Gordon Williams (21 page)

They could do nothing to stop his yelling. Riddaway grabbed Tom by the shoulders, taking the weight of his backwards leaning body off his spine.

“I’ve got you, Tom,” he said.

They dragged him headfirst, still bawling with agony, out on to the snow. Then they saw why he was making the terrifying noise. He had blown his feet off.

All four of them rushed at the window. Phil Riddaway gripped the horizontal spars, first one, then the other, cracking them away
from the rest of the framework as if they were twigs. In all his life he had never seen such an awful thing. His friend, Tom Hedden! He would break the Yank’s neck –

“He’s got the gun!” Norman Scutt shouted, suddenly diving to the ground.

Phil didn’t care. In all his life he only had two or three friends, folk who didn’t laugh at him for being a big thick lump, a man who couldn’t even read or write. When it happened to Tom it happened to him. Like a great battering ram he attacked the centre-post of the window, tearing at it with both hands, climbing knees first on to the sill, feeling it give slightly as he levered his shoulder against it, ramming his boots against the wall, knowing it was going to crack.

“I’ll kill you.”

“You’m dead! “

Like something out of a childish nightmare George saw the great shadow of the man coming through the window like a big black ogre.

“Die you bastard!” he yelled.

The centre-post cracked. It moved sideways. Riddaway gave a heave. It split half-way down. There was a tearing noise of splintering wood.

George held the shotgun a yard from the man’s silhouette and pulled both triggers.

Both clicked. He pulled again.

The shotgun was empty. The big man came on, shoving away the stump of the centre-post. George dropped the gun and felt on the carpet for the baseball bat. His fingers found it, groped for a hold. The heavy end. Riddaway slid on to the floor. George jumped to his feet, almost tripping as he floundered backwards.

For a moment the advantage was with him, Riddaway’s shape clearly outlined against the window. He swung the bat at the man’s head, putting the full power of his shoulders and arms into the blow.

The bat hit Riddaway on the side of his head, just above the right ear. For a second he seemed unhurt, his hands going up to protect himself. Then he fell to the floor.

“GEORGE!”

He wanted to smash the bat down on the head, smash and smash and smash until bones broke and blood ran and brains churned to pulp.

“GEORGE! THERE’S ONE INSIDE, GEORGE!”

As he ran to answer Louise’s panic-stricken yells he knew he had made a mistake in not killing the big guy. The way into the study was wide open now.

Time and time again the weight of the unconscious girl made Gregory Allsopp stumble and fall into the snow. He’d touched her face and neck and as far as his numbed fingers could tell she was still warm, but her body made no movements that suggested she was still alive.

Ridiculous as it was, he was lost – blinded by snow, deafened by wind, as surely lost in two fields as he would have been on the moor. Sometimes he thought he saw lights in the village, then they were gone. A giant piston hammered inside his chest, his arms ached as though the bones were being crushed by a vice.

“HELP.” He cried into the wind every few seconds. Or thought he cried into the wind. He couldn’t be sure, perhaps the shouting was only in his head.

“HELP.” Dando had been a village for a thousand years, a monks’
settlement before that. How could all signs of man be obliterated in a few hours? Perhaps he was dreaming? He slipped again and for a moment he thought he was going to fall forward on top of the girl. No, he wasn’t dreaming. He was floundering about in Soldier’s Field, only a couple of hundred yards from the village, carrying a girl who might be dead or alive. Completely lost. Going round in circles. Where was Tom Hedden? What would happen tomorrow? Would there be a tomorrow? Would he and Janice be found dead in the snow? In Soldier’s Field?

HELP... the doctor knew more about them than most, more about a wife than her husband did. Knew that Tom Hedden’s wife was being worked to an early grave. Knew she could be saved for a better life. Knew there was nobody to give her a better life. Who cared about one Englishwoman who was being ground slowly but surely into the grave? The doctor knew, but the doctor was only wanted to patch her up, keep her going, relieve the pain, make her function.

HELP... the doctor knew but the doctor wasn’t asked to tell people how to live. Only how to keep going. It should be the other way round. The doctor should say how people should live. Before they fell ill. Tell them how to organise Life. Stay alive. Enjoy Life. Instead... who cared about one English-woman? Not starving, not being beaten, not being deprived of her rights. Just losing her life.

HELP... but what did the doctor know? Really know. Tom Hedden hitting me on the head. Going out with a gun. What,
Tom Hedden
? Because of Janice? Not Tom, he didn’t care that much for Janice. A burden. What did you know about people? You lived with them for years, you knew all there was to know, then something happened and you found you didn’t know these people at all.

HELP...

Gregory Allsopp’s last shout was heard by two of the village men on their way back to the Inn after searching for Janice on the road which ran round the top end of Soldier’s Field.

They climbed a gate into the field and walked across the slope until they found him lying on his face, his arms still clutching the girl.

“Is she all right?”

“Looks pretty far gone.”

“I’ll carry her to the Inn, us’ll need help to carry the doctor.”

“Us better get him on his feet, could die of cold lying in the snow. You go ahead with the girl. Her needs help bad.”

When Gregory Allsopp came to he was being half-dragged, halfcarried, his arm pulled round a man’s neck. He tried to tell the man about Janice.

“Her’s all right now, Doctor. Jim’s got her to the Inn. You’m try to walk, Doctor.”

There was something else, something he had to tell them. He couldn’t remember. All he wanted to do was lie down and huddle into a ball. But the man beside him forced him to keep walking.

It was Chris Cawsey who climbed in the dining-room window. When Tom had pulled the trigger he’d slipped away from the others, knowing he could nip in another window during the commotion. He wanted to get in first, on his own. Desire burned through him. To get inside and use the knife. Maybe he hadn’t taken a lot of notice of what Norman Scutt said about going to gaol, maybe he’d only been having a bit of a lark. Now he wanted to use the knife. Maybe it was the one chance he’d ever get. Use it. On something better than a sheep. Sheep were all right, for a while. But they were
too easy. You didn’t get anything out of it.

He was a wily one, he knew that. Norman and Tom and the others had gone at it the wrong way. He knew how to do it. Quiet like. On his own.

Being smaller than the others, he was able to climb up on the outside sill without help from behind. The table was still standing on its end where the Yank had pushed it after the fire. If he kept quiet they couldn’t hear him behind the table. He felt every inch of the way, hands touching lightly to feel for broken glass. The knife touched his thigh as he crouched to lift one foot, then the other, through the gap.

He was moving along the dining-room wall when Louise heard the sound.

“GEORGE!”

Chris Cawsey felt for the knife. He was well away from the window, almost in darkness. He thought of himself as a stoat, slipping through the darkness, silent, deadly. Ready to draw blood. Nobody could touch him in the dark. He liked the dark.

“Where is he?”

“The dining-room.”

Chris Cawsey touched the wall with his hand. Come on, Mister Yankee fella, come and look for young Chris in the dark.

George looked into the gloom of the dining-room. He had no hope of keeping them out of the house now. Already the others would be coming through the study window. They’d have to retreat upstairs. The big guy might come round, it hadn’t been too hard a bang on the head. Who was in the dining-room? It must be one man.

He leaned forward and felt for the light switch, which was just
behind the doorpost. In the startled moment when the light went on, they stared at each other, George holding the bat, head just in the doorway, Cawsey with his back to the other wall, poised as if to spring, the knife in his right hand.

“Get upstairs, Louise!”

Chris Cawsey began to back towards the window, eyes darting behind him and then at George, knife held in front of his chest, pointing at George. He didn’t want to fight the yank in the full light, that wasn’t his idea at all.

“You dirty bastard!”

George took a two-handed grip on the baseball bat, the heavy end somewhere near his right shoulder. He saw it was the young one he’d already almost caught, the one he wanted for a hostage. Only there was no time for hostages now.

“Don’t –”

As George came rushing towards him, Chris Cawsey ducked behind the table. George went on, straight at the table. He gave it a bang with the bat. Cawsey got a knee up on the window sill. George used his clenched hands to shove the table. It fell towards the window, hitting Cawsey about the waist. He kicked to throw off the weight. George moved to his left, then swung the bat.

“Don’t –” Cawsey yelled, raising his elbow in front of his face. The smooth curve of the bat cracked solidly into his upper arm. He let out a piercing scream. George swung the bat again, this time at his head.

“MY ARM –”

Beautiful. Bang, crack, a slight rebound. This one wasn’t going to give any more trouble, this one was going to... he stopped himself in mid-swing when he saw the blood coming through light-coloured
hair. Cawsey and the table fell together, Cawsey jammed against the wall. There were ways a human body should look, lines your mind knew were right. Cawsey’s position was wrong.

Two of them laid out.

One shot by his own gun.

The gun? Where was it? He’d dropped it on the floor when he’d tried to shoot the man in the window. Did they have any more shells?

He left the light on. Louise was at the top of the stairs, her face white.

“We’re winning,” he shouted up. “Three down, two to go.”

She frowned. There was a funny expression on George’s face. At the beginning – God, when was that? She looked at her watch. It was only ten to nine. It seemed to have been like this for
hours
– at the beginning he’d seemed helpless, weak and passive, looking to her for strength. Then there was a stage when he’d taken over. She’d liked that. To think that George, her bookish husband, was capable of finding ways to keep a gang of ruffians out of their house.

For the first time in years she’d felt the way she’d always wanted to feel, like a woman. Protected. Given a man to lean on. No longer leaning on herself. Even when they’d been firing the gun at the door she hadn’t really felt they were in serious danger. George had been so sensible, so quick to act.

But now... why was he looking so pleased with himself?

“What happened?” she asked. From where she stood she could see the bald spot on top of his head. Funny, some men grew their hair long to hide it, George had his cut short.

“One shot himself, I’ve slugged a couple with this.” He held up the bat, grinning. “They’ll know better next time. If there is a next time.”

He turned his head to listen.

“Come on, you bums.”

Louise frowned to herself. She decided to go along to Karen’s room. As she took a last look down the stairs she thought she heard a new noise. It didn’t seem to come from down below. Then she remembered that Henry Niles was up there in the attic. It was a pity these villagers would get into serious trouble over a thing like Niles.

As she went along the corridor she heard it again. Definitely not from downstairs. Niles must be moving about in the attic. It made her shiver to think of him up there in the darkness,
that
man, evil. Ugh!

George waited at the door leading from the sitting-room, listening for the sound of them coming into the hall from the study. They’d be sure to come that way, the window was gaping open now, easy to climb in.

He heard a noise above his head. What the hell was that? Louise! She must be walking along to Karen’s room. Good God, he’d forgotten all about Karen. And Niles! He smiled grimly in the semi-darkness. He hadn’t done badly, not badly at all. How many handicaps could a man deal with at one time? Niles – and Karen. Five of them outside, armed. Louise trying to delude herself this wasn’t serious. Be a helluva story to –

The porch light was switched on. Norman Scutt stood in the study doorway, the shotgun pointing straight at him.

“You bastard American!” Norman raised the gun. “I’ll fill you with holes!”

“Yeah? With an empty gun?”

This was the bloody man who’d started it all, George was sure
of it. His palm tightened on the baseball bat. Norman Scutt took a couple of steps forward.

“It ain’t empty now,” he said.

“Fire it then.”

He braced for a jump to his left. Once he was behind the partitioning wall between the porch and the sitting-room there was no way the gun could hit him. He could stand at the corner and hit him with the bat before he could fire a shot into the sitting-room.

“AAAEEE!”

That was Louise!

“Bert’s got your wife and kid then,” said Norman Scutt, walking forward, holding the gun like a man who knew he had won. “Good at gettin’ up drainpipes Bert is.”

It had been Norman’s idea, for Bert to get up on the roof of the outside porch and then swing along the front drainpipe. He’d told Bert to wait till there was some noise, then punch in a pane of glass. Bert was like a monkey when it came to getting up on roofs, trees – anything. The pipe had taken him along to the window of the fourth bedroom. He’d kicked in a pane during the noise of the fight in the dining-room.

“If he touches my –”

“You’ll what, squire? You know what we’ll do, we’ll burn the house and the lot of you in her, you lot and that Niles friend of yours. You prefer him to the likes of we, don’t you? Us be just yokels to you like, that’s it, innit?”