end. He stood there, gazing out across the river. Suddenly he leaned over the edge of the jetty, dropping to one knee as if looking down at something in the water. As I approached, he stood up, turned to one side and was violently sick.

'What's wrong?' I demanded, then looked over the edge and saw for myself. I took several deep breaths and said, 'You'd better get the colonel.'

An old canoe was tied up to the jetty and the thing which floated beside it, trapped by the current against the pilings was dressed in the tropical-white robes of a nun. There was still a little flesh on the skeletal face that stared out from the white coif, but not much. A sudden eddy pulled the body away. It rolled over, face-down and I saw there were at least half a dozen arrows in the back.

*

Lima climbed up out of the water clutching an identity disc and crucifix on a chain which he'd taken from around the nun's neck. He looked sicker than ever as he handed them to Alberto and stood there shaking and not only from the cold.

Alberto said, 'Pull yourself together for God's sake and try and remember you're a soldier. You're safe enough here anyway. I've never known them to operate on this side of the river.'

If we'd done the sensible thing we'd have climbed back into the Hayley and got to hell out of there. Needless to say, Alberto didn't consider that for a second. He stood at the end of the jetty peering into the rain, a machine-gun cradled in his left arm.

'Don't tell me you're thinking of going across?' Hannah demanded.

'I have no choice. I must find out what the situation is over there. There could be survivors.'

'You've got to be joking,' Hannah exploded angrily. 'Do I have to spell it out for you? It's finally happened, just as everyone knew it would if they didn't get out of there.'

Colonel Alberto ignored him and said, without turning round, 'I would take it as a favour if you would accompany me, Senhor Mallory. Sergeant Lima can stay here with Senhor Hannah.'

Hannah jumped in with both feet, his ego, I suppose, unable to accept the fact of being left behind. 'To hell with that for a game of soldiers. If he goes, I go.'

I don't know if it was the result Alberto had intended, but he certainly didn't argue. Sergeant Lima was left to hold the fort with his revolver, I took