Free The Magdalena Curse by F.G. Cottam

lower half of his face. Gore congealed in his moustache. He was unconscious and he was missing his hands. His hands had been severed raggedly at the wrists. His wristwatch, the strap still buckled, lay beside him on the floor.
    ‘Get over here,’ Hunter screamed at Peterson. ‘Morphine, field dressings. Do you have anything we can use to bind his wrists, stop the bleeding?’
    ‘Oh no,’ Peterson said. He dropped to his knees, spilled items of medical kit from the pouches on his belt. ‘What happened to him?’
    ‘One of the dogs,’ Hunter said. ‘A pack of them, maybe.’ He had cut a length from one of his bootlaces and was using it as a tourniquet, binding one of the Major’s wrists.
    ‘Not a dog,’ Miss Hall said, from her throne beside the card table away behind them. ‘Mrs Mallory was most put out when your commander interrupted our game. I’ve never seen her so angry. She said he would never play the piano with his daughter again. And nor will he. That was his chastisement. She made him eat his hands.’
    ‘Fuck this,’ Peterson said. He got to his feet picking his rifle from the floor where he’d put it to tend to Rodriguez. He turned and aimed it at the woman who termed herself Miss Hall. Hunter remembered he already had a round in the barrel.
    ‘No,’ he said. He reached and pushed the point of the weapon towards the floor.
    ‘How the fuck can she know that stuff about the major and his daughter?’ Peterson said. He was wide-eyed, hyperventilating, on the point of losing control completely. ‘How can she possibly know?’
    ‘Same way she knows about my wedding,’ Hunter said. ‘Let’s all try to live through this, Peterson.’
    ‘Point that weapon at me again, young man, and I will
have you turn it on yourself,’ Miss Hall said to Peterson. Her eyes switched between them. ‘The fault lies entirely with you. You have come here without invitation. You arrived with hostile intent. You have sabotaged something it took me years to arrange. Be thankful you were not here to experience Mrs Mallory and her wrath. I am sorry about your commander. But his chastisement was not my doing. Leave before I change my mind about allowing you to do so.’
    Hunter said, ‘Where is Mrs Mallory now?’
    Miss Hall grinned at him. Her teeth were large and yellow and too plentiful for her mouth. With a meaty shuffle of enormous thighs, she settled deeper into her seat. ‘You would not wish to encounter Mrs Mallory,’ she said. ‘Not with your marriage bed barely slept in, you wouldn’t, young man.’
    Hunter had bound both of Rodriguez’ wrists, tightly, with his makeshift bootlace tourniquets. Either the ties or shock had staunched the bleeding. Bone protruded white in candlelight from the Major’s ragged wounds. He was deeply unconscious. Peterson had pumped two ampoules of morphine into him. Now, the big Canadian put Rodriguez over his shoulder. He handed Hunter his rifle. Hunter had lost his own rifle when the dog had felled him outside. Rearmed, he began to look around for an exit, for an escape route out of the waking nightmare they had blundered into.
    From the centre of the room, Miss Hall exhaled a sigh of exasperation. ‘You are quite safe. Mrs Mallory left hours ago. Her retinue and their canine charges are long gone.’
    ‘Hours ago?’ Peterson frowned. He hefted the burden of Rodriguez on his shoulder. ‘That can’t be right.’
    ‘You were in the canvas labyrinth for longer than you suppose, Captain. That was Mrs Mallory’s doing. She wanted to take her time over the chastisement of your commander. You are quite safe to go outside and return to your camp. The immediate danger has passed.’
    Hunter saw that there was a sort of door over in the remote wall of the marquee to the rear of where Miss Hall was sitting. Narrow chinks of daylight defined it subtly in a tall rectangle in the pervading gloom. Out there, dawn had come. He pointed the exit out to Peterson without a word and,