Kings Will Be Tyrants

This edition is published by BORODINO BOOKS – www.pp-publishing.com

To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books – borodinobooks@gmail.com

Or on Facebook

Text originally published in 1959 under the same title.

© Borodino Books 2017, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

KINGS WILL BE TYRANTS

by

WARD HAWKINS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

NOTE 4

1 5

2 14

3 26

4 30

5 37

6 48

7 60

8 70

9 81

10 90

11 99

12 101

13 103

14 112

15 114

16 122

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 124

NOTE

All characters in this book are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

1

THE DAY HAD just begun. There were still a few places of near darkness in the hollows and beneath the deep undergrowth, but the goldness of the sun was only moments away. The birds were speaking of it noisily. The sky was becoming very blue and the frayed veil of high clouds was turning white.

Presently, of course, it would be hot. But now it was pleasantly cool and moist. A man would do well, O’Brien thought, to do all his living at sunrise. There was sweating at noon, there was fear at night, but in the morning there was hope. A man had to work very hard to despair, and to be afraid, at sunrise. At sunrise, all his chances were new.

The dampness of the ground was making O’Brien’s back itch, but he did not move. He had awakened thus and had not moved anything except his hands since the moment of awakening. He had used his hands to make sure about the carbine at his side and the automatic at his hip. But the movement had been small, and it was possible the small boy, who was watching him, had not noticed it.

The boy’s name was Carlos Díaz, and he was ten. O’Brien had heard him come as softly as a mouse and knew that he was squatting on his heels close by, waiting patiently. He could see the boy’s face against his closed eye lids, the face of a small, deeply tanned angel, with curly dark hair and long-lashed dark eyes. He could also see the clothes, torn and buttonless, and the bare feet. The lack of shoes did not trouble Carlos Díaz, nor was it an inconvenience. The calluses and the dirt on the boy’s feet were protection enough.

O’Brien was thirty-one. He was long and lean and very strong, with a face burned dark by the sun and hair burned to the color of straw. His nose was formidable, something like a cliff, and while it was true he would have looked better with less nose, he was not ugly. He had gray eyes that could be warm and a mouth that smiled well. To Carlos Díaz, who cared nothing about noses, O’Brien was beautiful next to Christ.

You do not fool me, the boy said in his native tongue, which was Spanish. You have been awake while I counted to one hundred.

You cannot count that far, O’Brien said in the same tongue. Not without cheating.

I cheated only a little.

You should not cheat at all, O’Brien said. In any case, I am awake. How can a man sleep with a small boy staring at him...a small boy with a dirty face?

You do not know about my face, Carlos said. You have not opened your eyes.

I know about small boys.

You do not like small boys, Carlos said slowly.

Have I said so?

You have shown it.

After a moment’s thought, O’Brien said, Then that must be the way I feel. If you have pride, you will not force yourself where you are not wanted. Be a boy of pride now. Go away."

Carlos Díaz went away.

O’Brien sat erect.

He was wearing a faded suntan uniform that had once belonged to an officer in the army of Fulgencio Batista. The uniform had been cleaned and repaired, though it was dirty now, and the shoulder patch of the July 26 movement had been sewn on. The uniform was small for O’Brien, but it served to indicate he was an officer. His shoes were worn American paratrooper boots, his helmet was a soiled panama hat.

He had slept a matter of twenty minutes, but in that time, he saw now, nothing had changed in the small clearing. The eight men who were here were talking quietly, smoking, cleaning weapons and dozing. The commander of the group, Tomás Vilar, was sitting on a flat stone, picking his teeth. The task was not small where Tomás Vilar was concerned. He had been born in a very poor family, who had known nothing of dentists, and as a consequence had very bad teeth.

O’Brien had been surprised to find the notorious Tomás Vilar was so young. He was no more than twenty-six. A short, round man, he appeared soft. But he was not soft; he could move with agility and to follow him for a day was to know complete exhaustion. Tomás Vilar liked food, drink, women, being alive, being a revolutionary, and being in command, and he did not place one of these things before another. In. addition, he liked killing, and O’Brien could not say how much of that would satisfy him. More, certainly, than could be justified.

Carlos’ mother, Angela Díaz, was kneeling at a small fire. She spoke to O’Brien, using Spanish as they all did, since O’Brien spoke the language as well as any of them, and they spoke English badly if at all. I have made coffee.

Is it good? O’Brien asked, teasing.

I promise only that it is hot.

In a moment, then, O’Brien said, smiling.

Angela Díaz had come to O’Brien’s blanket on the third night he had known her—a matter of seven days ago—without being asked, and the curious thing about this was that in her heart Angela was a virtuous woman. She had come to him out of necessity. A young woman, among men trained to violence, with a son to remind them constantly of her ability to mate, was a source of trouble that could lead to killing until she became the woman of one man in particular. Because of this need, she had chosen O’Brien.

But not for this need alone. She had seen in his eyes and in his face the calm understanding that would allow him to accept her without undue concern and certainly without remorse. And she had seen in his lean and powerful body the virility her body required. That her body required more than seemed reasonable and decent was both her pride and her shame.

She was twenty-five, a woman with firm, full breasts and fruitful hips. She wore a man’s trousers and a man’s shirt, and her black hair was cut off, raggedly, for convenience. But she was not bad to look at. She had regular features, a good nose and mouth, long dark lashes and large dark eyes. O’Brien understood that she had seen Carlos’s father die of a cut throat, but he had not been able to find insanity in her eyes, or even dullness.

He said, The Díaz family is a family of dirty faces.

She shrugged. When I cook in the Palace, I will wash ten times a day.

Tomás Vilar made a snort of laughter. What do you say to that, O’Brien—is this a woman? Give me a hundred men with as much purpose and I would hang Batista within a week.

She is much woman, O’Brien agreed. He got up and slung his carbine on his shoulder. I have need of three minutes to myself, he said to Vilar. I will see about the men and return in five minutes.

Vilar gave permission with a shrug.

O’Brien went a short distance to the bank of a small stream where he relieved himself and washed. Then he took up his carbine again and went beyond the stream, climbing through the undergrowth, and presently came upon a man lying on his stomach at the edge of a cliff. The man’s name was Julio Pena. He wore sergeant’s stripes sewn on the sleeves of ragged fatigues, and he held field glasses firm on braced elbows. He did not lower the glasses when O’Brien spoke to him.

How does it go with you? O’Brien asked.

It goes well enough, the sergeant answered.

At the foot of the cliff, the mountain continued to slope swiftly away. A highway, which was near at hand and only a little below them on the left, curved down across that slope in long sweeps, scarring the rich green of the forest, disappearing and reappearing. It went straight, finally, for a short stretch at a distance of perhaps two kilometers away. It was this short straight that Julio Pena was watching.

Are you confident you will know the car? O’Brien asked.

I am confident of nothing, the sergeant answered. That is why I go to Mass. But I have a quarter of a kilometer of highway in my glasses, and I have seen pictures of the Chevrolet Corvette. If the woman is not driving too fast, and if I am not too stupid, I will know it.

The woman is driving?

So the radio tells us.

And the car is near?

It could appear at any moment.

There is still no word of an escort?

"A truck carrying soldiers is on the highway ahead of them. Three kilometers ahead, at last report. One cannot be sure of their purpose. They may have another mission.

And may not. O’Brien checked the angle of the sun as it fell on the field glasses Julio was holding. Be careful of the reflection, he said. Captain Cordova is a soldier of experience.

He is not a soldier, the sergeant said. He is filth.

That of experience, then.

I will be careful, the sergeant said.

O’Brien turned and went along a path. He paused in a dozen yards to look up at a jutting rock where three men were sitting in partial concealment, one holding a hand radio.

Can you speak with Hernando? O’Brien asked.

I did only a moment ago.

The truck with the soldiers must be stopped, O’Brien said. Ask Hernando to see to it. It would be best if it were some innocent thing, like two flat tires.

I will tell him.

O’Brien went on, returning in a few moments to the small clearing where the others waited. Angela Díaz began filling a canteen cup with coffee when she saw him. Tomas Vilar held a similar cup and was adding rum to the coffee from a bottle. He offered the bottle to O’Brien and when O’Brien refused hostility came into his eyes.

A man who does not drink rum is not a patriot, he said. Or even a man. What do you say to that, Angela? What I cannot understand is why you would share the bed of man who is neither a man nor a patriot.

Angela did not lift her eyes. I share his bed because, with rum or without, O’Brien is not only a patriot, he is more man than any I have ever known.

O’Brien said, You are kind, Angela.

Vilar made a derisive sound.

Angela looked at him coldly.

Vilar ignored her. I have seen this many times before, he said to O’Brien. Americans have the pick of our women because they are Americans, not because they are men of value. In time, all our children will grow tall as trees and have noses like turkey buzzards.

Angela said, He is one of us too, remember.

Which is proof of what I say.

Is it better to be fat than tall? Angela asked. Is it better to have a nose like a pig?

Vilar’s face darkened ominously. You refer to me?

No one else! Angela spat. Fat pig!

There could be no denying the truth of Angela’s description—Vilar had round, deeply set dark eyes, a short, blunt, faintly upturned nose and round cheeks—the resemblance to a pig was there, and the too small officer’s cap that rode forward on his head and the thin line of black mustache did very little to conceal it. But it was unwise for anyone, even the widow of Vilar’s cousin, to call attention to the resemblance. O’Brien did not breathe again until he saw Vilar’s belly move with the beginning of laughter. In a moment, Vilar was laughing hard.

Here is a woman! Vilar said, finally. A barracuda of a woman! I do not like you, O’Brien, therefore I give her to you to keep. And her son. Since you will have a family made for you, the question of being a man has no importance. You see? I think of everything.

But wrongly about one thing.

What would that be?

She does not want to be mine to keep, O’Brien said quietly. What there is between us is a thing of now. Her future is her own. As for the boy, there is no room in my life for a son. I said as much to him only a moment ago.

Vilar spoke to Angela: How did you mean it?

Her face was flushed and she was very busy packing her few utensils. I meant it for all ways and for all time, she said. But do not concern yourself, O’Brien. I will not weep when you leave me. Without turning her head, she said, Carlos, take these things to the top of the mountain and wait by the path.

The boy was startled. He had thought himself hidden in a growth of wild banana at the edge of the clearing. Have you eyes that see behind you? he asked his mother. He came forward and took the