It was too dark to see and the Negro lit three candles. He carried one into the inner room, but brought it back and nipped out the flame. He said, “He is asleep.” Father Rivas turned on the radio and the sad notes of Guaraní music came over the air-the music of a people who are doomed to die. There was a lot of static; it crackled like the machine guns of extinction. Up in the mountains beyond the river the summer was beginning to break up and the lightning quivered on the walls.
“Put out all the pans and pails you have,” Father Rivas told Pablo.
The wind came in a sudden blast, the leaves of the avocados swept across the tin roof, and then again the wind dropped. “I shall have to wear a wet shirt at Mass,” Father Rivas said, “unless I can persuade Marta that God does not mind a man’s naked skin.”
Suddenly, as though someone were standing close at their elbow within the hut, a voice spoke to them, “We have been asked by police headquarters to read the following statement.” There was a pause while the man found the right place. They could even hear the rustle of the papers he was carrying.
“It is now known where the gang of kidnappers are holding the British Consul captive. They have been located in a certain quarter in the barrio popular which…” The rain came sweeping down from Paraguay, beating on the roof, and drowned the announcer’s words. Marta ran in, holding out a piece of damp cloth, the shirt of Father Rivas. She cried, “Father, what can I do? The rain…”
“Hush,” the priest said, and he turned the’ radio louder. The rain passed over them toward the city, and the lightning lit the room almost continuously. Across the Paraná in the Chaco the thunder became audible, like a barrage which has lifted and moved on before an attack.
“You have no longer any hope of escape,” the voice continued slowly and ponderously, in an interval of static, speaking with extreme clarity like a teacher explaining a problem of mathematics to a class of children; Doctor Plarr recognized the voice of Colonel Perez. “We know exactly where you are. You are surrounded by men from the 9th Brigade. Before eight tomorrow morning you must send the British Consul out of the hut. He must come alone and walk unmolested into the cover of the trees. Five minutes afterward you must come out yourselves, one by one with arms raised over the head. The Governor guarantees that your lives will be spared and you will not be returned to Paraguay. Do not attempt to escape. If any man leaves the hut before the Consul has been delivered unharmed he will be shot down. No white flag will be respected. You are completely surrounded. I warn you that if any harm…” After that the static whined and shrieked through his words, making them unintelligible.
“Bluff!” Aquino said, “only bluff! If they were out there Miguel would have warned us. That man can see an ant in the dark. Kill Fortnum and afterward we will draw lots to see who leaves first. How can they tell on a night like this who it is that leaves the hut-the Consul or another?” He threw the door open and called out to the Indian “Miguel!” Like an answer to his question a semicircle of floodlights flashed on-they flared from between the trees in an arc nearly a hundred yards across. Through the open door Doctor Plarr could see moths crowding away from him towards the lights to beat and shrivel against the reflectors. The Indian lay flattened on the ground, and the doctor’s own shadow shot back into the hut and lay stretched there like a dead man on the floor. The doctor moved aside. He wondered whether Perez had seen him and identified him.
“They do not dare shoot into the hut,” Aquino said, “for fear of killing Fortnum.”
The lights went out again. In the silence between the thunderclaps they heard a rustle no louder than the movements of a rat. Aquino stood a. the edge of the doorway and turned his gun toward the darkness. “No,” Father Rivas said, “it’s Miguel.” Another wave of water swept the roof and in the yard a pail was overturned and sent rattling away before the wind.
The darkness did not last. Perhaps the lightning had blown a fuse which was now repaired. The men watching from inside the hut saw the Indian rise to his feet to run, but the lights blinded him. He began to turn in a circle with a hand over his eyes. A single shot was fired and he fell to his knees. It was as though the men of the 9th Brigade had no intention of wasting ammunition on someone of so little importance. The Guaraní knelt with his head bent, like a pious man at the elevation of the Host. He swayed from side to side-he might have been enacting part of a primitive rite. Then with immense effort he began to raise his gun in the wrong direction until it pointed at the open door of the hut. It seemed to Doctor Plarr, who watched flattened against the wall, that the parachutists were waiting with a cruel and patient curiosity to see what happened next. They were not going to waste another bullet. The Indian was no danger to them, for how could he possibly see to shoot in the glare of the lights? Whether he were dying or not was immaterial to them. He could lie there till morning came. Then the gun sailed a few feet through the air toward the hut. It fell out of reach and Miguel was still on the ground.
Aquino said, “We must pull him in.”
“He is dead,” Doctor Plarr assured him.
“How can you tell?”
The lights went out again. It was as though the men hidden in the trees were playing a cruel game with them.
“This is your chance, doctor,” Aquino said.
“What can I do?”
“You are right,” Father Rivas said. “They are trying to tempt one of us to go out.”
“Your friend Perez might not shoot if you went out.”
Doctor Plarr said, “My patient is here.”
Aquino edged the door further open. The automatic rifle lay just out of reach. He put a hand out toward it. The lights flashed on, and a bullet struck the edge of the door as he banged it shut. The man in charge of the lights must have heard the squeak of the hinge.
“Close the shutters, Pablo.”
“Yes, Father.”
With the glare of the lights shut out, they felt a sense of protection.
“What shall we do now, Father?” the Negro asked.
“Kill Fortnum at once,” Aquino said, “and if the lights go out again we can make a run for it.”
Pablo said, “Two of us are dead already. It might be better, Father, if we surrendered. And there is Marta here.”
“But the Mass, Father?”
“It seems to me I shall have to make it a Mass for the dead,” Father Rivas said.
“Say any sort of Mass you like,” Aquino said, “but kill the Consul first.”
“How could I say the Mass after I had killed him?”
“Why not if you can say a Mass when you intend to kill him?” Doctor Plarr said.
“Ah, Eduardo, you are still enough of a Catholic to know how to turn the knife in the wound. You will be my confessor yet.”
“May I prepare the table, Father? I have the wine. I have the bread.”
“I will say it at the first light. I have to prepare myself, Marta, and that takes longer than laying a table.”
“Let me kill him while you say your prayers,” Aquino said. “Do your work and leave me to do mine.”
“I thought your work was writing poems,” Doctor Plarr said.
“My poems have all been about death, so I am well qualified.”
“It is madness to go on,” Pablo said. “Forgive me, Father, but Diego was right to try to escape. It is madness to kill one man and make sure that five of us die. Father…”
“Take a vote,” Aquino interrupted with impatience. “Let the vote decide.”
“Are you turning into a Parliamentarian, Aquino?” Doctor Plarr said.
“Keep to a subject you know, doctor. Trotsky believed in a free vote inside the Party.”