Ossian's Ride (23 page)

The poor fellow revived somewhat after he had lowered a large tot of whiskey.

“Would your name be Thomas Sherwood?” he asked in a Devon accent that warmed my heart. “Yes, it would.”

“D’you have any identification?”

“Letters, books, a passport. But I might have all these even if I wasn’t Thomas Sherwood.”

“Which is true enough. But you answer the description, all right. I haven’t much time, so I’ll have to take the risk.”

“You seem to have taken plenty already. Before taking any more, perhaps you’d better explain why you’ve come here.”

“Because I happen to have the same boss.”

“Meaning who?”

“During winter storms the waves beat heavily on the western strands.”

“This is the right moment to buy vegetables on the London market.”

“Or fish for that matter, if you have a taste for it.”

“I see. And how did you know that I was down here at this cottage?”

“Sherwood, you’re a suspicious devil, I must say!”

“It’s just that I like to get the picture clear.”

“I believe you have some acquaintance with Cathleen O’Rourke—a Mrs. Bull Bradley she calls herself now. Anything more?”

“I see what you’re driving at, Mr.—?”

“Chance, John Chance.”

“Very well, Mr. Chance, what d’you want with me?”

“If you look outside you’ll find a rucksack. Better take a flashlight.”

I found the rucksack. It was stout and very heavy. I carried it into the cottage.

“That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I want you to carry the rucksack for me, nothing more, about seven miles to the St. Finan’s Bay road. There’ll be a car waiting when you get there.”

I poured him another whiskey. “Suppose you tell me a bit more. What’s in the sack?” Instead of replying, he took large swigs at the whiskey. I unfastened the top of the rucksack and managed to slip my hand down the side.

“Wireless equipment, eh? I thought as much from the weight.”

“You haven’t learned much discretion, have you?”

“Not very much, I’m afraid. But unless I learn a lot more about you and about this rucksack, Mr. Chance, I’m certainly not going to carry it a single yard.”

“Still not satisfied with my credentials, eh?”

“Perfectly. I simply want to know what game you’re playing.”

“And suppose you get yourself caught?” said Chance. “Don’t you think it might be better for you not to know what game I’m playing?”

“Maybe so. But it’s not my way of doing things.”

“All right then, Tom, you’ve asked for it. I suppose you can guess that I got in here by parachute. Crocked my knee, damn it.”

“Where did you land?”

“Toward the top of Coomakista Pass. I had the devil of a job getting as far as this.”

“But why go carrying a sack of radio equipment around the countryside?”

“That’s our alarm clock. It must be got to St. Finan’s Bay before dawn.”

“You mean it’s a trigger?”

“It’s a hell of a trigger, Tom lad.”

His face twisted with a spasm of pain. “Some more whiskey, please. This damned leg is giving me merry hell.”

“Where’s the bomb?”

“Near Castletown, of course. That’s where I.C.E. has all its defense precautions. Once they’re blown sky-high, we can simply send our chaps in at leisure.”

“I can see that. What I don’t see is why a wireless transmitter had to be dropped by parachute. If our men have been able to assemble a bomb, surely they could manage a transmitter.”

“Ever tried to smuggle anything out of the Castletown area?”

“Couldn’t a time device have been used?”

“I imagine it was considered, but that wasn’t thought to be the best way. I’m not the general, you know. I’m just a chap in the trenches who does what he’s told.”

“But why take all these risks? Why not trigger the bomb from the air?”

“To make certain of the coding. That’s why this thing has simply got to be hoofed to St. Finan’s Bay. They have the final code setting there, brought across by boat.”

It was just the sort of muddle-headed situation that fitted my own experience. But it had a horrible chance of succeeding. I picked up the rucksack.

“Where exactly is this car? I’m going to be darned tired by the time I reach it.”

I trudged slowly along the road. Each time a car came past I slipped off the rucksack, putting it down out of sight at the roadside; then I continued walking without it. Once the car was past I returned to pick it up again. The main danger was in getting through Waterville. Here I simply had to risk being seen. It was a spine-tingling ten minutes before I was safely on the far side of the little town.

By now I could appreciate Chance’s point. There were situations in which it was not wise to know too much. Tens of thousands of people were going to be killed. The problem of I.C.E. was going to be solved, not intellectually, but by battering it out of existence. And suddenly I knew it was not going to happen. There was soft bog to both sides of the road. In a few minutes I had moved a hundred yards to the left. I slipped off the heavy load, ripped out half a dozen metal boxes and sank them one by one into the squelchy ground. Returning to the road, I walked another mile before abandoning the rucksack itself.

I was too hopelessly miserable to turn for home, too hopelessly miserable to do anything but impale myself on the guns of the desperate men who were waiting in the car a couple of miles ahead.

The St. Finan’s junction appeared at last. The dark shape of the car was just visible against the light-colored road. I walked quickly toward it. There was nobody inside. I turned just in time to see a dark figure rise from the roadside. A light flashed in my eyes. I was on the point of hurling myself forward when a vaguely familiar voice rang out. “And what might you be doing here, sir?”

The light went off. I flicked on my own flashlight and saw a guard from Waterville with whom I had a passing acquaintance.

“Oh, Mr. McSweeney, I didn’t recognize you. I’m on a late tramp and getting pretty tired too. I saw the car as I passed the junction and wondered if by any chance I could get myself a lift along the road.”

McSweeney was joined by a second guard, who asked, “And who might this be?”

“It’s Mr. Sherwood. He lives on the other side of Waterville.”

“This is a late hour to be on the road, but—”

“That’s true too. I’ll be glad when I can climb into my bed,” I replied.

“Would you have seen anybody walking the road?”

“I was passed by an odd cyclist, and by several cars.”

“Which way have you come?”

“Over the Ballaghossian from Caragh.”

“A powerful distance.”

“That’s what my feet are saying.”

“Would any of the cyclists have been carrying a great rucksack?”

“Not that I could see.”

“Well, well, it can’t do any real harm if we take Mr. Sherwood home. Get into the car, Mr. Sherwood.”

I was relieved to find both guards climbing into the front seats. I might be under suspicion, but I wasn’t under arrest. More alarming, what if these were John Chance’s confederates, the men I was supposed to be meeting? Plainly I must prevent the guards from entering the cottage at all costs. I could deal with Chance, but I could scarcely hope to deal with three desperate and angry men.

I got out of the car at the entrance to the little lane that ran down to the cottage. The guards got out too.

“We’ll see you down the lane, Mr. Sherwood. Just to make sure that everything’s in order,” said McSweeney.

“That’s very kind of you, but I shall be perfectly all right. I’m only tired; not crippled, you know.”

“Some pretty queer customers are abroad tonight, and not the good people either,” said the other guard with a chuckle.

“We’d like to see you home, Mr. Sherwood, as much for our satisfaction as for yours,” added McSweeney.

So I had no choice but to lead the way. Thank heavens the cottage was in darkness. I opened the door—it was actually unlocked, but I rattled my key to make it sound as if I were unfastening the place. I switched on the light, thanking my lucky stars that I had been tidy enough to wash up after supper. The whiskey bottle and Chance’s empty glass lay on the table. I grabbed two clean glasses.

“Have a snifter before you go,” I remarked, slapping out the spirits in generous quantity before they had time to reply, for I was scared they would smell the stuff.

“Well, it isn’t an Irishman’s habit to refuse.”

I noticed they darted glances about the place as they drank. But it wasn’t easy to tell that I had already arrived at the cottage from Caragh during the late afternoon—if Chance kept quiet everything might still be saved.

“Thanks for the sensation, Mr. Sherwood. Well be on our way. You seem to be all right now.”

They stepped outside and I accompanied them, ostensibly to offer further thanks for the ride. They moved off toward the lane. I returned to the cottage, but I waited with the door open, listening to their progress down the lane. I heard the car start up and drive away, but of course only one of them might have gone and the other might be returning, so I locked the door and drew the curtains. I put a kettle on the stove, which would be the normal thing to do after a long tramp. The temptation to run upstairs or to shout was almost irresistible, but I realized that Chance might not have drawn the curtains and that an injudicious use of light might easily make him visible from the outside.

I waited as long as I could—perhaps half an hour—until the tension became unbearable. Then I took the bull by the horns. I switched on an upstairs light, going quickly from the one bedroom to the other. Chance had gone. I am half ashamed to say that I looked under the beds and in the wardrobe, but Chance had vanished, game leg and all. I am not a solitary drinker, but on that occasion I poured the last of the whiskey into a tumbler and tossed it down in a couple of gulps.

I fell asleep after lying for about an hour, turning and twisting the incredible events of the night, trying to fit them into a pattern that had at least some semblance of rationality. It was just graying dawn outside when I was awakened by the loud ring of the telephone. In some apprehension, I went down the steep cottage stairs as quickly as I could. A girl’s voice asked if it was Mr. Sherwood speaking. When I answered that it was, she simply laughed and immediately rang off.

By now I was quite hungry, so gloomily I cooked breakfast, thinking that from the moment I left Cambridge I seemed to have been surrounded by a raving pack of lunatics. If I could have viewed the happenings of the last eight hours without preconceptions I think I could have made sense of them. But the only line of reasoning that seemed to hold the slightest consistency led to such an apparently monstrous contradiction that I was not bold enough to follow it to an end.

The thing that worried me most about this strange affair was a strong feeling that this wasn’t the first time I had seen Mr. John Chance. But where and when I first met him I could not think. My memory might still be playing an odd trick, of course.

I am going to pass over several months’ happenings rather quickly, not because this was a fallow period—I do not remember ever having worked so hard—but because most of my work was of only personal relevance.

Among the scientific activities that I discovered, two might be very briefly mentioned. I saw many more “moving mountains,” of the sort I had first glimpsed in Dublin. These machines, of the size of small ships, were of course nuclear-powered. Popularly known as the “Neuclids,” they were used for earth-moving operations. The almost incredible speed with which new buildings were erected and the surrounding landscape changed owed itself in a large measure to these giant monsters.

A great deal was apparently going on in the biological field. One point about which it was easy to get information deserves special mention: the extermination of flies and insect pests in general. There may be some who will regret the passing of the mosquito and the midge, but I am not to be numbered among them.

In my attempt to catch up with Mitchell and his friends one of the obvious dodges I tried was attending the main weekly scientific seminar at Caragh. There was no security involved, so I’d no trouble in gaining entry. But even though these meetings were well attended by the higher grades of scientific personnel, Mitchell and Company never appeared.

This was the beginning of an important train of events, however: events that started in a small way. I was anxious to cause all the disturbance and disruption I possibly could. Outright defiance of restrictions seemed foolish and unprofitable, since the odds were obviously too much against me. But there was no harm in trying to inculcate a sense of inferiority in the scientific personnel, and I thought I saw how to do this.

I noticed a curiously contradictory feature of these weekly scientific meetings. Anyone who could ask intelligent questions of the lecturer of the day gained great prestige. And if the lecturer made an error that one could correct, then better still. In spite of the reputation that could be won in this fashion, nobody took the trouble to prepare himself in advance—apart from the lecturer, of course. Nor was it at all difficult to prepare oneself, because the subjects of the meetings were always announced at least a week beforehand.

So in addition to my own work I deliberately began to read up carefully in advance on all manner of topics. Sometimes the subjects were fairly mathematical. These were not only the easiest for me to cope with, but they were also the greatest prestige winners. I had more trouble with experimental physics and with chemical and biological topics. Yet a day or two’s reading was usually sufficient to suggest several questions. The great thing was that nine out of ten of the audience would be following the lecturer only rather vaguely. Then if one could ask some precisely formulated question, the effect of a complete understanding was created.