The Man from the Sea (15 page)

Day made no reply. He was taking off the dark glasses and settling himself on the stretcher. The ambulance had a faint antiseptic smell that made Cranston think of his father’s surgery. George’s rucksack and Elspeth’s abandoned clothes were lying in one corner. For some reason he had a sudden sharp vision of Sally – of Sally at a summer dance, very exquisite and rather beautiful… He shut the door with a snap, ran round to the front of the ambulance and scrambled up. “There’s room?” he asked.

George nodded without speaking. She was watching the line of tanks. “There!” she said suddenly to Sandy. He slipped into gear and the ambulance jolted over the floor of the quarry and inserted itself neatly between one tank and another. “Will they mind, do you think?”

“They’ll only mind that they’re shut down in their daft contraiptions and no’ able to be casting their immodest regard upon your person.” Sandy gave her a sidelong glance that was entirely austere. “And they canna’ bid us pass and go ahead, sin frae here through tae Drumtoul the road’s scarce wide enough for the muckle-douped things theirsel’s.”

“Is it a long climb?”

“Aye – we climb right tae the top o’ the moor. You and Mr Cranston here will be able to look awa’ doon tae the sea and tak’ a last glink at Dinwiddie Castle. If it’s ony satisfaction tae either of you.”

For some time they were silent as the long line of monsters laboured towards the summit of the moor. They were out of the glen and the heather rolled away monotonously on either side of them, unrelieved except by a line of shooting-butts a mile on their left and here and there a deserted sheep-fold piled up out of weathered grey stone. A burn ran by the side of the road, its murmur entirely drowned by the clatter before and behind them. It was hard not to believe that the whole moor was exhaling exhaust gases. Presently Cranston pointed ahead. “You see that cairn?” he said to George. “The road goes off on a long curve there. If we look back, we should be able to see the whole line behind us – and tell if they’ve joined in.”

“Whether they have or not, I suppose they’re unlikely just to give up? They really feel Day to be terrifically important?”

Cranston nodded. “I’m sure they do. There was a big effort – and a lightning effort – getting five chaps on top of us like that. What more they can mobilise, I’ve no idea. But everything they’ve got. Within twelve hours, I’d say, everything they’ve got in these islands.”

“Sandy – do you hear that?” George appeared to be in remarkably good spirits. “You are at grips with the entire forces of atheistic communism.”

“Maybe I am, Miss. But I maun be back at the Infirmary the forenoon, all the same. I canna’ see the Superintendent, coarse chiel that he is, making much o’ a tale o’ Sandy Morrison at grips wi’ the Kremlin… If you want to spy back adoon the road, there’s a pair o’ glasses in the bag at your fut.”

Cranston stooped and rummaged. Presently he produced a pair of excellent binoculars. “And what, Sandy,” he asked, “is the use you find for these?”

“Bird watching.” Sandy was dour. “It’s an improving ploy, Dick Cranston, that you must mind them urging us to in the school.” He gave a swift wicked grin. “I’m a great one for keeping an eye on the birds.”

“You’re a great one for keeping an eye on Lord Urquhart’s or Sir Alex’s keepers, if you ask me.” Cranston leant far out of the window and scanned the curve of road behind them. “There’s nothing. Only tanks, and more tanks. If they’re after us, it’s not at the tail-end of this queer procession… George, have you got your maps?”

“They’re in the rucksack in the back – unless Day’s eaten them. Why?”

“Just that it strikes me–” Cranston broke off. “There’s the sea,” he said. “And there’s the castle.”

“Dinwiddie?”

“Dinwiddie.” For a moment he continued to stare. The place was bumping up and down in his field of vision, but he had it perfectly in focus. It seemed very near – and there was a queer shock in its suddenly being so. Part ruin and part mansion, it stood out boldly on its cliff against a sea still silvery in the morning light. And somehow it was ominous and evil. He tried to recall the sharp vision of Sally that he had experienced only half an hour before. But all he saw was Caryl’s flesh in moonlight – that and her husband Alex Blair, spruce and polished and facetious. He handed the glasses silently to George, and sat back so that she could focus them across his chest. For some horrible seconds he was gripped by what he thought of as his dream-feeling – the sense of a sudden recollection, seizing the mind as it swam up out of oblivion, of an irrevocable thing done… “Clear – isn’t it?” He had forced himself to speak.

“There’s something I don’t like about it.”

“Something
you
don’t like?” He was vastly struck by this.

“I don’t like mediaeval things.” George was puzzled, yet decided. “I thought I’d find them marvellous. But the Tower cured me.”

“The Tower of London – you’ve been there?” He was amused.

“Of course I’ve been there. It’s horrifying. Do you realise that London was once a Roman city – a civilised place that you and I would recognise? And that centuries and centuries later, all that people could manage was a ghastly mixture of slum and prison – like the Tower, or like Castle This and Castle That? It’s terrifying. It shows how civilisation can just seep away.”

“I suppose it does. But the mediaeval people built the cathedrals. Have you seen them?”

“You can build cathedrals without knowing about drains – or even baths.” George lowered the binoculars for a moment and looked at him with what appeared to be perfect seriousness. “And when did they put baths into Dinwiddie? Probably not more than fifty years ago.”

Cranston laughed. Five minutes before, it was something he would have believed himself become permanently incapable of. “Do all Australians believe that godliness is next to cleanliness?”

“There’s something coming out.” George had the glasses focused once more on the castle. “It must be a tradesman’s van. It’s a brilliant yellow. But it’s going very fast.”

“Yellow?” Suddenly he remembered. “But that’s Blair’s car – Sir Alex Blair’s Cadillac.” He laughed again. “Would you expect a Scottish baronet – and an intellectual one at that – to paint a Cadillac bright yellow?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know at all.”

“Well, you wouldn’t. But there’s something odd in him.”

“Blair? What is he, anyway?”

“What I’ve just told you – a baronet, and our local bigwig Number Two. He comes after old Lord Urquhart, who’s his deadly enemy. And he’s a physicist – a
ci-devant
physicist, I should say. He was on the way to eminence when the baronetcy – and something soft inside him, I expect – stepped in and sank him.”

“He might have been what John Day is?”

Cranston stared at her. “Well, yes – but there’s something decidedly
ci-devant
about Day too now, I’d say.”

“In rather a different sense.” George had swept the binoculars round in a curve. “I suppose Cadillacs are pretty hot? It’s travelling very fast indeed.”

“It’s a pleasure to hear o’ something that’s no behaving like a funeral.” Sandy Morrison was peevish. “I’ll no mind crawling like this when I’m set up wi’ my hearse. ’Twill be but reverent-like. But an ambulance is anither matter. I’ve got a wee bit bell here – doon there at my fut – that’s for clearing the traffic awa’ frae in front o’ me in the toon. D’ye think, Dick, I might gie a bit ding wi’ it noo?”

“It wouldn’t do the slightest good. The pace of this whole column is set by someone in an armoured car at the front.”

“Yin o’ the high heed-yins, nae doot.” Sandy was disgusted. “The great dunderclunk might hae a thought tae my Superintendent.” He pulled out his watch again. “Frae Drumtoul tae the Infirmary’s nae sma’ loup. And I mun mak’ it in the forenoon.”

“We’re not likely to forget it.” Cranston turned to George. “What would you say they know about us?”

“That here we are. And perhaps that’s about enough. I suppose there are other roads to this Drumtoul.”

“There certainly are. But what would they know about us once we definitely broke the trail?”

“One of them has seen me close-up – in that queer rig. Five of them have seen the two of us and Sandy – at a middle distance. As for Day, I suppose at least one of them knows him very well. But do they know about his eyes?”

Cranston shook his head. “I don’t see that they can. At least, it would be something worth taking a risk on. But what isn’t worth taking a risk on is driving into Drumtoul in this ambulance. And that’s why I asked you about your maps… Sandy, would you have the nerve to stop ?”

“And what for no?” Sandy was indignant. “Hae I no’ a right to halt upon the guid Queen’s highway for my lawful occasions – whether or no’ all the Queen’s tanks are a wee bit impeded the while?” Sandy paused. “Are ye thinking, man, o’ taking to the heather?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Wi’ Miss Cranston here and the blinter?”

“Day’s eyes are the trouble, all right – and have been from the start. But I’ve got a plan.”

“Ye aye had plans as a wean, Dickie Cranston, and fair daft some o’ them were.”

“That’s true enough. My plan at the castle this morning was daft. But I think I’ve thought of a better one.”

“Which is?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

“Ye’ll no’ let on tae your auld schoolfellow?” Sandy was deeply offended. “And would it be owerweening, Mr Cranston, to spier what for no’?”

“If you don’t know you can’t tell. Not even if the Kremlin catches you in a corner and asks you not too gently.”

“Lordsake!” Not unnaturally, Sandy received this with some dismay. “Are you telling me they’d accord me waur than death?”

Cranston nodded. “Undoubtedly. But fortunately their interest in you won’t last very long. Within twenty-four hours, if I have my way in the matter, you won’t be worth twopence to them. Nor will George here, thank goodness… Sandy, you must get yourself gaoled. The constable in Drumtoul – isn’t his name Carfrae? – was telling me only the other day that they’ve built him a grand new lock-up at the bottom of his garden.”

George, who had been listening to all this attentively, interrupted. “And what put it into a policeman’s head to tell you that?”

“He was having a little joke.” Cranston grinned at her. “About salmon… And, Sandy – that will do for you. You must get Carfrae to clap you in his grand new lock-up for poaching salmon. You’ll be safe enough there.”

“Me jailed?” Sandy was indignant. “And with sic a record wad they ever promote me tae that–”

“Unjust suspicion, Sandy. Carfrae must let you out tomorrow evening, without troubling a magistrate. He can give you a note to your Superintendent. Or you can get your mother to write in that you were poorish.”

Sandy took a hand from the wheel to scratch his head. This fertility in expedients was plainly something he remembered from of old. “It maun be as ye will,” he said resignedly. “But will the tank laddies no’ think it strange tae see three folk get oot o’ an ambulance and gae louping ower the heather?”

“Not a bit. We’ll look just like walkers you’ve given a lift to… And you can stop any time now.”

“Verra weel.” Sandy hesitated and gave a sly glance at his former schoolfellow. “Might it no’ be better,” he asked, “if Miss Cranston here came tae Carfrae’s new jile too?”

“It would wreck your chances at once.” Cranston was decisive. “Carfrae’s a decent shameful loon, Sandy, that would panic at the thought of it.”

“He’s got his auld auntie.” Sandy held out this prospect of chaperonage without conviction.

“Stop havering, man – and signal them you’re going to stop. I’ll nip round behind and get out Day and the rucksack in no time.”

Sandy Morrison did as he was bid. “D’ye ken what I think?” he asked. “That Day, whatever he hauds himsel’ oot for, is but a coarse creature and no’ worth a’ this stour.”

Cranston had been prepared for difficulty, but their progress across the moor was even slower than he had feared. Day’s eyes, although horribly inflamed, were beginning to be of some use to him – but they were no help with the heather at his feet. It looked as if the ten miles – and it was certainly a good ten miles to Urquhart – might take them four hours to cover.

For some time they had moved silently. The road had dropped out of sight behind them and the rumble of the tank column had died away. The only sound was the cry of peewits high in air, and sometimes a faint tinkle of water dropping in tiny invisible runlets down the slope they were painfully climbing. Helping Day was laborious, and after no more than half an hour they were glad to pause for breath. George had brought Sandy’s binoculars, and she turned to sweep with them the ground over which they had come. The road, although below them, was still invisible behind some swell of the moor, and beyond it the heather stretched in reaches of dull purple to the sea. Nothing moved. In the whole prospect there was no hint of habitation. There was nowhere – whether in hut or tree or post – a single perpendicular line. Cranston, although he loved it, was prompted to apologise for the scene. “It’s pretty bleak, isn’t it? Vast and empty and useless.”

“Vast?” George was amused. “If you came from Australia, you’d feel that this was no more than elbow room.”

Day had sat down, his head sunk between his hands. Now he raised it. “Australia – is that where you come from? I nearly went there once.”

“Really?” George looked at him coldly, and Cranston realised that she was unable to see in this queer fugitive anything remotely resembling a figure of sympathy. “A great deal of it is very like this, you know. Almost nothing to destroy.”

“To destroy?” For a moment he seemed not to understand. “You think of me as a destroyer?”

“I don’t know that I do. Perhaps it wouldn’t be fair. Say just chief technical adviser to the Death Wish.”

Day shook his head. Cranston noticed – as he had noticed when the man first came out of the sea – what a fine head it was. “It’s a matter, of course, of what we’re urged to – and given funds to go after. But it might have been called creative, not destructive – the Australian idea. Getting at artesian water – enormously far down. Transforming a continent.”