The Last Place God Made - Jack Higgins [61]
Another half-hour and it was obvious that if I did not go then I would not get away at all, had probably left it too late already. I told the mechanics it was now or never and got ready to leave.
I started the engine while still inside the hangar and gave it plenty of time to warm up, an essential factor under the circumstances. When I taxied out into the open, the force of the rain had to be felt to be believed. At the very best it was going to be an uncomfortable run.
The strip was five hundred yards long. Usually two hundred was ample for the Bristol's take-off but not today. My tail skidded from side to side, the thick mud sucked at the wheels, showering up in great fountains.
At two hundred yards, I hadn't even managed to raise the tail, at two-fifty I was convinced I was wasting my time, had better quit while still ahead and take her back to the hangar. And then, at three hundred and for no logical reason that I could see, the tail came up. I brought the stick back gently and we lifted into the grey curtain.
*
It took me two hours but I made it. Two hours of hell, for the rain and the dense mist it produced from the warm earth covered the jungle and river alike in a grey blanket, producing some of the worst flying conditions I have ever known.
To stay with the river with anything like certainty, I had to fly at fifty feet for most of the way, a memorable experience for at that altitude, if that is what it can be termed, there was no room for even the slightest error in judgement and the radio had packed in, the rain, as it turned out, which didn't help in the final stages, for conditions at Landro were no better than they had been at Manaus.
But by then I'd had it. I was soaked to the skin, bitterly cold and suffering badly from cramp in both legs. As I came abreast of the airstrip, Mannie ran out from the hangar. Everything looked as clear as it was ever going to be so I simply banked in over the trees and dropped her down.
It was a messy business, all hands and feet. The Bristol bounced once, then the tail slewed round and we skidded forward on what seemed like the crest of a muddy brown wave.
When I switched off, the silence was beautiful. I sat there plastered with mud from head to toe, the engine still sounding inside my head.
Mannie arrived a few seconds later. He climbed up on the lower port wing and peered over the edge of the cockpit, a look of awe on his face. 'You must be mad,' he said. 'Why did you do it?'
'A kind of wild justice, Mannie, isn't that what Bacon called it?' He stared at me, puzzled as I stood and flung a leg over the edge of the cockpit. 'Revenge, Mannie. Revenge.'
But by then I was no longer in control, which was understandable enough. I started to laugh weakly, slid to the ground and fell headlong into the mud.
*
I sat at the table in the hangar wrapped in a couple of blankets, a glass of whisky in my hands and watched him make coffee over the spirit stove.
'Where's Hannah?'
'At the hotel as far as I know. There was a message over the radio from Figueiredo to say he wouldn't be back till the morning because of the weather.'
'Where is he?'
'Fifteen miles up-river, that's all. Trouble at one of the villages.'
I finished the whisky and he handed me a mug of coffee. 'What is it, Neil?' he said gravely. 'What's happened?'
I answered him with a question. 'Tell me something? Hannah's bonus at the end of the contract? How much?'
'Five thousand dollars.' There was a quick wariness in his eyes as he said it and I wondered why.
I shook my head. 'Twenty, Mannie.'
There was a short silence. He said, 'That isn't possible.'
'All things are in this best of all possible worlds, isn't that what they say? Even miracles, it seems.'
I took out my wallet and passport and threw them on the table. 'I found her, Mannie - the girl who robbed me that night at The Little