Face to the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page B

decided to experiment. I tipped it up against the wall and scrambled up the frame. Standing on the head of it, which
couldn’t be done for more than a few seconds because either it collapsed or I did, I found that my outstretched arm was still some eighteen inches short of the window and even if I could
somehow bridge the gap I had only my fist to break the glass. Wrapping it in the sleeve of my coat wouldn’t help much. I should emerge on to a sloping roof as a highly suspicious character
with one arm dripping blood. That was no way to appear in public.
    Two more silent hours of morning passed and then a much smaller and less distinguished member of the unknown ‘we’ unlocked the door and relocked it. If they were both fair specimens
of General Heredia’s opposition, it was drawn from both peasant and landowner. I would have liked to share a jug with this tough in Andean shade but he looked at me with such hatred that a
jug was the last thing we were likely to share. He carried a long knife which could persuade me to co-operate more slowly than a revolver.
    ‘I have a few questions for you,’ he began in Spanish.
    ‘With much pleasure.’
    ‘Where is the Punchao?’
    ‘The wife of your president has it. You know that.’
    ‘You will get it back from her.’
    ‘My lad, one cannot enter Claridge’s like that and swipe jewellery.’
    ‘What is the number of her room?’
    ‘I don’t remember.’
    ‘Get up from that bed when you speak to me!’
    So far he was merely softening me up ready for fiercer questions, holding that wicked knife an inch from my navel. I could have grabbed his wrist but it was a gamble who would win and I valued
my navel though it had not been much use in later life. I knew his type when puzzled as well as angry; he had no clear picture of Claridge’s or me, and assumed I would be as terrified as any
little urban sneak-thief helpless in the power of a bloodthirsty
guerrillero
. I considered the solid top of his round head. There might be a chance to use it if I inflated his manly pride
still more.
    I began to weep and pray, begging him for mercy; a wretched coward in full accordance with what he expected of an overdressed crook deservedly afraid for his life. With my arms around his knees
– if knees can sneer – I gripped the ground with my toes and drove my bowed head forward and up with every muscle of my body behind it. When he doubled up in agony I wrenched his arm
backwards and dislocated something – his shoulder probably. The knife, threatening his already battered testicles, persuaded him to lie on the bed.
    I could now escape, for I took his key, but I had no idea how many passages and doors and people, with or without silvery voices, I should find on lower floors. It seemed wiser to carry out my
first plan unless inspection showed that there was no practicable way off the roof. I cut strips of blanket with that admirably sharpened knife and tied his chest to the trestle bed so that his
head and shoulders stuck out about eighteen inches beyond. A second strip fastened his ankles to the cross bar. A third closed my briefcase and tied it round my waist. Once he offered some
resistance, but a further stretching of the dislocated arm convinced him that it was not worthwhile.
    I tipped the trestle bed against the wall below the window, its legs folded and my interrogator firmly lashed to the frame. What he thought I was going to do to him I cannot say, carve my
initials on his stomach perhaps. Any attempt to speak or yell was instantly suppressed by slight attention to the arm. His head and shoulders were well clear of the bed. The only question now was
whether I had the strength to lift both bed and body together. I had – just – for the second it took to punch his head through the glass. I could then use him as a ladder. I regret the
brutality, but it was an unavoidable component of the moral principles which I was compelled to accept.
    Descent from the roof