“We’ll be all right here for a time,” Quentin said, producing a small flashlight and examining the low-roofed vault. It was very large and full of wine barrels. “Doesn’t look as if we’ll go thirsty, either,” he added with a crooked grin.
He found the switch of the pilot light and a dim glow appeared in the ceiling when he turned down the switch. “If we can shift a couple of these barrels over to the door we can hold this place until the cows come home.”
Myra helped him get the barrels into position and then she sat down limply on the stone floor. Quentin was too occupied to bother with her for the moment. He made certain that there was no other exit and then took up a position by the door. He could hear movements going on upstairs, and then a sudden clicking of heels. He heard Fuentes say, “Where are they?”
There was a murmured reply which Quentin could not hear, then Fuentes said: “We can pick them up later. Put two men at the head of the stairs. Tell them to shoot at sight.”
Quentin made a little face. “He’s got us there,” he said. “They can’t get in, but we can’t get out. We’ll have to wait until someone comes along and chases these guys away.”
Myra said: “If it wasn’t for me, this would never have happened.”
“Forget it. What’s the use of talking like that? If we get out of it, I’ve got a grand story to write. If we don’t, some other guy’s got the story—so what?”
“Your friend lost his life because of me.”
Quentin’s face hardened. “This ain’t the time for that kind of talk. It won’t get you anywhere. Bill was unlucky. If you hadn’t been here, you don’t think we would have let the General push Anita around as he did, do you?” He shook his head. “No, I guess we were mugs to come to this joint. We wanted to be in at the death, now it looks like we’re going to attend the wrong funeral.”
Myra sat limply, her hands folded in her lap and her long legs tucked under her. Morecombre’s death had shocked her badly.
He got to his feet and went over to the wine-bins. After careful scrutiny he selected a couple of bottles and drew the corks with the corkscrew on his knife. “Have you ever tried drinking a nice light wine from the bottle?” he asked her. “I want you to have some of this stuff. It’ll do you good.”
She hesitated, then took the bottle. The wine was strong and sweet. They were thirsty and they both drank deeply. He sat by the door again. “Not bad stuff, is it?” he said, feeling the wine surging through him. Potent stuff, he thought, and put the bottle down. It wouldn’t do to have a muddled head in his position.
Glancing at her, he saw that her face was a little flushed and her eyes brighter. She drank from the bottle again. “It is strong, isn’t it?” she said, after a moment, and then laughed. She stared at him thoughtfully for a few minutes. “You know, I’m scared being on my own like this,” she said abruptly.
Quentin could see she was getting a little tight. “You don’t have to be scared of me,” he said quietly.
“No, I know that.” She turned the bottle slowly in her hands. “You know when I said it was my fault that your friend was killed?”
“We don’t have to start that all over again.”
“But it’s true. It began with Lacey. You wouldn’t know about Lacey, but he and the moon began it.” She put the bottle to her lips and tilted her head. Quentin made a little move to stop her, then thought she might just as well get tight and talk.
She put the bottle down. “I was crazy. Have you ever been crazy? Have you ever felt that you’d give anything in the world for a really fine man to sweep you off your feet?” She looked at him, and shook her head. “No, I guess you’d never feel that way. I did. I wanted love. I wanted someone to sweep me off my feet. I was so sick of New York. I came to Havana because I heard it was the place of love. I wanted to believe it so badly that I kidded myself to death. I wanted it so badly that I let a down-at-heel ship’s Romeo seduce me. That is the type of double fool that I am. That was Lacey. Tall, beautiful and terribly, terribly cheap, and I thought he was the real thing. I couldn’t go back to the boat after that, could I? I mean, I couldn’t take that long trip back, scared that I might run into him at any moment. No, I couldn’t do that. So I decided to stay. Do you see now? If I hadn’t been such a bitch, you wouldn’t have annoyed the General, your friend wouldn’t have died… and I shouldn’t be here. You do see that, don’t you?”
All the time she had been talking, Quentin stared at his highly polished shoes. This sudden outburst rather shook him. She didn’t look the type to go off the rails. He said at last: “It’s damn queer how things happen, isn’t it? I mean, maybe, when you get out of this, and look back on it, you’ll be able to see why it had to happen.”
Myra screwed up her eyes as if to see him more clearly. “You think it had to happen?”
He nodded. “Sure, I think these sort of things are planned to happen to you. Sometimes you think that life is giving you a hell of a belting, but when you’ve had time to get away from it, and you look back, you see why it happened. Most times you realize that it was the best thing that could have happened.”
She frowned. “Can you see any redeeming feature in being shut up in a cellar with a good chance of losing one’s life?”
Quentin smiled. “Right now I can’t, but maybe in another six months’ time I might be glad to have had the experience.”
“No, that couldn’t work with me. Why should it happen to us? Why must it be us, down here?”
“Why should it be anyone else? I’m not scared what will happen to us. Are you?”
Her face suddenly twisted, and she began to cry. “Yes, I’m scared. I feel that we’ll never get away. It is because I was such a fool. You’ve got to suffer because of me.”
He went over to her and sat by her side. “It’s not like that,” he said, giving her his handkerchief; “you’ll come out of it all right and so will I. In a few days you’ll be looking back on this as a swell adventure and something to tell your friends about.”
His arm went round her and she relaxed against him. They sat like that for a long time until she fell asleep.
5
It was just after midnight when things began to happen. The sound of shooting and distant shouting became ominously nearer. Myra woke with a start as three rifle-shots crashed out above them. She gave a little scream and looked wildly round the dim cellar. She could just make out Quentin kneeling at the door, watching the stairs; the light reflected on the barrel of his .38. She scrambled over to him. “What is it?” she asked.
“Something’s happenin’,” he said. “Maybe the natives have found out that Fuentes is here.”
Again rifle-shots came from upstairs, and they could hear someone shouting orders feverishly in Spanish. Heavy boots thudded as soldiers ran about taking up positions. Sudden yells and shouts came from the garden. Quentin eased his position. “Yeah,” he said, “I guess they’ve come to smoke him out. Listen to that.”
The distant noise was rapidly swelling into a tremendous uproar as the crowd outside approached. The cellar shook with the noise of rifle-fire as the soldiers poured volley after volley into the crowd. More yells and screams followed, then suddenly someone screamed like a frightened child, and a tremendous explosion brought plaster and dust down on top of the two crouching in the cellar.
Myra was thrown off the box she was sitting on on to the floor.
“Some guy threw a bomb,” Quentin gasped, helping her to her feet. “Are you all right?”
She brushed her dress with her hands. “Yes… Will they do that again? Is it safe here?”
“Sure, these cellars can take a lot of that. I wonder how the General liked that little packet.” He went over to the door and peered up the staircase. Plaster lay in great pieces all the way up the stairs, and the air was thick with dust. Shooting began again, but this time the volleys were very ragged. “I guess these guys won’t hold out much longer. I think that bomb killed a lot of them.”
Two soldiers suddenly came running down the stairs, their scared faces coated with white dust, and their eyes filled with terror. Quentin fired at them. He hit one, who pitched forward, rolling down the rest of the stairs. The other soldier gave a yell and bolted upstairs again.
Myra flopped on the floor, putting her hands over her ears. The noise of the surging crowd and the tramping of feet overhead told them that the natives had entered the hotel. “They’re in now,” Quentin said. “We’ve got to
