The Last Place God Made - Jack Higgins [46]
'I said so, didn't I?'
He exploded angrily. 'God damn it, there's no knowing how the Huna might react. If they turn sour, you won't have a prayer.'
'I can't say I ever had much faith in it anyway.' I started to move past him.
He grabbed my arm and spun me round. 'What in the hell are you trying to prove, Mallory?'
I see now, on reflection, that he saw the whole thing as some sort of personal challenge. If I went, then he would have to go or appear less than me and not only to Joanna Martin, for as I have said, he was a man to whom appearances were everything.
He was angry because I had put him in an impossible position which should have pleased me. Instead I felt as sombre as that grey morning itself.
'Let's just say I'm tired of life and leave it at that.' And for a moment, he believed me enough to slacken his grip so that I was able to pull free. As I walked back along the edge of the hangar, the first heavy drops of rain pattered against the roof.
*
The run to Santa Helena was uneventful enough in spite of the bad weather. We didn't get away until much later than had been anticipated because of poor visibility, but from nine o'clock on, there was a perceptible lightening in the sky although the rain still fell heavily and Hannah decided to chance it.
He asked me to take the controls which suited me in the circumstances for it not only kept me out of Joanna Martin's way, but also meant that I didn't have to struggle to find the right things to say to Sister Maria Teresa. I left all that to Hannah who seemed to do well enough although for most of the time the conversation behind was unintelligible to me, bound up as I was in my thoughts.
The situation at Santa Helena was no better. The same heavy rain drifting up from the forest again in grey mist because of the heat, but landing was safe enough and I put the Hayley down with hardly a bump.
I had radioed ahead on take-off and had given them an estimated time of arrival. In spite of this I was surprised to find Alberto himself waiting to greet us with the guard detail at the side of the strip.
He came forward to meet us as the Hayley rolled to a halt and personally handed the two women down from the cabin, greeting them courteously. His face beneath the peaked officer's cap was serious and he presented a melancholy figure, adrift in an alien landscape. The caped cavalry greatcoat he wore was obviously an echo of better days.
He led the way back to the small jetty where the motor launch waited. It presented a formidable appearance. There was a Lewis gun on the roof of the main saloon, another in the prow, each protected by sandbags, and a canvas screen along each side of the boat deck made it possible to move unobserved and also provided some sort of cover against arrows.
An awning had been rigged in the stern against the rain, there was a cane table and canvas chairs and as we approached, an orderly came out of the saloon carrying a tray. He wore white gloves and as the ladies seated themselves, served coffee from a silver pot in delicate china cups. The rain hammered down, a couple of alligators drifted by. A strange, mad dream standing there by the rail with only the stench of rotting vegetation rising from the river to give it reality.
Alberto approached and offered me a cigarette. 'In regard to our conversation yesterday, Senhor Mallory. Have you come to any decision?'
'A hell of a morning for a walk in the forest,' I said, peering out under the awning. 'On the other hand, it could be interesting.'
He smiled slightly, hesitated, as if about to say something, obviously thought better of it and turned away leaving me at the rail on my own. To say that I instantly regretted my words was certainly not so and yet I had voluntarily committed myself to a situation of grave danger which made no kind of sense at all. Now why was that?
A couple of soldiers were already casting-off and the launch eased away from the jetty. Alberto accepted a cup of coffee from the orderly and said, 'There