He took out his wallet and extracted a business card which he handed to OHara. It informed him that Raymond Forester was the South American sales manager for the Fairfield Machine Tool Corporation.
OHara gave it back to him. Was Grivas the only communist aboard? he said. Thats what Im getting at. When we were coming in to land, did any of the passengers take any special precautions for their safety?
Forester thought about it, then shook his head. Everyone seemed to be taken by surprise I dont think any of us knew just what was happening. He looked at OHara with respect. In the circumstances that was a good question to ask.
Well, Im not a communist, said Miss Ponsky sharply. The very idea!
OHara smiled. My apologies, Miss Ponsky, he said politely.
Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin; now he stood up. This lady is dying, he said. She has lost much blood and she is in shock. And she has the soroche the mountain-sickness. If she does not get oxygen she will surely die. His black eyes switched to Aguillar, who seemed to have fallen asleep. The Señor also must have oxygen hes in grave danger. He looked at them. We must go down the mountain. To stay at this height is very dangerous.
OHara was conscious of a vicious headache and the fact that his heart was thumping rapidly. He had been long enough in the country to have heard of soroche and its effects. The lower air pressure on the mountain heights meant less oxygen, the respiratory rate went up and so did the heart-beat rate, pumping the blood faster. It killed a weak constitution.
He said slowly, There were oxygen cylinders in the plane maybe theyre not busted.
Good, said Rohde. We will look, you and I. It would be better not to move this lady if possible. But if we do not find the oxygen, then we must go down the mountain.
Forester said, We must keep a fire going the rest of us will look for wood. He paused. Bring some petrol from the plane we may need it.
All right, said OHara.
Come on, said Forester to Peabody. Lets move.
Peabody lay where he was, gasping. Im beat, he said. And my heads killing me.
Its just a hangover, said Forester callously. Get on your feet, man.
Rohde put his hand on Foresters arm. Soroche, he said warningly. He will not be able to do much. Come, señor.
OHara followed Rohde from the cabin and shivered in the biting air. He looked around. The airstrip was built on the only piece of level ground in the vicinity; all else was steeply shelving mountainside, and all around were the pinnacles of the high Andes, clear-cut in the cold and crystal air. They soared skyward, blindingly white against the blue where the snows lay on their flanks, and where the slope was too steep for the snow to stay was the dark grey of the rock.
It was cold, desolate and utterly lifeless. There was no restful green of vegetation, or the flick of a birds wing just black, white and the blue of the sky, a hard, dark metallic blue as alien as the landscape.
OHara pulled his jacket closer about him and looked at the other huts. What is this place?
It is a mine, said Rohde. Copper and zinc the tunnels are over there. He pointed to a cliff face at the end of the airstrip and OHara saw the dark mouths of several tunnels driven into the cliff face. Rohde shook his head. But it is too high to work they should never have tried. No man can work well at this height; not even our mountain indios.
You know this place then?
I know these mountains well, said Rohde. I was born not far from here.
They trudged along the airstrip and before they had gone a hundred yards OHara felt exhausted. His head ached and he felt nauseated. He sucked the thin air into his lungs and his chest heaved.
Rohde stopped and said, You must not force your breathing.
What else can I do? said OHara, panting. Ive got to get enough air.
Breathe naturally, without effort, said Rohde. You will get enough air. But if you force your breathing you will wash all the carbon dioxide from your lungs, and that will upset the acid base of your blood and you will get muscle cramps. And that is very bad.
OHara moderated his breathing and said, You seem to know a lot about it.
I studied medicine once, said Rohde briefly.
They reached the far end of the strip and looked over the edge of the cliff. The Dakota was pretty well smashed up; the port wing had broken off, as had the entire tail section. Rohde studied the terrain. We need not climb down the cliff; it will be easier to go round.
It took them a long time to get to the plane and when they got there they found only one oxygen cylinder intact. It was difficult to get it free and out of the aircraft, but they managed it after chopping away a part of the fuselage with the axe that OHara found on the floor of the cockpit.
The gauge showed that the cylinder was only a third full and OHara cursed Filson and his cheese-paring, but Rohde seemed satisfied. It will be enough, he said. We can stay in the hut tonight.
What happens if these communists turn up? asked OHara.
Rohde seemed unperturbed. Then we will defend ourselves, he said equably. One thing at a time, Señor OHara.
Grivas seemed to think they were already here, said OHara. I wonder what held them up?
Rohde shrugged. Does it matter?
They could not manhandle the oxygen cylinder back to the huts without help, so Rohde went back, taking with him some mouthpieces and a bottle of petrol tapped from a wing tank. OHara searched the fuselage, looking for anything that might be of value, particularly food. That, he thought, might turn out to be a major problem. All he found was half a slab of milk chocolate in Grivass seat pocket.
Rohde came back with Forester, Willis and Armstrong and they took it in turns carrying the oxygen cylinder, two by two. It was very hard work and they could only manage to move it twenty yards at a time. OHara estimated that back in San Croce he could have picked it up and carried it a mile, but the altitude seemed to have sucked all the strength from their muscles and they could work only a few minutes at a time before they collapsed in exhaustion.
When they got it to the hut they found that Miss Ponsky was feeding the fire with wood from a door of one of the other huts that Willis and Armstrong had torn down and smashed up laboriously with rocks. Willis was particularly glad to see the axe. Itll be easier now, he said.
Rohde administered oxygen to Mrs Coughlin and Aguillar. She remained unconscious, but it made a startling difference to the old man. As the colour came back to his cheeks his niece smiled for the first time since the crash.
OHara sat before the fire, feeling the warmth soak into him, and produced his air charts. He spread the relevant chart on the floor and pin-pointed a position with a pencilled cross. Thats where we were when we changed course, he said. We flew on a true course of one-eighty-four for a shade over five minutes. He drew a line on the chart. We were flying at a little over two hundred knots say, two hundred and forty miles an hour. Thats about twenty miles so that puts us about here. He made another cross.
Forester looked over his shoulder. The airstrip isnt marked on the map, he said.
Rohde said it was abandoned, said OHara.
Rohde came over and looked at the map and nodded. You are right, he said. That is where we are. The road down the mountain leads to the refinery. That also is abandoned, but I think some indios live there still.
How far is that? asked Forester.
About forty kilometres, said Rohde.
Twenty-five miles, translated Forester. Thats a hell of a long way in these conditions.
It will not be very bad, said Rohde. He put his finger on the map. When we get to this valley where the river runs we will be nearly five thousand feet lower and we will breathe more easily. That is about sixteen kilometres by the road.
Well start early tomorrow, said OHara.
Rohde agreed. If we had no oxygen I would have said go now. But it would be better to stay in the shelter of this hut tonight.
What about Mrs Coughlin? said OHara quietly. Can we move her?
We will have to move her, said Rohde positively. She cannot live at this altitude.
Well rig together some kind of stretcher, said Forester. We can make a sling out of clothing and poles or maybe use a door.
OHara looked across to where Mrs Coughlin was breathing stertorously, closely watched by Miss Ponsky. His voice was harsh. Id rather that bastard Grivas was still alive if that would give her back her legs, he said.
II
Mrs Coughlin died during the night without regaining consciousness. They found her in the morning cold and stiff. Miss Ponsky was in tears. I should have stayed awake, she sniffled. I couldnt sleep most of the night, and then I had to drop off.
Rohde shook his head gravely. She would have died, he said. We could not do anything for her none of us.
Forester, OHara and Peabody scratched out a shallow grave. Peabody seemed better and OHara thought that maybe Forester had been right when he said that Peabody was only suffering from a hangover. However, he had to be prodded into helping to dig the grave.
It seemed that everyone had had a bad night, no one sleeping very well. Rohde said that it was another symptom of soroche and the sooner they got to a lower altitude the better. OHara still had a splitting headache and heartily concurred.
The oxygen cylinder was empty.
OHara tapped the gauge with his finger but the needle stubbornly remained at zero. He opened the cock and bent his head to listen but there was no sound from the valve. He had heard the gentle hiss of oxygen several times during the night and had assumed that Rohde had been tending to Mrs Coughlin or Aguillar.
He beckoned to Rohde. Did you use all the oxygen last night?
Rohde looked incredulously at the gauge. I was saving some for today, he said. Señor Aguillar needs it.
OHara bit his lip and looked across to where Peabody sat. I thought he looked pretty chipper this morning.
Rohde growled something under his breath and took a step forward, but OHara caught his arm. It cant be proved, he said. I could be wrong. And anyway, we dont want any rows right here. Lets get down this mountain. He kicked the cylinder and it clanged emptily. At least we wont have to carry this.
He remembered the chocolate and brought it out. There were eight small squares to be divided between ten of them, so he, Rohde and Forester did without and Aguillar had two pieces. OHara thought that he must have had three because the girl did not appear to eat her ration.
Armstrong and Willis appeared to work well as a team. Using the axe, they had ripped some timber from one of the huts and made a rough stretcher by pushing lengths of wood through the sleeves of two overcoats. That was for Aguillar, who could not walk.
They put on all the clothes they could and left the rest in suitcases. Forester gave OHara a bulky overcoat. Dont mess it about if you can help it, he said. Thats vicuna it cost a lot of dough. He grinned. The bosss wife asked me to get it this trip; its the old mans birthday soon.
Peabody grumbled when he had to leave his luggage and grumbled more when OHara assigned him to a stretcher-carrying stint. OHara resisted taking a poke at him; for one thing he did not want open trouble, and for another he did not know whether he had the strength to do any damage. At the moment it was all he could do to put one foot in front of the other.
So they left the huts and went down the road, turning their backs on the high peaks. The road was merely a rough track cut out of the mountainside. It wound down in a series of hairpin bends and Willis pointed out where blasting had been done on the corners. It was just wide enough to take a single vehicle but, from time to time, they came across a wide part where two trucks could pass.
OHara asked Rohde, Did they intend to truck all the ore from the mine?
They would have built a telfer, said Rohde. An endless rope with buckets. But they were still proving the mine. Petrol engines do not work well up here they need superchargers. He stopped suddenly and stared at the ground.
In a patch of snow was the track of a tyre.
Someones been up here lately, observed OHara. Supercharged or not. But I knew that.
How? Rohde demanded.
The airstrip had been cleared of snow.
Rohde patted his breast and moved away without saying anything. OHara remembered the pistol and wondered what would happen if they came up against opposition.
Although the path was downhill and the going comparatively good, it was only possible to carry the stretcher a hundred yards at a time. Forester organized relays, and as one set of carriers collapsed exhaustedly another took over. Aguillar was in a comatose condition and the girl walked next to the stretcher, anxiously watching him. After a mile they stopped for a rest and OHara said to Rohde, Ive got a flask of spirits. Ive been saving it for when things really get tough. Do you think it would help the old man?
Let me have it, said Rohde.
OHara took the flask from his hip and gave it to Rohde, who took off the cap and sniffed the contents. Aguardiente, he said. Not the best drink but it will do. He looked at OHara curiously. Do you drink this?
Im a poor man, said OHara defensively.
Rohde smiled. When I was a student I also was poor. I also drank aguardiente. But I do not recommend too much, He looked across at Aguillar. I think we save this for later. He recapped the flask and handed it back to OHara. As OHara was replacing it in his pocket he saw Peabody staring at him. He smiled back pleasantly.
After a rest of half an hour they started off again. OHara, in the lead, looked back and thought they looked like a bunch of war refugees. Willis and Armstrong were stumbling along with the stretcher, the girl keeping pace alongside; Miss Ponsky was sticking close to Rohde, chatting as though on a Sunday afternoon walk, despite her shortness of breath, and Forester was in the rear with Peabody shambling beside him.