The Magdalena Curse by F.G. Cottam Read Free Book Online Page B

been leaf dapple from the starlight on his knuckles. Couldn’t rightly be certain.’
    The South American criminal gangs wore facial tattoos, Hunter knew.
    Gaul spat again. ‘Know what you’re thinking, Sir. Seen those guys for myself up close in LA. Wasn’t gang ink.’
    ‘What then, Private? Ethnic? Tribal?’
    ‘Seen something similar a couple of years ago, Sir. We were mountain training, skiing in New Zealand with some of the Anzac grunts. Got a forty-eight-hour furlough and saw ink similar on the faces of the Maori guys in some of the bars. Only similar, mind. Not quite the same.’
    Hunter took this in. ‘Anything else, Private? Any other detail that particularly struck you?’
    Gaul laughed softly. ‘The dog scented me. It cocked his head to where I was laid up, but didn’t make any sound. I don’t think it could. I think its cords had been cut.’
    ‘Jesus,’ Hunter said.
    ‘You’re a man comfortable with words, Sir,’ Gaul said. ‘Give me a real good one for red.’
    ‘Scarlet?’
    ‘Nope. Not bright enough. Want something real bloody.’
    ‘Crimson.’
    Gaul went to flick his fingers in what was clearly a gesture of habit, before remembering where they were and the prevailing need for quiet. His hand descended. ‘That’s the one, Captain Hunter. When the dog turned its stare on me, I’d swear its eyes were crimson.’
    The soldier rose to go. But Hunter had one final question. ‘Vehicles?’
    ‘One troop carrier. Kind of the old-fashioned sort, with canvas rigged over a square frame in back of the cab.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘A couple of limousines were parked up, Captain. You’re an educated man. You ever been to my part of the world?’
    ‘To the Carolinas? No.’
    Too bad. Know what a Palmetto bug looks like?’
    ‘It’s a giant cockroach.’
    ‘That’s what those limos looked like,’ Gaul said. ‘Black and glossy and I swear to you as ugly as the Palmetto bugs we have back home.’
    Hunter joined Rodriguez and Peterson for lunch before they formulated their plan of attack. They pooled their food, as was the custom. This was a ritual that always delivered two things. The first was a chance to share the excellent field rations enjoyed by the Americans and Canadians. The second, less appetising, was the ridicule his own piss-poor British Army rations always attracted when offered in exchange.
    A fragment of poetry kept repeating in Hunter’s mind the way a catchy song lyric will. He thought it must have been prompted by Peterson’s earlier jibe about tea and medals. He assumed this because it was Rupert Brooke and it was a couplet from the poem about the Old Vicarage at
Grantchester. But it wasn’t the obvious lines, the famous ones that ended the work on a note of English pastoral wistfulness. Instead, it was:

    The stream mysterious glides beneath,
Green as a dream and deep as death.

    It was odd. Brooke was not a poet Hunter had ever enjoyed. He could not remember last having read him. But the lines were his and there was something sinister about their rhythmic insistence as they reverberated in his head.
    Rodriguez tore open a foil pack with his teeth, tipped the contents dubiously into a mug of hot water and began slowly to stir. Hunter recognised the familiar, largely chemical smell of what was optimistically termed lamb casserole. Rodriguez watched it bubble and churn in his mug. Then he looked up at Hunter. ‘How did you fare with Gaul?’
    ‘Okay. He was informative enough. Don’t think he’d want me as his point man.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘He made a comment about my vocabulary. I think he’s got me down as a bullshit artist. It could be counter-productive when we go in if your men all think that way.’
    ‘I speak nine languages,’ Rodriguez said.
    ‘I was told seven.’
    ‘Then your intelligence is out of date, Captain. My point is simply that this accomplishment doesn’t undermine me in the minds of the men.’
    ‘I’m skilled at crochet,’ Peterson said.