‘Come on,’ I said to her and helped her down into the mud and the rain. I handed down the suitcase, then clambered into the flight cabin. I undipped the Thompson machine gun then searched in one of the lockers and found a pocket compass.
Flies were already settling around Bernie. I felt bad leaving him but we had to go.
As I joined her, she said. ‘I’m hating this rain.’
‘That makes two of us.’ I swung the gun by its strap over my shoulder, picked up the suitcase and started off into the jungle.
The next two hours were sheer helclass="underline" a lot worse for her than for me. At least I had had plenty of experience in the Viet jungles of this kind of thing and knew what to expect. Although I had been a service mechanic I had had to go through a jungle course.
The rain was ceaseless, pounding down through the trees, giving us no respite. I kept checking the compass. I knew the coast was somewhere northeast, but there were times when the jungle was so thick we had to make a detour. Without the compass, we would have been hopelessly lost.
She kept up with me, walking just behind me. I paced myself, knowing we had a long way to go. Finally, we came on a clearing in the jungle. Trees had been felled. There were signs of fires, long dead that had burned unwanted wood. I stopped short at the edge of the clearing.
I looked to right and left and listened. All I could hear was the pattering rain. I turned and looked at her. Her face was drawn and blotched with mosquito bites. I could see the nipples of her breasts through the soaked shirt. I looked at her feet. She had on casuals of white calf and they showed bloodstains. She had walked until her feet were beginning to bleed and yet she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint.
‘Your feet!’ I exclaimed.
‘Don’t pity me.’ She forced a grin. ‘If you have to pity anyone, pity yourself.’
‘How about some food and a drink?’
‘Not yet. If I sit down. I won’t be able to get up again.’
We looked at each other and I saw she meant it.
‘Okay. We’ll go on.’ I slapped at a mosquito that had settled on my neck and we went on, crossing the clearing and into the jungle again.
I moved cautiously, worrying about the clearing. It told me there was a village nearby, and I knew we were too close to Orzoco’s neck of the woods to take any risk.
It was lucky I hadn’t forgotten my jungle training. Suddenly, as we walked along the sodden muddy path. I heard a sound that immediately alerted me. I caught hold of Vicky’s arm — I was now thinking of her as Vicky and not as the glamorous Mrs. Victoria Essex — and swung her of the path and into the undergrowth. She went with me without resisting although we dropped into a pool of muddy water and I gave her full marks for that. We crouched down and waited.
Three Yucatan Indians came down the path, all carrying broad bladed axes. They moved swiftly and I only caught a glimpse of them before they were gone.
‘We’re near a village,’ I whispered. ‘It’s too close. We must move east and then head north again.’
We left the path and struggled across swampy ground, through the thick undergrowth and the going was bad, but she kept up. Then suddenly the rain ceased and the humid mist lifted. Like a glittering sword, drawn from its scabbard, the sun came out. The heat turned into a throat drying, sweat soaking hell.
Mosquitoes tormented us. My arms and face were swollen with bites. I stopped to look at her. What a mess she was in! The only thing I could recognise in her swollen, insect bitten face were those dauntless violet eyes.
‘What are you stopping for?’ Her voice was a croak.
‘Cut out the iron woman act,’ I said. ‘We’re going to rest.’
She stared at me, then her face crumpled and she dropped on her knees in the mud and putting her filthy hands to her face she began to sob.
I put the suitcase and the gun in a bush, then kneeling, I took her in my arms. She clung to me and I held her the way I would have held a child.
We remained like that for several minutes while the mosquitoes attacked us ceaselessly, then she stopped sobbing and pushed me away.
‘I’m all right now.’ Her voice was steady. ‘Sorry for the dramatics. Let’s eat.’
‘You’ve certainly got guts.’ I said as I opened the suitcase.
‘Think so?’ She looked down at the red bumps on her hands. ‘If I look anything like you, I must look like hell.’
I grinned at her.
‘At least you’re human.’
I opened a can of beans and a can of goulash. We ate the mixture with plastic spoons that were taped to the cans.
‘Are you going to get me out of this mess Jack?’ she asked abruptly.
‘I’m going to try.’
‘Aren’t you scared of going back?’
‘I haven’t thought of that. Right now I want to get us out.’
She eyed me.
‘You’re throwing away three million dollars.’
‘A million: we agreed to split it three ways.’
‘Doesn’t that bother you?’
I shrugged.
‘It’s an odd thing. At first I was thirsting for all that money, then I got thinking and realised I wouldn’t know what to do with it. I remember you saying with all your money you got bored. That’s something I wouldn’t want.’
‘Would you still work for my husband if you got the chance?’
‘I won’t get the chance.’
‘Yes, you will. I’ve been thinking about you. I could tell Lane we crashed into the sea. You and I were the only survivors. We clung to some wreckage and you got me ashore. He would believe that, coming from me and he’d do a lot for you.’
I stared at her.
‘Would you lie like that for me?’
She nodded
‘Yes. You’re the first man who has ever treated me as a woman should be treated. You mean something to me.’
I tried to think clearly but my head ached. It seemed the solution: the way out. Instead of spending years in jail for air piracy. I would have a thirty thousand dollar a year job with Essex Enterprises, plus Vicky.
‘I’ll get you out of here,’ I said. ‘I...’
We both heard the sound of an approaching helicopter.
‘Don’t move!’ I looked up cautiously.
We were well screened by the treetops and I was pretty confident we couldn’t be spotted.
A few moments later I saw, just above the trees, the chopper pass over. It was painted a drab green and had Mexican roundels. It went as quickly as it had come.
‘They’re looking for the wreck,’ I said and got stiffly to my feet. ‘I guess we’re about twelve miles from it by now: too close for safety. Once they find you’re not on board, they’ll start a hunt. Let’s go!’
I reached out my hand, grasped her wrist and hauled her to her feet. She fell against me with a cry of pain.
‘God! My feet!’ she gasped. ‘I don’t think I can walk.’
‘I’ll carry you if I have to, but we’ve got to move.’
She pushed away from me, took four tottering steps forward, her face white.
‘It’s all right: I’ll manage.’
‘Good girl.’
‘Don’t be so damn patronising!’
I snatched up the suitcase, slung the gun over my shoulder and started again. I walked slowly, but steadily, giving her a chance and I kept looking back. She limped along, her head down, the mosquitoes swarming around her, but she kept going.
We walked for over an hour, then the jungle ahead began to thin out.
‘Rest,’ I said. ‘Wait here. We could be nearing a road. Looks like we’re nearly out of the jungle.’
She dropped on her knees. I put the suitcase beside her.
‘I’ll be right back.’
She was past speaking. She just knelt there, her head in her hands.