The Secret Vanguard (22 page)

Sheila was silent for a moment, forcing the cold to die within her. ‘Then it’s suicide,’ she said.

‘Suicide?’ His voice was low. ‘A very hazardous patrol. Call it that… By heaven, he’s in!’

He was in. He had trudged past a scattering of women on a strip of lawn on the nearside of the moat, trudged across the drawbridge, and vanished through the postern. Sheila heard Dick gasp – heard him echo what had been a gasp from Appleby. Neither of them, she realized, had believed that Mackintosh could possibly make this first trick.

Silence – silence and the muted activity of the wandering women, the murmur of their voices on what was now a warm summer morning air. Silence – and the beating of her own heart. And then a pistol shot, a shout, a succession of shots, shouting.

‘He’s–’ Appleby stopped. Across the hundred yards or so that separated them from the castle came another sound: the hum, the beat of an engine. Not, like the motorboat, very noisy – but powerful as it. And the sound rose and fell in an odd rhythm. Sheila saw Dick and Appleby look at each other.

‘Great snakes!’ Dick’s voice was harsh with excitement. ‘To think of that. He’s going round and round that darned courtyard getting up–’

There was a splintering crash. Where a moment before there had been stout wooden doors with an open postern there was now a gaping hole and a lurching, battered, enormous Rolls Royce car. It thundered on the drawbridge, crazily swerved and then, as a crumpled front wing fell from it like a dead leaf, tore down the road towards them. Dust spurted; from somewhere there was a rattle of firing; they dived for deeper cover and caught only a glimpse of Mackintosh: a glimpse of his pale and blood-smeared face bent over the wheel… The Rolls Royce vanished in a cloud of dust.

‘That,’ Appleby said, ‘is very good. The situation is transformed. He’ll be in Troy in five minutes – and even if they’ve spiked us there we can reckon on an overwhelming force within an hour.’

‘Good?’ Dick Evans turned to grin at Hetherton. ‘As the yokels used to say in Suffolk long ago, it’s swell… Look at those women; they don’t much care for the unrehearsed effects.’

On the women who were occupying themselves on the lawns before the castle the violent and unaccountable incidents of the last few seconds were naturally not without effect. A game of croquet had abruptly broken up; here and there groups had taken to a sort of huddled scampering; there were cries of alarm.

‘Interesting,’ said Appleby dispassionately, ‘ – interesting the way they behave. There has been shooting in the castle and a wounded man has made a spectacular escape in a car. Directed at him from the castle has been at least the fire of a submachine gun. All that is clear enough. But they are making nothing of it; they’re bolting
towards
the castle for protection from something they can’t analyse. It’s the natural centre of authority and they bolt for it. Interesting.’ He glanced at Sheila and she saw that the interest Appleby perceived was far from being an abstract one. ‘Question is, what will they do now – the enemy, I mean? Make a break for it without their transport? Give me the glasses.’ He took the binoculars Mackintosh had left behind him. ‘Someone on the drawbridge offering explanations to the advance guard of the agitated ladies. I can see through the nasty hole the car made right into the court. They’re working at the cars – every man jack I guess – getting sound tyres on one. They can’t carry a man off without a car, even if they know we’re still as weak as we are…’ He dropped the glasses. ‘And
if
they can’t carry him off–?’ For a second he let the question hang in air. ‘Hetherton, I think–’

Appleby stopped again – but this time it was to swing round with a lightning movement. Something had snapped in the undergrowth of the spinney behind them. They waited tense with expectation. And a moment later relaxed. It was Mrs McKay – the real McKay – and her three friends.

Or all relaxed except Appleby. From him came something like a shout of discovery. ‘Old wives!’ he cried – and rose up masterfully before the astonished ladies.

The sun had risen a fraction higher. It sparkled on the loch. And Appleby gave his skirts a kick. ‘Miss Grant, you alone are to the manner born – which is why I let you join in this last hazard. Let your imagination play upon an advancing rheumatism and you will be perfect. And now – forward.’

The word roused Mrs McKay from a still slightly dazed contemplation of her trousers. ‘And why,’ she demanded, ‘should one of us not go instead of the lassie? If it’s the rheumatism you’re wanting, it and I have been acquaint these twenty years.’

Appleby nodded. ‘Thank you. But you see Miss Grant knows something of the lie of the castle: not much, but it may be useful. Will you all four stay here? And don’t be alarmed if we fail to return. Very soon there will be a strong force of police, and perhaps soldiers as well. When they come try to join them and explain what has happened.’

The lady whose majestic clothing now adorned Hetherton put a tentative hand in a trousers pocket. ‘We’ll do that,’ she said. ‘To think of such carryings-on right here in Scotland! And at first we all thought you clean daft! I wonder–’ She stopped and pointed suddenly to the heavens. ‘I wonder would they be friends of yours up in that?’

They glanced upwards. Far to the east an aeroplane had appeared, the sound of its engine still inaudible. It came perceptibly nearer as they looked.

‘Almost certainly.’ Appleby took a step towards the road. ‘And, if they begin to feel our forces gathering every moment may be important. But we must get round to the garden entrance as unobtrusively as possible. Four excited women here would naturally make for the drawbridge, which isn’t what we want. So we begin at a rambling walk and speed up later. Goodbye.’

They moved down the road towards the castle, and then turned off at an angle to round it and reach the garden gate distinguished by Mackintosh. As a piece of amateur theatricals their proceeding was no doubt convincing enough at a distance, but it seemed unlikely to Sheila that they could successfully carry off the deception at anything like close quarters. They had between them three sun-bonnets and a parasol, and this would help. Dick was perhaps the weakest spot: his clothes, even with a good deal of ingenuity in bearing and in the putting on, were ludicrously small. But Appleby seemed confident. Possibly he had a plan.

The aeroplane was above them and had banked to circle the castle. Dick looked up. ‘I suppose there’s no chance of signalling?’ he asked.

‘At the moment, none.’ Appleby was squinting under the rim of his bonnet. ‘You couldn’t wave more wildly than some of those women are waving just for the sake of waving. And they wouldn’t hear a shot… Bear right and avoid the ladies with the croquet mallets; they might show rather a noticeable surprise if they spotted us as not of their kind.’

‘And there’s always the chance,’ said Dick, ‘that they’re phony themselves. Or I gather that’s the idea: here and there the enemy is keeping a wolf or two in sheep’s clothing.’

Hetherton’s bonnet shook as he nodded agreement. ‘Quite so. But how confusing it is!’ He glanced at Sheila, who felt that he was really far from confused. ‘Little did I ever think to take part in such an orgy of transvestism. And, like Flute, I have a beard coming.’ He stroked his chin. ‘But that may be all to the good.’

And suddenly Sheila saw. ‘Mr Appleby,’ she said, ‘are we going–’

He laid a hand on her arm. ‘Get behind us. The gate is only about twenty yards along this wall. Evans, lengthen your stride. Hetherton, get out your pipe… Now!’

They swung forward; a high stone wall with a gate was before them – and by the gate a tall man standing with one hand in a pocket. As they hurried towards him the man straightened up and waved them away. ‘Nothing the matter!’ he shouted. ‘A drunk man driving a car. Mr Mannering asks you not to enter this garden.’

Appleby walked on, ignoring him. The others followed. The man shouted again, angrily this time, and his hand went down as if to lock the gate. Then he took another look at them and suddenly grinned; he spoke again, and this time not in English. Out of the corner of her eye Sheila saw Hetherton’s bonnet grotesquely bobbing over his pipe; beside her Dick’s strides were those of a giant. They were up with the man and round him. He was lying stunned on the ground.

‘To the far corner – run!’ Appleby spoke and darted forward; gathering up their skirts they went pelting after him. Sheila tripped, recovered herself, and ran forward. A flight of steps was before her and then a long blind wall: they rounded this and she saw familiar ground. It was the balustraded terrace and below them was the loch.

‘There’s a good chance,’ said Appleby, ‘that almost the whole team is working on the cars. It’s a big place to hunt for their prisoner. But it must be done.’

‘The study.’ Sheila spoke urgently. ‘Mannering’s study: that’s where they were going to trap me. Try that. The third or fourth window from the end.’

They dashed along the terrace and nobody appeared to stop them. Appleby, revolver in one hand, tried the fourth French window with the other. It was curtained and fastened. ‘That’s it,’ said Sheila – and as she spoke he ran back the breadth of the terrace, buried his head in his arms, and charged. The effect was not unlike that of Mackintosh’s dash in the Rolls Royce. There was a crash and a gaping hole. Appleby had disappeared. And then – for it was all like a film fantastically accelerated – he was out again almost before they had time to think of scrambling in after him. Sheila remembered a picture in her nursery: a fireman emerging through flames with a child in his arms. But this was not a child; it was the inert body of a grown man.

‘Run!’ It was Appleby’s familiar command. And they ran.

Sheila saw that Dick had the revolver now; she saw the steps again; the garden; they were almost clear. Then a space of confused impressions that were familiar too: shouting, perhaps shots. And, finally, calm: they were all tumbled in a little hollow of turf and screened from the castle by a shrubbery.

‘Look.’ Appleby had laid down his burden and twisted round. They turned. About two hundred yards up the road stood two dull green motor lorries, empty. These rapidly backed and vanished as they looked; for a moment there was discernible activity in a clump of whins near at hand. ‘Lewis gun,’ said Appleby, ‘And look.’ His finger swept round the pine trees before them. Here and there a figure flitted rapidly in and out of view. ‘They’re closing in round the castle with both flanks pinned on the loch. Mackintosh wasted no time. Our friends are caught.’

‘Caught?’ A new voice spoke unsteadily from the ground: Rodney Orchard’s voice. ‘It’s just as well. They got it, you know. My formula.’

Appleby knelt down. ‘You mean the drawings? We’ve got them.’

Orchard – and he was oddly like the false Orchard, Sheila thought – weakly shook his head. ‘The drawings? That was a good dodge… No, not that. Afterwards. They got it out of me.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Nothing lurid. Just science against science. Some infernal drug that relaxes all power of inhibition. One chatters happily. I must chase it up some day… But point is they’ve got it. So – whoever you are – get them.’ He tumbled back on the turf.

‘Appleby’ – it was Hetherton’s voice, suddenly incisive – ‘can they get the motorboat?’

‘No.’ Appleby had jumped to his feet and was scanning the loch. ‘I can just make out the cordon the troops are forming. And the cove where we left the boat is a good hundred yards beyond. Only–’ He stopped and his face grew troubled. ‘What do you think has happened to the mothers’ meeting? The marquee is open; they’re not there. Where can they be?’

‘I think–’ said Dick, and was interrupted by a shrill whistle. They turned again towards the road and saw advancing down it an ugly little armoured car; on either side the woods showed suddenly alive with khaki-clad steel-helmeted men.

‘Castle Troy,’ Appleby said, ‘has about five minutes to go. But you think–?’

‘That the women are inside.’ Dick turned again towards the loch. ‘Great snakes – but they’re not! Look at that.’

They all stood up and looked. The terrace on which they had themselves stood only a few minutes before was now thronged with moving female figures – with female figures moving with a definite and immediate end in view. Scores of women were hurrying down the steps to embark in the little fleet of pleasure craft below. Already some of these were casting off; a chatter of excited voices rose as they watched; plainly it was the grand treat of the day about to begin.

Appleby jumped from the hollow and ran towards an officer who had appeared with Mackintosh from among the trees not forty yards away. The others, uncertain what to do, stayed where they were. Of whatever happened now they seemed condemned to be spectators only. And as spectators they would here obtain an excellent view.

Oars plashed and here and there a sail was up: quickly the boats spread out over the nearer surface of the loch. At one point Sheila heard cries of surprise and saw women pointing at the squads of soldiers now rapidly enveloping the castle and the end of the loch. But the excitement died away; it would be thought that manoeuvres were in progress; all were now embarked and the water was a confusion of bumping and scudding craft. And nothing but women: that was the point. Nothing but women ineptly splashing about a loch before retiring to a marquee for meat pies and strong tea. Only in one or more of those little boats the women were bogus, so many wolves disguised as Red Riding Hood’s grandmother: which was why they themselves had succeeded in breaking into Castle Troy… But what was the good of it; how could this hiding amid a huddle of women save these people in the end? Already the situation seemed in hand: from the water’s edge the powerful voice of a sergeant was vigorously ordering the boats back to the shore. Some had understood and turned; presently all would do so and any craft attempting to pursue a course up the loch would be known for what it was and if necessary brought under fire. So why–?

And then Sheila saw the big boathouse. A group of three or four boats, farther out than the rest, had approached close to it: and on that side of the loch the nearest troops were still perhaps some three hundred yards away. She grabbed Dick by the arm. ‘The boathouse: do you think–’