Hannah was already taxing back to the other end of the sandbank. He turned into the wind, ready for take-off, and then the engine cut. Out of the night behind us, voices lifted high above the flames, the Huna in full cry.
Hannah was out of the Bristol now, standing at the edge of the sandbank, firing his Thompson gun across the channel. I didn't look back, I had other things on my mind. Sister Maria Teresa slipped sideways, caught by the current. I flung myself forward getting a hand to her just in time, another to Joanna. For a moment things hung in the balance, the current pushing against us and then we were ploughing through the shallows and up on to the sandbank.
There must have been a hundred Huna at least on the river-bank, outlined clearly against the flames. At that distance most of their arrows were falling short, but already some were sliding down into the water.
When the Thompson emptied, he slipped in another magazine and commenced firing again. I gave Joanna a leg up into the observer's cockpit, then shoved Sister Maria Teresa up after her.
Hannah backed up to join me. ‘Better get in and get this thing started, kid.’
‘What about you?’
‘Can you turn that prop on your own?’
There was no argument there. I climbed up into the cockpit and made ready to go. He emptied the Thompson gun at the dark line now halfway across the channel, then dropped it to the sand and ran round to the front of the machine.
‘Ready,’ he yelled.
I nodded and wound the starting magneto. He heaved on the propeller. The engine roared into life. Hannah jumped to one side.
I leaned out of the cockpit. ‘The wing,’ I cried. ‘Get on the wing.’
He waved, ducked under the lower port wing and flung himself across it, grasping the leading edge with his gloved hands. There was a chance, just a chance that it might work.
I thrust the throttle open and started down the sandbank as the first of the Huna came up out of the water. Fifty or sixty yards and I had the tail up, but that was going to be all for the drag from his body was too much to take. I knew it and so did he — he was too good a pilot not to.
One moment he was there, the next he had gone, releasing his grip on the leading edge, sliding back to the sand. The Bristol seemed to leap forward, I pulled the stick back and we lifted off.
I had time for one quick glance over my shoulder. He had got to his feet, was standing, feet apart facing them, firing his automatic coolly.
And then the dark wave rolled over him like the tide covering the shore.
SIXTEEN
‘The comandante will not keep you waiting long, senhor. Please to be seated. A cigarette, perhaps?’
The sergeant was very obviously putting himself out considerably on my behalf so I met him halfway and accepted the cigarette.
So, once again I found myself outside the comandante's office in Manaus and for one wild and uncertain moment, I wondered if it was then or now and whether anything had really happened.
A fly buzzed in the quiet, there were voices. The door opened and the comandante ushered Sister Maria Teresa out. She was conventionally attired again in a habit of tropical white, obtained as I understood it, from some local nuns of another Order.
Her smile faded slightly at the sight of me. The comandante shook hands formally. ‘Entirely at your service, as always, Sister.’
She murmured something and went out. He turned to me beaming, the hand outstretched again. ‘My dear Senhor Mallory, so sorry to have kept you waiting.’
‘That's all right,’ I said. ‘My boat doesn't leave for an hour.’
He gave me a seat, offered me a cigar which I refused, then sat down himself behind the desk. ‘I have your passport and travel permit ready for you. All is in order. I also have two letters, both a long time in arriving, I fear.’ He pushed everything across to me in a little pile. ‘I was not aware that you held a commission in your Royal Air Force.’
‘Just in the Reserve,’ I said. ‘There's a difference.’
‘Not for much longer, my friend, if the newspapers have it right.’
I put the passport and travel permit in my breast pocket and examined the letters, both of which had been originally posted to my old address in Lima. One was from my father and mother, I knew by the writing. The other was from the Air Ministry and referred to me as Pilot Officer N. G. Mallory. They could wait, both of them.
The comandante said, ‘So, you go home to England at last and Senhor Sterne also. I understand his visa has come through?
‘That's right.’
There was a slight pause and he was obviously somewhat embarrassed as if not quite knowing what to say next. So he did the obvious thing, jumped up and came round the desk.
‘Well, I must not detain you.’
We moved to the door, he opened it and held out his hand. As I took it, his smile faded. It was as if he had decided it was necessary to make some comment and perhaps, for him, it was.
He said, ‘In spite of everything, I am proud to have been his friend. He was a brave man. We must remember him as he was at the end, not by what went before.’
I didn't say a word. What could I say? I simply shook hands and his door closed behind me for the last time.
As I walked across the pillared entrance hall my name was called. I turned and found Sister Maria Teresa moving towards me.
‘Oh, Mr Mallory,’ she said. ‘I was waiting for you. I just wanted the chance to say goodbye.’
She seemed quite her old self again. Crisp white linen, the cheeks rosy, the same look of calm eager joy about her as when we first met.
‘That's kind of you.’
She said, ‘In some ways I feel that we never really understood each other and for that, I'm sorry.’
‘That's all right,’ I said. ‘It takes all sorts. I understand you're staying on here?’
‘That's right. Others will be arriving from America to join me shortly.’
‘To go back up-river?’
‘That's right.’
‘Why don't you leave them alone?’ I said. ‘Why doesn't everybody leave them alone? They don't need us — any of us — and they obviously don't need what we've got to offer.’
‘I don't think you quite understand,’ she said.
I was wasting my time, I realised that suddenly and completely. ‘Then I'm glad I don't, Sister,’ I told her.
I think in that final moment, I actually got through to her. There was something in the eyes that was different, something undefinable, but perhaps that was simply wishful thinking. She turned and walked out.
I watched her go down the steps to the line of horse-drawn cabs whose drivers dozed in the hot sun. Nothing had changed and yet everything was different.
I never saw her again.
Standing at the rail of the stern-wheeler in the evening light and half an hour out of Manaus, I remembered my letters. As I was reading the one from the Air Ministry, Mannie found me.
‘Anything interesting?’
‘I've been put on the active service list,’ I said. ‘Should have reported two months ago. This thing's been chasing me since Peru.’
‘So?’ He nodded gravely. ‘The news from Europe seems to get worse each day.’
‘One thing's certain,’ I said. ‘They're going to need pilots back home. All they can get.’
‘I suppose so. What happens in Belem? Will you apply to your consul for passage home?’
I shook my head, took the small linen bag Avila had given me in the church at Santa Helena and handed it to him. He opened it and poured a dozen fair-sized uncut diamonds into his palm.