Black August (32 page)

His main objective was to make the place impregnable and self-supporting so that whatever horrors might befall beyond the wooded hills that ringed them in, they might live secure and in plenty for many months, or even years, if need be.

Silas was set to build a strong redoubt at the north end of the village and with his machine-gun party took up his residence there. Gregory continued to occupy the Martello Tower which must prove the natural keep of the fortified enclosure, and Kenyon, now made Town Major, moved with Veronica to the Anchor.

All four messed at the inn, Mr. Andrews handing over his private sitting-room to them for the purpose, and after the first night the jolly little landlord became by invitation a member of the Mess.

The day after their arrival was mainly occupied by making the
first dispositions, and after dinner that night Gregory outlined his plans.

‘Hell's bells!' exclaimed Veronica when he spoke of remaining there for months or years; ‘what a prospect!'

‘Sorry you're bored.' He gave her a quick, sidelong glance, ‘but later I hope to have more leisure to entertain you.'

Her curved eyebrows went up as she puffed at her after-dinner cigarette; two a day was the ration now. ‘Is that a promise or a threat?'

‘Shall we say a desire,' Gregory answered smoothly, and for once Veronica was left without an apt reply. Then he turned to Kenyon: ‘You and Silas will take out parties tomorrow. Four men apiece should be enough. Move off at eight o'clock, and scour the country for five miles around, one to the south and one to the north. Visit the nearest farms, make a note of all provisions, live stock, fruit and crops, then get back about four o'clock to let me have all the information that you can. On Thursday we'll start in to clear up everything we can lay our hands on while the going is good.'

‘Do you mean that you're going to rob these poor people of anything they have left?' Kenyon asked in a shocked tone.

‘My heart bleeds for them,' Gregory smiled with mocking cynicism, ‘but my stomach craves fresh meat—or will do before long. So I fear it has to be. By the by, keep your eyes skinned for a bull and if you find one don't take any chances on it being there the following day, but bring it back with you.'

‘You're going in for raising cattle then,' Silas remarked.

‘Yes, the sooner we start a home farm the better. Cows, pigs, sheep, geese, chickens; we'll need them all if life is to be made bearable.'

Solly Andrews shook an admiring head. ‘It was a lucky tide for Shingle Street that washed you up on the beach, if I may say so, sir.'

‘Well, I hope you're right,' Gregory laughed. ‘Who's for bed?'

Silas stood up slowly. ‘I've no objection if you're all for it, but not requiring a deal of sleep I'd be happy to take a stroll along the shore first, if Lady Veronica felt that way.'

Gregory just caught the twinkle in Veronica's eye before she lowered her lids and said demurely: ‘I'd adore to, Mr. Harker.'

That's fine.' He held the door open for her and threw a casual good night over his vast shoulder to the others.

Secretly she was tremendously intrigued. Gregory's interest in her had been patent from the beginning, but Silas had never shown anything more than the genial good nature that seemed to radiate from his large person to all about him.

He led her down to the fringe of the beach where the rollers thundered ceaselessly upon the shingle, without attempting to start a conversation, and vaguely troubled by his silence she said suddenly:

‘The waves are a natural orchestra, aren't they? We might be listening to the overture of the “Flying Dutchman”.'

‘Yes, or Beethoven. It must have been like this when he wrote the “Moonlight”.' He nodded at the bright August moon riding high in the heavens, and added slowly: ‘It seems natural somehow to transmute these long dark shadows and the shimmering of the waters into sound.'

She looked at him curiously. ‘You're musical then; I don't know why, but somehow now I feel I might have guessed.'

‘Yes, it's half my life—by far the better half—and I knew we had that in common from the way you watched that fellow singing in the boat.'

‘Did you? But tell me about the other half. What do you do in normal times. Mr. Harker?'

‘I?—oh, I'm in Steel,' he replied laconically.

‘Were you over here travelling for your firm when the trouble started?'

‘I wouldn't say that exactly, the firm's got a London office on this side.'

‘Oh, you were here permanently then?'

‘No, just looking round, but maybe you wouldn't have heard the name of Harker in connection with Steel before.'

‘What!' Veronica exclaimed, ‘are you
the
Harker?'

‘Surely. If you have ever heard of anyone named Harker in Steel, I think it would be me.'

‘Of course; how stupid of us not to realise that before.'

‘Well, now, why would you?' he protested with a little laugh. ‘I'd hate to go around with “Millionaire” placarded on my back.'

‘Yes, but your other name, Gonderport, ought to have given us the clue, if we hadn't been so busy wondering how long we were going to remain alive; and you must admit it's surprising to find a Captain of Industry who rows boats and digs trenches as cheerfully as if he had been used to it all his life.'

‘Believe me, Lady Veronica, this is the first decent holiday I've had in years.'

‘Holiday!'

‘Yes, it's as good as breaking prison to get away from the sort of life I lead. Stenographers, balance sheets, and big business folk chasing me all the time, and every ten minutes: “This'll be your call, Mr. Harker. Mr. Harker, I've got your office on the wire. Mr. Harker, you're wanted on the Transatlantic line.” The same thing goes on even if I'm at Deauville or at my favourite home in Atlanta, for what the folk on the news sheets call vacation. For once in my life, too, I was dead certain that no one was after me for my money, and you've no idea what a joy it is to be taken at my face value by people like your brother and the General, without having to wonder just what they want to sting me for.'

Veronica nodded. ‘Looked at that way a millionaire's life must be pretty grim, but how in the world did you metamorphose yourself into an officer of Greyshirts?'

‘Easy,' he chuckled. ‘I tumbled to it pretty early in the game that there was real trouble coming and I figured that every live man would have to take a hand some way in the cause of law and order, so I had a talk with an old friend of mine that I met way back in the War. He just insisted that I must be an officer and fixed it for me; so when the crash came all I had to do was to walk right out of Claridges and get into this suit of dungarees.'

‘And you honestly mean to tell me that you are enjoying this incredible party?'

‘I do; but you're not really unhappy, are you?'

‘Not really. In fact I might be quite enjoying it too, if only I could see my hairdresser and buy a few things for my miserable face.'

‘Now isn't that strange—' she could see his cherubic smile in the bright moonlight—‘ten days ago I could have gone right off and bought you a whole beauty parlour if you'd felt that way, now I can't even buy a ten cent cigar for anyone; but why worry, you don't need those things, you're just lovely as you are.'

‘Mr. Harker!' Veronica's voice was not a protest, but a faint, delicious mockery.

‘Have a heart now,' he protested quickly. ‘I may have lost my fortune but I've still got my first name; it's Silas.'

‘Well, Silas, do you know what I think about you?'

‘No; but I'd give a heap to learn.'

‘You haven't got it dearie; but I'll tell you all the same. You're some fast worker.'

‘An' you're sure the Katz pyjamas,' he laughed, copying her idea of Bowery American idiom.

‘Sez you?'

‘Sez me—an'
how
.'

‘Is that a fac', big boy?'

‘It certainly is.'

‘Tra-la-la, well, some dew and some don't—so let's get back to the ballroom.'

‘What's that?'

‘Oh, just a very antiquated joke, my dear; but seriously, I think you're a grand guy and I like you lots.'

‘That's good to hear—er—Veronica!' He casually drew her arm through his and they began to stroll back up the beach.

‘You may think so,' she said after a moment, ‘but I'll tell you something, Silas. I'm a cad from cadville, so be sensible, laddie, and don't waste your time on me.'

‘Thanks for the warning, but I'm not just out of the egg myself.'

‘Why? Are you heavily married or something?'

‘I have been—and divorced, but that was when I was a kid pilot in the War days. We were all mad then and it didn't last a year.'

‘But that's æons ago; surely you haven't been lying fallow ever since?'

‘Not exactly, but I've been mighty cautious these last three years. I near as damnit got hooked by a girl in Boston; she had all the virtues and was daughter to a rich man who ran his local church, but I caught her selling my market tips and got out in time; since then I've been extra careful.'

‘My poor friend, how easily you brainy men get stung.'

‘Yes; I might have known she looked too good to be true.'

‘Like me?' Veronica paused on the doorstep of the inn.

‘No.' His slow smile came again. ‘You're not good; but I'll bet you're true.'

Her ripple of laughter echoed up the stairway as she softly closed the door of the Anchor.

On the following day the exploring parties set off before Veronica was up so, after attending to the wounded who were
progressing favourably under her somewhat spasmodic care, she spent the morning attacking a huge heap of mending which she loathed, but which Gregory had insisted on her undertaking as payment for her keep. After lunch she deliberately played truant and wheedled an old salt into taking her out for a few hours in his boat. By the time she got back Kenyon and Silas had returned, and both had a tale of woe to tell.

They spoke of deserted farms and frightened people who had fled at their approach. Kenyon had seen one poor woman and three children obviously murdered, a gruesome heap lying where they had been flung in a manure pit. A few of the farm houses were already looted and their contents left scattered about the rooms in wild confusion, while on the moors inland, the startled hares had given place to frightened humans, crouching in ditches here and there, scared and suspicious of each other. The few that they had caught and questioned could tell them little, except that nothing would induce them to return to the terror of the towns.

Only one piece of possible good news came out of these expeditions, and that was Silas's discovery of the Hollesley Labour Colony, which lay some two miles to the north-west of Shingle Street. It comprised a considerable settlement of town dwellers who had been transferred in previous years to the land, where they occupied small but pleasant houses and were peacefully engaged in fruit and dairy farming. Their principal official had failed to return from a visit to London early in the crisis, but under the leadership of an elderly colonist, whom Silas reported to be full of ability and sense, they had organised themselves to preserve order in their own district and resist encroachment.

Gregory felt that such neighbours might prove a blessing if they could be induced to trade the fruit and eggs which they had in abundance for Shingle Street's surplus supply of fish, and made up his mind to visit their leader as soon as more urgent matters had been attended to; but the general report of the state of the countryside made him more determined than ever to secure all the provender he could without further delay.

In consequence Kenyon was dispatched early next morning with a party of six soldiers and six villagers, to collect all that he could of the remaining stock from farms which he and Silas had marked down the day before.

It was a heartrending experience and one that set a severe
strain upon his loyalty. As a boy, like others of his class, he had snared many a plump pheasant on the neighbouring lands that marched by Banners out of sheer devilment, but to rob old women of their chickens in broad daylight is apt to turn the stomach of any decent man. Yet he knew that if they did not hang together and obey Gregory's orders, given in the interest of them all, they would surely die.

With a heavy heart he watched his men harness the scraggy horses into commandeered wagons at the nearest farms, and by ten o'clock a procession of five vehicles were winding their way behind him through the peaceful lanes.

At each house they visited he witnessed the same heart-breaking procedure, women in tears and sullen, cursing men. Whenever he could, he dealt mercifully with them, taking in quantity only from those who had comparative abundance, and consoled a little by the knowledge that, had he refused to undertake this foray, another might have been sent who would perhaps have dealt far more harshly with the unfortunate country people.

As the day wore on their loads increased. One wagon contained chickens under a net, another pigs, a third a fine stock of flour from a mill, a fourth ducks and geese, the fifth all sorts of miscellaneous provender; but the farther they advanced inland the more frequently they came upon batches of stragglers and the bolder these became. At first the little parties of twos and threes only pleaded with him to give them food and followed for a short distance before despairing of succour from his convoy but, later, larger parties advanced threateningly from scattered coppices by the wayside and only the sight of the soldiers' rifles kept them from attacking.

When he arrived at Shottisham he encountered real trouble. A farmer had followed them two miles on foot, shaking his fist and shouting curses at them for the seizure of two of his pigs. To Kenyon's annoyance the man raised the village against him and the locals, hurriedly concluding a brawl in which they were engaged with some town roughs, joined forces with their late enemies and set on his convoy. The farm carts could not be galloped so he halted them as close together as possible in the wider portion of the village street, and then stood up in an endeavour to pacify the crowd, but a shower of stones soon put an end to his peroration.