He smiled deprecatingly. 'My friend – I was good. And I might be lucky.'
'You aren't asking because you're either good or lucky.'
He just said: 'You are worried about the extra weight?'
'Not so much…' Him and the gun would only add 200 pounds or less, and that could be balanced by using him as copilot, to yank up the undercart the instant we broke ground. I'd prefer an extra 200 pounds than the extra seconds of drag from leaving the wheels down if I couldn't spare a hand at the moment of take-off.
I shrugged. 'All right: you've re-enlisted.'
He nodded graciously – but still didn't tell me why he was coming. It might be because he didn't want just to stand by with Miss Jiminez looking on. Or perhaps as a political commissar, to make sure my resolution didn't get a little weary in the wee small hours.
He picked up one of the nets. 'Perhaps you will show me how I am to do this threading.'
It was a long, hard grind in the sun, and we had to invent the details by trial and error; there's no manual of how to load a bomber with nets full of bricks.
In the end we doubled over the nets – I didn't like cutting and weakening them – into palliasses the dimensions of the bay: about eight by three-and-a-bit. Then I started screwing big ringbolts in four layers, along the bomb rails and at each end of the bay. The cables would be threaded through them as well as the mesh, each end of each cable ending in a loop hooked into a shackle; it had suddenly become useful having two hooks on each shackle.
When I pressed the button, the cables would jump off the hooks, the weight of bricks would force down the net and pull the free cables back through the mesh and ringbolts, letting more and more of the net loose until the load spilled out. That was the theory, anyway.
I knew the cables would jam after a few feet – but all I needed was one end to stay free long enough to open enough net. And I'd have 500 pounds of bricks pulling on it for me.
It was crude and it wasn't going to empty each net in one sudden jerk – but I didn't want it to. I wanted to spill a steady stream of brkks over a whole line of Vampires, not four loads on just four of them.
'But how do you know, my friend,' Luiz asked, 'that diey will be neatly lined up for you?'
'We know they are normally, and if Ned doesn't know we're coming… Anyway, did you ever see a military airfield where the planes weren't lined up?'
'No-o. But I only saw training fields. There, they lined up even the potatoes at lunchtime.'
'Well, there's a good reason for lining up planes. You can run the refuelling bowsers and rearming trucks and servicing gang right down them, one-two-three-four. Commanders are always getting caught with their planes lined up because they like fast servicing better than dispersing the damn things all over the field.'
'Let us hope so,' he said solemnly, sucking a finger that had got stabbed on an end of cable.
We had a wash, several dabs of iodine, a couple of beers, and a light lunch at the Golden Head and were back with the Mitchell by two.
By then I had half the ringbolts in place and Luiz had got two cables cut to the right length and the ends spliced and bound into loops. But still no bricks. And no J.B.
We soldiered on. We h'ad the airstrip to ourselves and the afternoon sun. With its British traditions, Jamaica doesn't have an official siesta – just that everybody goes to sleep in the afternoons.
The inside of the bomb-bay was like a Turkish bath gone critical. I ducked out, lay down under the shadow of the wing, and said: 'Give me a cigarette, will you?'
He threw the pack across.
'Thanks.' I lit one, puffed smoke at die wing above, and asked: 'How much chance does Jiminez stand – if we get die Vamps, I mean?'
He considered. Then: 'Good, I would diink. Of course, he is taking a risk at this tune of year, widi the university on vacation.'
'He's what?'
'The university students, my friend, are always a strong force in any liberal revolution. To make the move when they are on holiday, scattered all over die country, is to forgo valuable support. But die hurricane gives him a great chance to take Santo Bartolomeo. If he can dodiät, dien…' He shrugged.
'Then what? He won't have the whole country. And die Army'll roll home sometime – widi tanks and artillery and-'
'A revolution is not a war, my friend. It is not even truly a military affair. After all – who is the enemy? Just a few leaders, diat is all. Do army officers wish to be at war wim the civil servants? The soldiers widi die peasants? Does die whole Army wish to fight a colonial war in its own country, among its own homes and wives and children?
'A revolution is an affair ofbelief. You have won whenenough people believe you have won. So if you hold the capital, if you name a new government, broadcast on the radio, reopen shops and businesses – and perhaps a foreign government recognises you – then people say "It is all over; it has happened." Then, truly ithas happened. If Jiminez can do all these things before the Army can get home – then it will not come home shooting. To do so would be to start a civil war.'
I nodded thoughtfully – and painfully, since I'd forgotten my head was resting on the tarmac. 'But if Jiminez can't hold Santo Bartolomeo that long?'
There was a silence. Then he said quietly: 'Then he has lost. Finished. That is the other side of the coin. People will never believe a man has won if he has once lost before. Until now, Jiminez has been fighting a guerrilla war: never trying to hold on to a position, dodging away into the hills – just keeping his cause alive. But now, he must hold Bartolomeo. Tonight he commits himself – for ever.'
'You really have been listening to Miss Jiminez.'
He looked at me, and his dark eyes suddenly seemed very old. Then he smiled sadly. 'My friend, I had no need. In the Repúblicaevery child learns reading, writing – and revolution.'
The load arrived soon after four. Two small lorries, each stacked with dirty yellowish bricks. The driver of the first asked me who I was, consulted a paper, then nodded to his two mates to start unloading.
To keep from helping, he offered me a cigarette and asked: 'What you building, man?'
I thought of saying something clever and cryptic like 'a new country', but settled for: 'Shed where I can lock up tools without them getting pinched.'
He believed that. 'Anything getting stolen in Jamaica, man.'. He told me about the number of times people had swiped his lorries, and spun it out until every brick was stacked beside the runway.
Luiz had faded quietly away into the Mitchell while this was going on. I suppose the sight of a film star getting hishands dirty might have been suspicious. When the lorries had gone, he came out.
I picked up a brick. Tm going to sneak this on to the luggage scales in the terminal hut to find out what they weigh. You can start threading up the first net.'
He just nodded, picked up a brick for himself, and bounced it thoughtfully in his hand. I left him to it.
A brick turned out to weigh five and a half pounds as near as dammit, which made 360 to a 2,000-pounds load, or ninety to a net. We got the first net strung – it had to be in place before loading – and started filling it up. It wasn't particularly hard work, just long. We alternated between the one who hauled the bricks and the one who stood bent in the bomb-bay, slipping them in over the edge of the net.
We had forty or fifty in when a long black Cadillac-a film company car – whooshed up the runway. Miss Jiminez climbed out; alone.
She smiled at Luiz, then handed me an envelope. I ripped it open.
Dear Keith,
Sorry, but I've got to go down to Kingston on business with Walt. Anyhow, it wouldn't look so good if we were all of us up there today. Suspicious.