A Signal Victory Read Online Free Page B

a conch before, and thought it a trumpet. Was that the way a trumpet sounded in heaven?
    He glanced down the boat. No, it was not there after all. It was a mirage. For if it was heaven, then how could a common sinner be here in the boat with him, and Guerrero was still there.
    The surf was threatening now. There must be a barrier reef. Saved or damned, Aguilar did not want to drown. He found that he could move. The trouble was that he could not move enough. He could just raise his arm, and no more. The Japanese at that period, when their voyages failed, or so they claimed as a joke, kept themselves alive by eating their own lice. But Aguilar had no sense of humour, and his lice merely clotted his sleeve. He had had nothing to eat for days.
    Starvation was to save his life, but now he only thought it meant he was going to die anyway. Whatever else he might be about to become, he did not want to die, for no matter how reduced he might be, Aguilar would always have the strength to feel afraid.
    Painfully he tried to move his cracked tongue, and some sound must have come out. Guerrero stirred.
    Or perhaps the conch wakened him. It did not seem to him a strange sound. It seemed to him a sound he had always expected to hear.
    He saw Aguilar’s quivering hand. He heard the surf, felt the water choppy under the keel, and grabbed the tiller with a chapped and blood-clotted hand.
    The next minutes were quick, sure work. Even so it was not his skill that brought them through. In those sudden waters he had no skill. It was his luck.
    Being a realist, and so able always to make the better of any choices, Guerrero always had luck.
    When he straightened up, the reef was behind them, and they were in quiet water, though water with a slight surge, enough, at any rate, to bring the boat to the shallows.
    It’s amazing how much strength you have at the last moment. Guerrero jumped out and tried to beach the boat. He couldn’t stifle a slight scream, for since the skin of his legs was sun-dried and salt-caked, the warm water split it up the bone, as though slitting the belly of a fish.
    He paid no attention. He knew they should get under cover. There was no way to tell where they were, or who lived here, and he had had enough of natives in Panama. Unfortunately he was too weak to do more than count the living, and see if Valdivia was among them. Valdivia was his captain, and though he did not need orders, if there was anybody to give them, it was his place to take them.
    He squinted up at the cliffs and caught a glimpse of the white buildings. As far as he was concerned, they were just buildings, but he didn’t like the abrupt silence up there, and the night was full of watching.
    A narrow, snake-like line of light caught his eye, undulating against the cliff face. He knew what it was. Fresh water.
    Behind him he heard the most peculiar sound, a muffled, high-pitched giggle. He turned around. It was Aguilar, crying with joy, because he wasn’t in paradise after all, this wasn’t Bishop Brendon’s island, and he was still alive.
    There was no gratitude in that sound, for such salvation,but only triumphant hatred of a world that had once more not quite put him down.
    With a shrug of disgust, Guerrero dragged himself up the beach towards the ribbon of water.
IV
    They had beached at Tulum. It was a pitiable little city, jerrybuilt and holy, eight hundred years old, and half deserted now, for no noble could be bothered to live there. Yet it was the end of that long pilgrim road from Chichen Itza and the interior which led to the embarkation point for the sacred island of Cozumel, so perhaps it was not so pitiable after all. It still had its priests, and the temple of the Diving God was whitewashed every year. It was powerful enough to overwhelm fourteen men weak from exposure on the beach below.
    Of all this Aguilar was unaware.
    He was one of those men who, having no character of their own, but only a vast desire to be safe, derive one from