'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.
Here's your final shooting script: There are just ten, not eleven, jets now. According to a message from Miss J's old man, they crashed another last week.
Sunrise in SB is at 5.22 tomorrow.
The weather there is supposed to be pretty cloudy. This is a good thing, isn't it? Means you have somewhere to hide. Anyway, for God's sake don't take any risks. You hear me?
And when you get back, if I'm not around DON'T TALK to anyone. Stay under cover until I can tell you what to say.
Look after yourself, Keith
J.B.
I grinned. It was somehow a very J.B. letter.
Then I shrugged, stuffed it in my pocket, and looked around. Luiz and Miss Jiminez were talking quietly by the bomb-bay.
'They aren't coming down,' I said.
Luiz nodded, as if he wasn't surprised, then said:'Juanitawould very much like to see if the nets work.'
'I'd like to see myself. Climb in and pull the plug.'
'Oh no, my friend.7 want to watch.'
We glared at each other.
He turned to Miss Jiminez.'Juanita- perhaps you would care to press the very button which will, tomorrow, strike out such a blow for your father's cause?'
Her eyes glittered. She'd justlove to.
'You speak like snake, with forked tongue,' I whispered, rememberinga Unefrom several Whitmore Westerns.
'My own hands,' he said grimly, 'they loaded that net. I want tosee.' He shunted her up through the forward hatch.
I shooed the company car away; this was a strictly private demonstration. Luiz dropped out of the hatch again. 'I think she understands the idea. I told her to-'
She understood it.
The net suddenly sagged below the bay, then poured bricks on to the tarmac in a clattering roar. Yellow dust exploded up around the plane.
I said: 'About a half-second delay. That means I'd better drop at…' I tried to think where.
Luiz said: 'My God. It works.'
But we were working by the station-wagon's headlights before we had all four nets strung and loaded, brick by filthy, heavy, sharpedged brick. Any time the Bricklayers' Union wants to bar me from ever handling a brick again, I'll come out and picket myself.
Miss Jiminez didn't last the course: the dirty, slogging little details of war didn't seem to be anything Qausewitóhad said much about. She pushed off at dusk.
It was eight o'clock by the time Luiz and I were cleaned upand sitting down at the long Spanish bar of the Plantation Inn.
He said thoughtfully: 'You may have a drag problem, from those nets hanging down after the bricks are gone.'
I'd realised that already, but without seeing any way around it. 'It may not be too bad. If it is, you can try hacking open the bomb-bay with the fire axe and cutting them loose.'
He seemed a little dubious about that, but just grunted and" looked at his watch. 'At what time do we take off?'
I pulled J.B.'s letter from my pocket and uncrumpled it. 'Sunrise is at five twenty-two – so it'll be light enough for an attack about fifteen minutes before. Say five minutes after five. It's about four hundred and fifty miles; two and a half hours at normal cruise. Let's aim at a two o'clock take-off and give ourselves half an hour in hand for bad weather or getting lost or a wing falling off.'
He nodded. 'So I'll pick you up at – quarter-past one?'
Tine." I finished my drink, stood up, turned away. Then turned back. 'Just why are you really coming on this trip?'
He shrugged. 'Perhaps – I rehearsed being a gunner for three years, in the war. I want to play it, just once, for the camera.'
'Luiz, you're a damned liar.'
But he just smiled. After a moment, I went away.
I had my room door half open before I realised the light was on inside. And not only the light. Miss Jiminez.
This time, she was out of mourning. She was out of practically everything, everything being a tight white silk Chinese dress with a slit skirt reaching almost to journey's end and a high collar with a big cutaway just below to give a fine close-up of her strategic high ground.
I leant limply back on the door, shoving it closed. The last diing I wanted right now wasa briefingon what Clausewitz said about how to drop bricks ona uneof jet fighters.
I didn't get it. She stood up, slowly, gracefully, and said gently: 'This is an early celebration of tomorrow, Capitán. Would you like a drink?'
. There, on the bedside table, was a half-bottle of champagnein a silver ice-bucket. Two glasses.
I nodded blankly and she poured the stuff out – expertly, too. She handed me one and smiled softly. 'To tomorrow, then. I think in England you say "confusion to the enemy"?'