'No; you just don't have the technical knowledge,' he said 'The rainfall is quite heavy, but when it falls it sinks right into the ground until it meets an impermeable layer. Thus there is a vast reservoir of fresh water under Yucatan, but a shortage of water because there are no rivers. The water is quite close to the surface: on the coast you can dig a hole on the beach three feet from the sea and you'll get fresh water In the interior sometimes the limestone cap collapses to reveal the underground water -- that's a cenote. But the point is thai the trees always have water available at their roots. In any other rain forest, such as in the Congo, most of the water is drained away into rivers. In Quintana Roo it's available to the trees and they take full advantage.'
I looked down at the forest and wondered if it was a twenty-foot forest or a four-footer. Whatever it was, I couldn't see the ground and we were less than five hundred feet high If Jack Gatt had any sense he wouldn't come anywhere near Quintana Roo.
Camp Two was much simpler than Camp One. There was a rough hangar for the helicopter -- a wall-less structure looking something like a Dutch barn; a dining-room-cum-lounge, a store hut for equipment and four huts for sleeping quarters All the huts were factory-made prefabs and all had been flown in by helicopter. Simpler it might have been but there was no lack of comfort; every hut had an air-conditioning unit and the refrigerator was full of beer. Fallon didn't believe in roughing it unless he had to.
Apart from the four of us there were the cook and his helper to do the housekeeping and the helicopter pilot. What he was going to do, apart from flying us back and forward between camps, I didn't know; in the search for Uaxuanoc the helicopter would be about as much use as a bull's udder.
All around lay the forest, green and seemingly impenetrable. I walked to the edge of the clearing and inspected it, trying to assess it by the rating Fallon had given. As near as I could tell this would be a fifteen-foot forest -- a rather thin growth by local standards. The trees were tall, pushing and fighting in a fiercely competitive battle for light, and were wreathed and strangled by an incredible variety of parasitic plant life. And apart from the purely human sounds which came from the huts everything was deathly silent.
I turned to find Katherine standing near me. 'Just inspecting the enemy,' I said. 'Have you been here before -- in Qumtana Roo, I mean?'
'No,' she said. 'Not here. I was on digs with Paul in Campeche and Guatemala. I've never seen anything like this before.'
'Neither have I,' I said. 'I've lived a sheltered life. If Fallon had taken the trouble to explain things when we were back in England as he explained them at Camp One I doubt if I'd be here at all. This is a wild-goose chase if ever there was one.'
'I think you underestimate Fallon -- and Paul,' she said 'Don't you think we'll find Uaxuanoc?'
I jerked my thumb at the green wall. 'In this? I wouldn't trust myself to find the Eiffel Tower if someone dumped it down here.'
'That's just because you don't know how to look and where to look,' she said. 'But Paul and Fallon are professionals; they've done this before.'
'Yes, there are tricks to ever trade,' I admitted. 'I know there are plenty in mine, but I can't see much use for an accountant here. I feel as out of place as a Hottentot at a Buck House garden party.' I looked into the forest. Talk about not being able to see the wood for the trees -- I'll be interested to see how the experts go about this.'
I soon found out because Fallon called a conference in the big hut. There was a huge photo-mosaic pinned to a cork board on the wall and the table was covered with maps. I was curious to know why the helicopter pilot, a Texan called Harry Rider, was included in the discussion, but it soon became clear.
Fallon broke open the refrigerator and served beer all round, then said succinctly, The key to this problem is the cenotes. We know Uaxuanoc was centred on a cenote because Vivero said so, and there was no reason for him to lie about that. Besides, it's the most likely occurrence -- a city must have water and the only water is at the cenotes.'
He took a pointer and stepped up to the photo-mosaic. He laid the tip of the pointer in the centre, and said. 'We are here, next to a very small cenote on the edge of the clearing.' He turned to me. 'If you want to see your first Mayan structure you'll find it next to the cenote.'
I was surprised. 'Aren't you going to investigate it?'
'It's not worth it; it won't tell me anything I don't know already.' He swept the pointer around in a large circle. 'Within ten miles of this point there are fifteen cenotes, large and small, and around one of them may be the city of Uaxuanoc.'
I was still trying to clarify in my mind the magnitude of me problem. 'How big would you expect it to be?' I asked.
Halstead said, 'Bigger man Chichen Itza -- if we can believe Vivero's map.'
