Free The Three Sentinels by Geoffrey Household

of this revelation. Though a drop of cold sweat was trickling down his ribs, he solemnly agreed that Don
Mateo was right. Chepe, relieved to find that attempted murder was taken so calmly by all concerned, came out triumphantly with the whole story.
    For Rafael the problem was how to show his gratitude. Whatever his feelings, a person of honour must have decent manners. But to call upon this Don Mateo at his office or his house was
impossible, and to write an appropriate letter needed the assistance of someone more experienced who could never be trusted to keep it quiet. In any case he had to admit that his son had seen
explosives and listened to some boasting of their value in defence against the police. More awkward still were those two rifle shots at Birenfield, which he had aimed only to frighten but with a
hand so shaking with anger that the first had smashed the arm of his chair.
    To hell with it! Manners would just have to stay on his conscience. Meanwhile, who was the driver of the truck and what was he doing with dynamite? The committee had only a few kilos collected
from week-end fishermen who had nicked them from railway stores in the Capital for use in the more sheltered coves to the north. None of the sticks had been distributed.
    ‘Where did he hide the boxes, Chepe? Can you show me?’
    ‘It was very dark, papacito, and I could not see the number of the well. He took the third road and had his lights out.’
    ‘Where did he stop?’
    ‘Not far from 58.’
    The world outside Cabo Desierto, which Gil Delgado tended to mention more often than at first, was opening up too far. Rafael’s vision of it was a hostile mass compressing the workers into
ever great solidarity. But the eccentricities of this perceptive General Manager did not fit in; nor did the behaviour of the stranger. That he really was a stranger was fairly certain. Chepe knew
the whole field by sight, if not by name.
    ‘Are you tired?’
    ‘No, papacito. I have been sitting still all day.’
    ‘For ten minutes, perhaps! Then let us eat a bite and go!’
    The boy and his father climbed the slope to the sharp curve of the road where Chepe was accustomed to jump a truck, and then up the steep footpath, well-worn by men taking a short cut home,
which led from one bend to another, across the lip between the ridges and on up to the abandoned field. In old days there would have been plenty of movement on road and path, but now there was only
the tall outline of Rafael carrying Chepe on his shoulders.
    On the second ridge the derricks, being darker than the night, were clear enough, but their order had been complicated by the dismantling of useful machinery and a mess of beams, old iron and
drill pipe left behind on the ground. Where the truck had stopped beyond the old bailing well numbered 58 was plain, and Chepe was sure of the direction in which the driver had walked; but once
engaged in the derelict forest where earth, concrete and every object was equally black with oil, he was no longer sure of anything except that the boxes had been hidden under some boards. When
pressed with questions he merely got muddled between the ranks of the fifties and the ranks of the thirties.
    It seemed unlikely that the driver would have taken the road he did if he were bound for the thirties. However, they were not far away and worth a visit in the hope that Chepe would recognise
some landmark. The off shore breeze was busy among the rigs, creaking loose struts and banging notice boards with enough noise to cover the padding of canvas-and-rubber shoes as Rafael and Chepe
moved carefully over the litter. Beyond the next well, numbered 32A, somebody else was not so careful. There was a thud and a whispered blast of curses. Father and son dropped behind a pump and
watched a cone of light gliding and traversing over the broken ground. The man behind the torch passed close to the pump and Rafael recognised him, more by his bearing than his face. It was