Tales of Mysteries & Espionage - John Buchan Edition. Buchan John

Чтение книги онлайн.

      III

       Table of Contents

      The details of Lossberg’s advance up the railway, when, with overwhelming superiority of numbers and artillery, and after various checks, he drove in the screen of the defence, and on July 19th entered the Gran Seco city, do not belong to this story. They will be found set out at length in the dispatches of the correspondents who accompanied the Olifa army. Those veracious writers gave ample information about the Olifa command, for censorship was thought unnecessary in such a case, but they were very much in the dark as to in the personnel of the enemy. Castor was assumed to be commander-in-chief, and Rosas, described as a Mexican adventurer who had been once on the staff of Porfirio Diaz, was credited with such military talent as the rebels possessed.

      The correspondents had followed the military critics in assuming that the result was a foregone conclusion. But presently a new name appeared in their dispatches—El Obro, an Indian word which was interpreted in Spanish as “el lobo gris”—”the grey wolf.” El Obro was believed to be the name of a guerrilla leader much reverenced by the Indians, who was assumed to be lurking in the hinterland.

      As the weeks passed this name was to appear more often, till presently Castor and Rosas were almost forgotten and it had the headlines to itself.

      On the day before the defence broke, Blenkiron was sitting on an empty shell-case in what had once been the garden of his house behind the Administration Buildings. An algarroba tree gave him a little shade from the pitiless sun, and, since he was grey from head to foot with dust and had a broad battered panama hat pulled down over his head like a burnous, he had something of the air of a cadi under a palm. Around him stood a small group in rough field-service kit, all of them dusty and a little hollow-eyed, their shoulders limp and rounded like those of men who have not lain flat in bed for several nights. The place was very quiet to be in the heart of a city. There was no sound except that of an occasional car driven at top-speed in the adjoining street, though an alert ear might have caught at intervals a curious pattering noise coming from the south, a noise which at times grew into something like the beating of muffled drums.

      A man was speaking, a man with a drawl and a sleepy voice. This was Escrick, the submanager of the Alhuema Mine, who had once commanded a brigade of Australian infantry in France. He had been in charge of the position astride the railway, and had sited the trenches so skilfully that Lossberg’s guns had bombarded dummies and Lossberg’s advance had been time and again held up by concealed machine guns. He had now the task of drawing off his men by night, a task which, having been at the evacuation of Helles, he had no doubt as to his ability to perform.

      Blenkiron, as the plan was unfolded, glanced at the paper in his hands, and at Escrick’s further elucidation with the point of a riding-switch in the thick dust. Then he turned to another man, a heavy red-faced fellow who was perpetually mopping his face with a blue-spotted handkerchief. At his look of inquiry the man nodded.

      “The last of the supply waggons leave this afternoon, sir,” he said. “Three of the centres are already stocked up, and the fourth will be completed by midnight. The men should be well on their way before daybreak to-morrow, and all arrangements have been made for mining and blowing-up the roads behind them.”

      “You’re not leaving much behind?”

      “Not an ounce of flour or a pound of bacon,” was the answer.

      “I reckon that’s fair. It’s up to Lossberg to feed the population of the city he captures. What’s it they call them, Luis? The bouches inutiles?”

      Luis de Marzaniga smiled. “There won’t be too many of these useless mouths, Senor.”

      “Lordy, it’s hot!” Blenkiron sighed. “Let’s get inside the shack and moisten our lips with lime-juice. The maps are there, and I’ll like to have a once-over before we gel back to our jobs.”

      A hut in the garden had been transformed into an office, and on one wall hung a big plan made of a dozen sheets pinned together. It had none of the finish of the products of a Government Map Department, being the work of the Mines surveyors. Each of the men had a small replica, which he compared with the original. There followed an hour of detailed instruction as to routes and ultimate concentrations. Four points were marked on the big map with red circles. One, lettered Pacheco, lay in the extreme south-west angle of the Gran Seco. Magdalena, the second, was a hundred miles farther north, under the shadow of the peaks called the Spanish Ladies. The third was near the centre of the northern part of the province, the Seco Boreal, and had the surprising name of Fort Castor: while the fourth, Loa, was at the opening of the neck of land which led to the Courts of the Morning. The commandos under Escrick were to make for the two latter points, while Peters and his forces, which had been fighting in the Mines sector, had the two former for their objectives.

      There was also to be a change in the command. Blenkiron, СКАЧАТЬ