Black August (37 page)

‘To Woodbridge,' said Kenyon promptly.

‘Then you have our permission to proceed,' replied the strange individual.

‘Oh? Oh, thanks!' Kenyon murmured with some surprise.

‘Don't—er—mention it to the Cardinal,' added the other.

‘What?' inquired Ann.

‘I find him a little difficult, you know,' the stranger waved his cane gaily and then leaned forward in a confidential attitude. ‘He is a little puffed up with the success of our Army at La Rochelle.'

‘I quite understand,' agreed Kenyon with a soothing note in his voice. ‘It must be very difficult for you.'

‘True—true, but not for nothing are we called Louis the Just, and the Bishop of Luçon has proved his worth.'

‘I am certain that he appreciates the confidence of his master,' declared Kenyon, for after such a day he could not resist the temptation to indulge his humour with this curious acquaintance.

‘You are a person of understanding,' was the quick response. ‘What a pity that you are not noble. If you were we would nominate you for the Order of the Golden Fleece. Our brother of Spain has just sent us a couple.'

‘Fortunately,' said Kenyon, ‘I happen to possess the necessary quarterings.'

‘In that case we must certainly think of you, but can we persuade the Cardinal? That's the thing. De Richleau is always after these windfalls for his own cronies—and he's so devilish plausible. We have hardly been able to call our soul our own since that terrible trouble with poor Cinq Mars.'

‘Yes, that was a dreadful business,' Kenyon shook his head, ‘but with your gracious permission we must proceed.'

‘Of course, of course. We too must ride on. La Villette tells us that he has raised a fine stag in the forest of St. Germains, and as the Cardinal will not be back until tomorrow evening—you understand.'

Kenyon politely raised his hat, and setting the battered bowler more firmly on his head, that strange wraith of a vanished sovereignty disappeared into the lengthening shadows of the Suffolk lane.

‘Poor sweet,' said Ann. ‘Who did he think he was, dearest?'

‘Louis XIII of France, I imagine, though God knows why!'

‘Stark staring mad, of course.'

‘Yes, these troubles must have sent him off his head, unless he is from the Ipswich Asylum. When they could no longer feed them they probably turned the inmates loose.'

‘How ghastly.'

‘I know, but let's not talk of it. There'll be a good dinner, and everyone so pleased to see you when we get to Shingle Street; I only wish the light would last a little longer though.'

Already the sun had set behind the trees, but the afterglow lit their way as they pushed on to Chillesford, where Ann suggested that they could save a mile by turning off down the track through the marshes, which would bring them out at Butley Priory.

By the time they reached the road again dusk had fallen, and now, made bold by the coming darkness, the human wolves who infested the countryside began to leave the hiding places where they had lurked during the day. Some accosted Kenyon, whose progress with Ann behind him on the bicycle was slow, casting envious glances at her suitcase, suspicious that it might contain food, but he warned them off with a flourish of his pistol. Others slunk quickly back into the hedges on their approach, fearful that Kenyon, with his superior physique, might have a mind to prey on them.

The cottages that they passed were either dark and deserted or, if inhabited, showed it only by chinks of faint light through heavily-boarded windows behind which the owners lived in a state of seige, yet in the second hour of their journey the road was rarely free of sinister-moving shadows.

Only Horsley Heath now remained to be passed before they reached the friendly Labour Colony, and another half-hour should see them home, but night had fully fallen, and when Kenyon was forced to dismount at a rise in the road both were filled with apprehension. Somehow the lonely stretch of common land seemed so much more likely to hold hidden danger than the friendly hedgerows which they had left behind, and it was easy to imagine every bush to be a crouching enemy.

Strange, whining voices came out of the darkness every now and then, and once the sounds of a violent quarrel. Ann's arm was through Kenyon's and her hand clasped his as they trudged up the hill, yet at each unaccustomed sound from behind the gorse on either side she shrank nearer to him in sudden fear and, as he caught the note of soft padding footsteps in their rear, he urged her faster towards the hilltop, suddenly apprehensive that they were being followed.

‘Who goes there?' A sharp voice cried as they breasted the rise.

‘Friend!' said Kenyon, automatically.

‘You come here, then,' said the voice.

Kenyon drew his weapon and, passing the push bike to Ann, stepped a few paces forward. Three men advanced out of the darkness to meet him.

‘Where be ye a-goen' to?' asked the man who had challenged.

‘Hollesley,' declared Kenyon.

‘Oh! then just you come and see the boss.'

Ann made ready to run for it and Kenyon moved a little nearer to her, but the following footsteps had stopped, and turning they saw two other men waiting silently behind them.

‘Look here!' Kenyon protested.

‘Now then,' countered the first man, ‘you be a-goen' to have a word with the boss; come on now!'

For a moment Kenyon was tempted to shoot the fellow where he stood, but the four others were near enough to rush him and one of them gripped Ann by the arm. ‘Take your hands off,' he said sharply.

‘All right—all right,' the offender protested. ‘I ain't a-goen' to do no harm.'

Four more men joined the group and Kenyon felt that it would be a risky business to start a fight now that they were surrounded. He might shoot a couple but how could he protect Ann in the
mêlée
—better be tactful and after having been searched for food they would probably be allowed to proceed. ‘As you like,' he agreed with a shrug, ‘but it's late and I'm in a hurry.'

‘Foller me,' the man who had first challenged them turned on his heel and led them through a small coppice and out on to the open heath while the last four arrivals followed.

‘Cattermole,' called the leader as he halted on the lip of a shallow dell, ‘do you want to have a look at two folk a-goen' to Hollesley?'

And Kenyon, peering over his shoulder, saw that two hundred or more men and women were seated in the hollow, their faces shadowed or illuminated alternately by the flickering flames of a small bonfire. From what little he could see he judged them to be agriculturists, farm labourers and the like, accompanied by their women. Then a tall man in gaiters and a yellow waistcoat came up the slope towards them.

After a sharp glance he nodded to his lieutenant. ‘Bring them down to the fire, Rush, we'll see 'em better there,' and, the men behind closing in, they were hustled forward into the dip.

The ragged people crouching round the blaze regarded them with scant interest, most of them were busy on a meal of roots and vegetables which they were eating with their fingers from still-steaming pots.

Kenyon was questioned by Cattermole who seemed to distrust his well-fed appearance, but was obviously only out to secure further supplies of food, and after Ann's suitcase had been searched it looked as if they would be allowed to go on their way again, until Rush suggested to his leader: ‘Better keep 'em with we till by and by, hadn't us? Or they might let on to what's up—'

Even then it is probable that no harm would have befallen them if a stout red-faced man had not glanced at Kenyon curiously as he stumbled past them to the fire.

He stopped dead in his tracks and thrust his face nearer, then
suddenly he cried: ‘Blow me if this 'ere chap ain't one o' they hisself!'

‘What's that!' snapped Cattermole and in a second a score of figures had crowded round them.

‘'E's one of they,' declared the farmer angrily, ‘him an' his khaki boys took a dozen hins an' a pig off me three weeks ago—I'll swear to he and no mistake.'

A growling murmur ran through the hollow-eyed throng as they pressed nearer, and when a rasping voice cried: ‘Hang ‘un then,' the cry was repeated from a dozen throats: ‘Yes, hang ‘un—hang ‘un!'

Too late Kenyon realised his crass stupidity in not having forced a passage in the road. Gregory would have done so, even at the price of killing half a dozen of these poor devils but, like a fool, he'd stopped to parley and now it looked as if his reluctance to shoot down unarmed men was likely to cost him his life.

Even now it was Ann who urged him into action as she clutched his arm and whispered fiercely: ‘Shoot, Kenyon! Shoot! It's your only chance!'

‘Run for it then—I'll follow if I can.' He thrust her from him and pressed the trigger of his gun.

Rush had caught her words and flung himself on her as she spoke, but with a sudden wrench she twisted from his grip and, ducking under the arm of another man, fled up the slope.

The man in front of Kenyon gave a gasp and, clasping his hands to his stomach, sank to his knees. The revolver cracked again and another livid spurt of flame lit the darkness. The red-faced farmer let out a howl of pain and, tumbling into the heather, clutched at a shattered knee cap, but the others were upon Kenyon before he could fire again.

A heavy cudgel caught him on the shoulder, a piece of wood with a nail driven through the end descended on his upper arm, and as he stepped back, bashing sideways at a nearby face with the butt of his pistol, another cudgel came down upon his head.

His weapon was wrested from him and with the blood streaming into his eyes he fell half fainting to the ground. Someone kicked him savagely in the ribs, and a second blow on the head as he lay gasping in the heather made him see a horrid succession of bright stars and circles until blackness supervened and he lost consciousness.

Only the efforts of the gaitered Cattermole saved him from
being kicked to death there and then, but he stood over Kenyon's prostrate body and drove off his followers with an angry snarl.

‘Stop it, you fools,' he shouted, ‘he'll be more use to us alive than dead—and you can always hang him later.'

With surly looks they reluctantly gave up the lynching, and instead tied Kenyon's hands and feet, then left him.

By that time he was beginning to come round. Vague thoughts of Ann in Gloucester Road and the Mid-Suffolk Election came to him, but as he struggled feebly to sit up the full realisation of his wretched position flooded his mind.

He lay very still then, reasoning that no crowd, however maddened by fear and hunger, ever hanged an unconscious man. To be a really sporting event the victim should be dragged screaming to the gallows, or at least be sufficiently conscious to kick lustily as he is hauled off the ground, and Kenyon meant to postpone his threatened execution to the last possible minute.

Inch by inch, with the most desperate care not to attract attention, he shifted his position slightly so that he could see what was going on, and found that he was lying a little outside the circle of light upon the rim of the small natural amphitheatre. He searched the crowd swiftly for signs of Ann, but she was nowhere to be seen and he gave a sigh of relief at the thought that she must have got away, only a moment later realising with a new wave of distress that she, like himself, might quite possibly be trussed and lying hidden in the heather.

Cattermole stood near the blaze, his arms akimbo and his hat perched well upon the back of his semi-bald head. He was addressing the gathering in short sharp sentences, and as Kenyon listened, he caught both the trend of the speech and the reason for the crowd's violent hostility to himself. The last rousing sentences came clearly on the night air.

‘Didn't they?' he cried with a challenging note. ‘And what right have they to do that? None say I! Not under law or reason, soldiers as they may be. Property is property and if a man's no right to keep the things what he's bred—what rights
has
he got I'd like to know? It's every man for himself these days, not to mention the wife and kids he's got to fend for. So, if you're game to back me up I'll lead the crowd of you down to Shingle Street and we'll teach these thieving soldiers a thing or two. There's not many of them but there's a lot of us, and if we
stick together we'll be having a square meal that we've a right to before the morning.'

Loud shouts of approbation greeted the conclusion of Cattermole's impassioned oratory, and Kenyon let his aching head sink back in the heather while a host of new thoughts struggled with the pain for supremacy in his mind.

These were wretched people whose homes they had robbed and looted, now banded together and planning a bloody revenge. He must warn Gregory! But how could he? His own skin needed saving first and of that there seemed little enough hope. The cords which bound him were cutting into his flesh already and he knew from his first efforts to free himself when still half conscious that his bonds had been tied with savage tightness. His friends at Shingle Street would be surprised and massacred—but no, it was far more likely that Gregory's sentries would rouse the garrison, and this unwieldy crowd, surging forward in the darkness, be mown down by the blast of the machine-guns, or caught as they fled in the treacherous pits and nets.

Both alternatives were horrible to visualise but Kenyon had little time for further speculation. A burst of cheering came from the dell and two men running up the bank seized him and pulled him to his feet.

He kept his eyes fast shut and tried to make himself a dead weight, but someone flung a pannikin of water in his face and his eyes flickered open at the shock. It was useless to pretend any longer that he was still knocked out.

His feet were untied and with his arms still bound behind him he was pushed roughly into the centre of the crowd.