Ulysses

By Alekto

All notes, disclaimers etc., as for Chapter 1



Chapter 7



It was more than two weeks since the skirmish at the quarry when I decided that it was time to put into action the plans I had been working on for Lopez. The intensity of the search for me was finally beginning to die down, partly I believed because of the rumours that had begun to circulate that my corpse had been found at the bottom of a ravine. It was a useful rumour, and one that had been carefully promulgated by Domingo at my suggestion. I did feel uncomfortable deceiving the villagers who had placed such faith in me, but given the odds, I needed whatever sort of advantage I could muster against Lopez and his men. If they had become complacent because of my supposed demise, if, when they saw me, they believed me to be a ghost then so much the better.



Robbie, my pony, had benefited from the rest. Like most ponies, he possessed a canniness seldom seen in their larger cousins. In my escape from the quarry when I had been wounded, it had largely been he who had found the trail and brought me to the cave where I had eventually woken up. There was no other reasonable explanation for it that he had found so perfect a hiding place was little short of miraculous. Looking at the unprepossessing pony, I sometimes found myself wondering at the old infantry joke about the cavalry as to the cavalryman's horse having the brains of the partnership.



I started out late in the evening so that by the time I reached the more regularly patrolled area near to the house I would have the advantage of darkness. The gibbous moon hanging low in the sky provided ample illumination for the sure-footed Robbie to pick his way along the rough paths. In the chill of night the pony's breath condensed on the wind in billowing spurts, lit a ghostly silver in the moonlight. The only sounds were the rhythmic pad of unshod hooves, the creak of leather and the faint jangle of harness. We made good time and met no one on the trail. By the time the moon set, I had Robbie tethered in a copse in the garden while I inched forward on foot.



Unlike last time, there were few guards around, and those that I could see were gathered in a huddle smoking and chatting. It was almost an invitation and part of my mind was screaming 'trap' with clear reason. I crouched down thinking frantically. I was carrying a knife, handgun and what was left of the dynamite against whatever might be planned for me in the house. The rational, tactical side of my mind was urging me to leave, to pull back and come up with another plan, but having come so far I wanted to finish what I had started.



Slinking from shadow to shadow I made my way around to the back of the house to the entrance to the storage cellar where I had found Domingo more than two weeks earlier. I had managed to time it well: the first shimmers of grey dawn were lightening the eastern horizon as I slipped quietly down the stairs under the house. There were no prisoners there now, no lights burned and no sign of anyone. At the foot of the stairs I waited for a few seconds, listening, alert for any sound that did not belong. Nothing. I had been lucky so far. Now there was just one problem, one dangerous little problem: I needed light to see, and if anyone was lying in wait it would be an excellent way of advertising my presence and exact location. I reached into my pocket for my lighter. The familiar shape fitted easily into my hand. I flicked down with my thumb to ignite the flame. The simple act of using a lighter did not normally make my heart pound, but that night it certainly did. As the wavering orange flame illuminated the corrideor, I half expected to hear gunfire or voices ordering my surrender. The continuing silence was almost anti-climatic. I'd got away with it - so far.



I moved through the subterranean corridors as quietly as I could, ready to pause at the slightest noise. I used the lighter as sparingly as I could. A candle or oil lamp would have been far more effective but far slower to dowse, so I made do with the dim light from the lighter. After about half an hour, I found a solid wooden door at the end of a corridor that I gauged would lead me directly under the main spine wall of the house. I was no engineer, but it seemed like the ideal place to put the small amount of dynamite that I had so it would do the optimum amount of damage. A heavy iron key was already in the lock. Personal experience as a child sneaking around the great house at Avebury had taught me just how noisy such locks could be, but I had little choice really. I made sure the gun was loose in its holster then took hold of the key and twisted slowly. The mechanism had, at least, been kept oiled so moved easily. The lock finally opened with a dull 'thunk' that echoed through the silent corridor. I waited again but still heard nothing. Something was definitely wrong. Even so early in the morning there should have been several servants about making preparations for the day, but there was no hint of movement from the house above. In a way it was a relief. I wanted to destroy Lopez's base of operations, not kill people who were unfortunate to be employed by him. Still, the continuing silence was making me uneasy.



I was too committed to the job I had set out to do to stop now, so I pulled open the heavy door and flicked on the lighter. The door opened on to a small landing at the top of a shallow flight of stairs. At the limits of the light I could make out racks holding hundreds of wine bottles. For a brief instant I was back in Rio as my old friend was sampling wines at his favourite vintners: Don Ferdinand had been a true connoisseur. I looked at the cellar it had taken him a lifetime to amass, wines that would grace any table in London. It seemed a crime to destroy it, but it was necessary. I pushed the heavy door closed behind me and went down the steps. On a table at the base of the steps was an oil lamp, which I lit, trimming it to give the minimum light I would need to set up the explosives.



There was just one small problem which I had been wrestling with since I had evolved the plan of using the explosives to destroy the hacienda: the fuses. Between the fracas at the quarry and my subsequent nightmarish escape I had very little fuse wire left, I guessed not much more than a minute's worth. Here, in Don Ferdinand's exquisitely stocked cellar I found the perfect, if bizarre, answer to my problem. I could set a fire, using spirits as an accelerant, and rely on the fire to light the fuse after I had left. It was probably the most sacrilegious use that I could think of for 1800 Napoleon Brandy. Determined to do it properly I tucked the explosives against what I hoped was the appropriate wall and packed around them with heavy cases to direct as much of the explosion into the wall. Then I broke open several of the bottles of brandy and emptied the contents on a pile of old packing cases. As I did so, I noticed a small desk in one corner of the room with ledgers resting on it: Don Ferdinand's cellar records. I walked over and searched for the set of glasses I knew would be there also. I found one and tipped out a measure of the last bottle of the Napoleon into it.



Everything was finally ready. I lit a brandy soaked rag wrapped around a piece of packing case and, once it was burning well, threw it into the now highly inflammable pile of debris I had gathered. As the flames rose, I lifted my glass to Don Ferdinand's memory and murmured, "Good bye, old friend, I'm glad you're not around to see this," then downed the contents in one mouthful. It wasn't the way to drink that deliciously smooth Napoleon, but under the circumstances it had felt appropriate.



Turning to leave I noticed a rectangle of light where the heavy door had been closed. Silhouetted there were three figures: two men holding rifles pointed at me, and a woman. They had me dead to rights. Behind me I was all too conscious of the fire blazing ever closer to the dynamite.



The woman stepped forward to the top of the landing and gazed down at me. It was 'Dona' Maria, dressed in a flowing white night gown. Her coal black hair, thick and luxuriant, cascaded around her shoulders. Looking more closely I could make out blood spatters on the pristine white, but more obvious still was the nickel plated .25 held in her hand pointed nonchalantly in my direction. Despite myself, I coughed a couple of times, the smoke from the fire I had started was beginning to make it difficult to breathe, but neither she nor her cohorts appeared to notice. She merely offered me a smile, ingenuous, alluring and utterly insane. "So very pleasant to see you again, Lord Roxton. We really must stop meeting like this you know or people will talk."



However innocuous her words might have been, they didn't alter the aim of the little automatic in her hand. It remained completely steady. This was not, I reflected, a good way to start a day.





To be concluded…