There was a fever of excitement about the rhythmic side-to-side swaying of black arms, receiving and passing material on. And, oddly, there was also an air of absolute confidence in these men and women who had never in their lives fought a flesh-and-blood army.
Noah himself while still serene, seemed less secure than his people. He was arguing with Dr. Fleming in an island of quiet near the gate, away from the activity. Fleming leaned on a crutch, sputtering, insisting.
“Very well, Noah, I accept Jerome’s duplicity. But I cannot permit you and your people to throw your lives away on my account. If Jerome is so power hungry, I must submit as I did to Hammond. I will surrender, allow myself to be exiled to the United States. Jerome is a competent man and this island has survived under military rule before. Perhaps I can even guide him. Send him my message.”
Sending Jerome a peace message would signal my death. Even if the colonel would be satisfied to call off his hounds from Noah, I wouldn’t last one minute.
Looking at failure eyeball to eyeball was bad enough. I hated it like hell. But it was worse imagining what would happen to my hide with Jerome as vindictive as I believed. It was a good hide. There were some patches on it, but the seals were tight. So far. I waited sourly for the patriarch’s reaction to Fleming’s offer. It came in a weary tirade.
“Doctor, I respect your idealism but it is blinding you. When General Hammond deposed you, the people still believed his promises to keep Grand LaClare Island for the islanders. He could afford to exile you. Carib Jerome cannot be so generous. He is as unpopular as he is ambitious. You are a threat to him so long as the population could be rallied to you.
“It is not only your life that’s at stake but ours too. If Jerome succeeds, he plans to use this place as a missile site, drive us away and move our enemies in. He cannot hold power without Communist backing. This mountain has been our sanctuary, our home, for centuries. Our people will die fighting for it.”
The old bastard was glorious. He got to Fleming too. The doctor showed his guts, squared himself, and said, “I can’t fault your logic, Noah. I have dreamed too long. Hope is a seductive temptress, isn’t she? Well, I can throw stones with one hand.”
He touched Noah’s arm in a lingering gesture of affection, then turned and hobbled toward the stairs leading to the sea.
Noah winked at me.
I climbed to the roof and looked through a crenel to the mouth of the cove. The fleet coming through it reminded me of the one that had evacuated the British from Dunkirk in World War II. I think every fishing boat from Port of Spain, anything that would float, was massed around the headland, waiting for room to come through the channel. There were little boats with lateen sails designed to take tourists into the big harbor at the capital to watch the natives dive for coins. There was the lubberly craft in which vacationing anglers went after the wahoo, that brilliant fish that lost its bright colors almost as soon as it came out of the water.
There were yachts and outboards leading the pack, more than fifty in all, all crowded with men in uniforms.
I daydreamed of a couple of U.S. destroyers and of some air cover showing up over the horizon. It was a nice daydream.
The lead boats were well into the cove now, a rank of them making toward the shore at wide intervals. Those farthest away would make it. The rest had a surprise ahead. They came at full speed, unbelievably innocent of the breakwater they would run into. Noah’s reputation must have kept everyone away from this small harbor so that knowledge of the stone teeth under the surface was lost.
I watched two yachts running neck and neck. Even without binoculars I could see the bazookas and machine guns cradled by the men on deck. They hit the breakwater at the same time with a grinding shriek of metal. The prows heaved into the air. The hulls shuddered, the sharp bottoms rolled, the impact shooting men and weapons high and flinging them into the sea.
As if to punctuate that grand slam, Mitzy’s first charge of dynamite roared from the trail.
Behind the yachts two tugs with too much momentum to stop in time struck the hidden wall. They rammed onto the rock and hung there, balanced on their mid sections, men tumbling overboard to flail in the water. Some of them sank, weighed down by boots and guns. Others found the stone and hung to it, stunned. The next line of boats hove to, veered back toward the middle of the cove and lay there. But three scows heavily loaded with soldiers chugged close along the base of the headland, probing with poles and came against the breakwater where it joined the steps leading to the fort. The men from the first boat started up. The third scow backed off and threw a screen of lead at the top of the parapet.
I hadn’t seen Noah scramble up a ladder, but there he was beside me now, crouched to keep his head low one eye against a bamboo periscope built with an extra mirror to look directly down. He had one hand raised to signal. All along the wall brown figures waited, watching him, each man holding a stone.
I heard the soldiers’ boots, the noise growing above the machine gun fire from the scow. Then I heard a wheezing grunt beyond the wall, and the soldiers were just below us. Noah slashed his hand down. There was flurry at the crenels. Men ignored the guns shooting at them, bent over the three-foot-thick wall, slammed their stones down and slipped back to shelter. Three fell back, bloodied. Others dragged them away and took their places.
The covering fire stopped abruptly. I looked through the crenel at the head of the steps. I was in time to see soldiers flying through the air, falling toward the sea — a domino ripple of bodies knocking each other down the stairs. They piled up at the bottom or rolled off to the water.
Noah’s men picked up more rocks, ready for another attack. The shock that had stopped the firing wore off and lead again sailed through the apertures and slapped into the wall.
Nine
A second muffled explosion shook the jungle, Mitzy had to blow another charge. Noah didn’t need me at the moment. The Luger couldn’t reach a boat, and their guns weren’t damaging the wall too much now. The old giant had the steps under control. I ran for the trail. Mitzy squatted on the ground, holding the third fuse and looking perplexed.
“They got smart in a hurry,” she told me. “I caught seven the first time and four the next, bunched together. Now they’re coming one at a time, twenty feet apart. It’s a waste, a whole charge for only one man.”
“It sure is, so hold it. I can handle them one by one.”
The soldiers were coming up unenthusiastically but still coming, bullied by officers bawling at their rear. They weren’t looking up the grade but swiveling their heads side to side, watching the ground before them to spot booby traps.
I fought down through the scrub brush where the trail dropped out of sight behind the nose of a rock. If I could make that spot before a soldier appeared, I would be in range to pick them off with the Luger as they came around. I had barely gotten there when the first man walked into sight. He was short, very dark, his face streaming sweat. He stopped to pant, then came on, moving slowly, eyes on the trail. I lifted the Luger, then lowered and holstered it. There was a better way. He didn’t know I was there.
My ammo was already in too damn short supply, and there was no gun shop handy. I shook the stiletto out of the arm sheath; when the soldier came under me, I leaped on his back. He bent forward. My feet hit his spine hard. He went on his face, flat, the air driven out of him. Normally I don’t kill unconscious men, but one luxury I couldn’t afford now was taking prisoners. I cut his throat, cut off his cartridges, kicked him into the downhill brush, took his rifle and sprinted around back to my nest. If my wind held out, I could take the lot of them and also stockpile a lot of arms. Nice.