“That’s what I’m doing. I got a bit tired of London, so jumped on the train to Upper Mayhem, thinking I’d find you there. Oh, I know all about London being a continent you never need to leave, and that if you’re tired of London you’re tired of life. Doctor Johnson said that, didn’t he? He said so much he must have been a real motormouth. But there are times when even I want a break from the Smoke, so I thought I’d call on you, and I was very disappointed to find you weren’t there. All I could do was put two and two together and decide you were keeping out of the way of the Green Toe Gang, which led me here.”
I stood up to boil more water. “The quality of your intuition is so good it worries me.”
“And well it may because, Michael, I’ve got news for you. You can’t escape the Green Toe Gang so easily. You must clear out of here, because they’re on to you. When I got to Upper Mayhem I didn’t breeze in there like any old tyro, because there was a car outside I knew wasn’t yours. I went through the gate and up to the house as silent as a cloth-footed fly, and when I looked through the window I saw Clegg tied to a chair, with two of the worst villains about to bludgeon him over the head. Poor Clegg was as white as whitewash. I don’t know what he’d told them already, but he didn’t need to say anymore, because the Campbells had come.
“You remember that gun from Greece you wanted me to throw away? I don’t like throwing things away when I think they might come in handy. I had it with me, and kicked the door in before they could reach for their shooters. I hadn’t had such a time since that little set-to in Greece. What a good day for the infantry! I had them so well covered it looked as if they were about to mess themselves, because by the state of my face they could see I wouldn’t stand any nonsense. I made them put their guns on the table, and after I’d booted them out I left a pistol for Clegg in case they were daft enough to come back. Not that I think they will in a hurry, because Clegg was in the Home Guard as a lad during the War and knows how to use firearms. The other gun I brought for you is at the bottom of my pack. I’ll pull it out in a bit.
“Anyway, I let them go off in their car. I could have demobilised it, but it don’t pay to be too vindictive, though I had to resist the impulse to kneecap them.” He lit one of my cigars. “The fact is, I knew then that I had to get here and put you in the picture, so I loaded the rucksack with as much as it would hold from the stores in your freezer and larder—and, well, the rest is history, as they say. Or it might be soon, so you’d better forget all about peace and quiet, because as sure as my name’s Bill Straw the Green Toe Gang will track you down sooner or later, and I can’t look after you forever. So far you’ve been like a cat with nine lives, but you must be getting near the end, so it behoves you to take care and look sharp.”
Even Dismal seemed halfway alarmed at such talk, while I’d never seen Bill so relaxed and happy. “What, do you suggest we do?”
He grinned. “Search me.”
“We can’t stay here like sitting ducks.”
“Ducks don’t sit, old cock. They float.” An arm went deep into the rucksack, and came out with a revolver, which he handed to me. “From now on this is your best friend. In the meantime let’s call it a training exercise, and walk to the top of the lane to see what we can see. You stay by the left hedge, and I’ll keep to the right. That way we’ll have each other covered. Dismal can walk in the middle, and finish off the wounded.”
I handled the weighty piece. “I’ve never fired one. I’ve only ever used a shotgun.”
He pointed out the various parts: “Backsight, foresight, magazine, safety catch, trigger for the squeezing of. But never shoot to kill. Aim low, if you have to. Now you’re fully trained. Forget the bullshit and squarebashing. Let’s go.”
I felt a bloody fool as we Three Musketeers—one of them a dog—walked slowly and well concealed up the track, low grey cloud spitting bits of rain. Beyond a slight rise at the top the horizon was clear, no traffic along the paved road, not even the noise of aircraft. There couldn’t be a quieter place. At a touch of damp breeze on our faces Bill motioned us back. Every dozen or so paces he circled quickly left and right to make sure no one was following. Such behaviour, he said, was common sense, though I saw it as inviting the sort of trouble he thrived on. He should have been working—if that was the word—as a mercenary in Africa, getting paid in dollars and diamonds. I asked him about this when we were back at the house and the kettle was on the go.
“Michael, I admit that not everything I’ve done in my life has been blameless. You’ve got to live, after all. I also know that if I had been a freebooting soldier in Africa, training one set of blacks to go about murdering another set of blacks, I’d have made enough money to retire by now.”
I jumped into his pause for breath. “But what if another mercenary soldier, with the same experience as yourself, had been training his blacks to murder your blacks? Might you not have got killed before the chance came to take early retirement?”
“There you’ve put your finger on it,” he smiled. “But look at it this way. If there had been another bloke like me training his lot to murder my lot we’d have known about each other, and when the balloon went up, as balloons always will by which I mean that when the two gangs had got together and tried to turn on one or the other of us, or both, we’d have sped out of it in the same jeep with all guns blazing. You know me. I’d already have thought of a thing like that. But that sort of caper’s not up my street, though I’ve been headhunted a time or two by a firm called Coup d’État Guaranteed. I just didn’t like the killing of women and children that went with the job. It’s no work for a real Englishman.”
He swallowed half a cake. “I’ve still got some moral feeling, though I can’t say how long it would last if I was really on my uppers. All I like is to keep myself ready for any eventuality, like when I rescued you from that bit of bother in Greece.”
“You don’t have to keep reminding me. I might have got out of it on my own, anyway.”
“Michael, we all tend to forget favours after they’ve happened.”
A denial of his statement was stopped by the ringing telephone. “You pick it up,” I told him.
He listened. “It’s William Straw here.” Indecipherable words muffled through. “I’ve just got here, sir. I called to say hello to Michael Cullen, and make sure he was all right.” He paused. “I’ll put him on, sir.”
A right bollocking was on the clock. “I’m just back from a run up the lane with Bill.”
“I’m glad you’re keeping in trim,” Moggerhanger said, “but I don’t like you turning my hideaway into a bed and breakfast establishment. Where were you when I phoned yesterday? Twice, if I remember.”
“I must have been out jogging. I got soaked, but it didn’t bother me, because I like to keep physically fit.”
“Next time the phone goes, answer it, even if you’re in bed with some fiery little tart, as I expect you were.”
“Yes, sir, but I wasn’t.” Then I decided to be conciliatory. “Is it all right if Bill Straw stays the night here? He was very useful to us in Greece.”
“Keep him with you. I’ll need both of you soon.” He put the phone down, and I told Bill what he’d said.
“Michael, you’re a brick. I knew you’d put in a good word for me. I’ve always liked working for Moggerhanger. But I wonder what he’s got in mind?”
So did I. “I don’t know about you, but it would be healthier in the long run to pack up, get in the car, and flee to where not even Moggerhanger can get at us.”
He sorted the provisions to decide what we’d have for supper. “Such an idea coming from you doesn’t seem right. Where’s the old Michael Cullen, to say a thing like that? Did that advertising agency break your morale? In any case, where would we go? We might get as far as Land’s End, but what then? Chuck ourselves off the cliffs and swim to America? It’s a long way to New England, and the water’s rough.
The sad fact is, Michael, that both of us are marked men by the Green Toe Gang, so the only thing to do is get in with Moggerhanger, the deeper the better.”
“Self-preservation tells me to cut and run,” I insisted.
“Michael, nobody knows more than me that self-preservation is no bad thing, because it always means a more exciting life, but we’re in a situation where there’s a bit more to it than that. Apart from anything else, think of the financial advantage after a stint with Moggerhanger. Another thing is that, in my humble opinion, anything’s preferable to staying in this so-called cottage. Look—no, listen—the rain’s doing a fandango on the slates, and though it’s only five o’clock it’s already getting dark. In fact it hasn’t been properly light all day. As soon as it’s dark I either feel like going to sleep, or I get hungry, usually both, so I end up eating till I’m so tired I fall asleep. There’s got to be more in life than that. I don’t lack guts, Michael, but if I had to stay here long I’d chuck myself in that stream with the greatest pleasure.”
He picked up a crystal from a heap near the wall, and was about to taste it for sweetness. “That’s rank poison. A chap came today and set it out for the rats. Do you want to die?”
He looked between his fingers as if at a scintillating diamond, and threw it away. “Thanks for saving my life, but do you really think it would kill me? I don’t look like a rat, do I? Did you see that one that just ran off with a bit in its mouth? They’ll be queuing up all night for a takeaway.”
He spooned five tins of meat and vegetables into the biggest saucepan. “In a miserable place like this you’d go off your batch if you didn’t eat. I hope you’ve got enough fags and cigars to last the night.”
“Just about.” While I washed knives and forks he set on the biggest pot of water to boil four tins of steamed pudding, which I knew came from Upper Mayhem. “Four’s too many.”
“No they aren’t. One’s for you, one’s for that dog’s supermarket stomach, one’s for me, and one’s for second helpings.”
“You must have cleaned my place out.”
“I did. Clegg advised me to. He filled the pack till he couldn’t get anymore in. He said the thought of you on short commons made him cry. He’s a very compassionate batman, is Clegg, when it concerns you. But I left enough iron rations for him to live on for a couple of days.”
I opened tins of anchovies and a jar of Mrs Ellswood’s, carved up a loaf, and bubbled out some vodka. I’d no sooner taken a swig than the phone belled again. I snatched it up: “Peppercorn Cottage. Michael Cullen speaking.”
“That’s better,” Moggerhanger said. “Now listen, and this is an order. In the morning I’m going up to Spleen Manor in the Rolls Royce, which will be towing the horsebox. Alice Whipplegate, my secretary, will be with me. We will arrive about sixteen-hundred-hours. Pay attention carefully to what I say. I want you and Bill Straw to drive over during the day and meet me there. Take your time, if you like, but as long as you arrive at Spleen Manor by six o’clock it’ll be all right. Is that clearly understood?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Don’t let me down, or the least I’ll do is skin you alive.”
I made myself sound offended. “You know I’ve always followed your orders to the letter, Lord Moggerhanger. When have I not come up to scratch?”
“Don’t take it personally, Michael. I’m only having a laugh,” and he had another on hanging up, me hoping a time would come when he would have a laugh too many at my expense.
“I can’t wait,” Bill said at the news. “Maybe there’ll be a slice of action. You can never tell with Moggerhanger.”
He regretted not having emptied the contents of more tins into the stew, though by the time we’d done eating he was farting and belching fit to bring a gaze of wonder even from Dismal, possibly also from the rats, who were a lot more lively in playing around the heaps of crystals. “That was a blow out.”
“Eating so much must make you fit for anything,” I said.
He stood. “I’m the fittest man in the world. There’s nothing wrong with me. Every night on my way to sleep I think about what I’m going to have for breakfast. I ate so much just now I think I’ll take the flashlight and go for a stroll as far as the road, otherwise I shan’t sleep.” He picked up the airgun. I wanted him to take Dismal, but he said a dog would spoil his luck with the rabbits. “I’ll pot one in the beam and we’ll have another course with our breakfast.”
I plucked a Sidney Blood from a shelf on the wall, and settled by the fire for a read, but after a few minutes fell into a doze.
More than an hour later I went out to the stream, and saw Bill’s light flickering on his way down the track. “That was a long walk,” I said.
“It was. I nearly got to the town. Such a lovely night, I couldn’t stop. And I dawdled coming back, to get this.” He held up a good sized rabbit. “I’ll skin and butcher it before going to bed, then it can simmer all night on the embers.”
He heaped a plate with fresh pink meat, chopped a couple of onions and put the lot in a stewing pot half full of water, then laid it on the fire with a solid lid on top. “That way the rats won’t get at it. I’ll sleep nearest the hearth, and keep a slug in the airgun. We might have rats for breakfast as well, like the Chinese.”
The three of us lay in a row, Dismal in the middle. I expected the luxury of undisturbed rest, but with the smell of cooking it was like sleeping in the kitchen of a restaurant. Then I was awakened several times by Bill letting off the airgun at rats carrying away the crystals to put in storage for next winter’s famine. He would occasionally pull Dismal out to look at the stars, knocking my shoulder while stepping over the paillasse. The noise of the running stream permeated every cranny of the house, so that I had to answer the call half a dozen times as well, and when at last the dim light of dawn showed the squalid kitchen I knew it was time to get up, make tea, and start the day which I hoped would turn out to be a good one.
We made a breakfast of tender rabbit and delicious bacon. Bill crashed three fried eggs each, saying we might as well finish them off, since they’d only get broken in the car. After our smokes he turned into a dynamo for cleaning the house, packing our gear, and loading up. “Never leave an untidy billet,” he said, “so give a last check that everything’s shipshape—otherwise you’ll be on a charge.”
By eight we were ready to roll, or would have been if the wheels of the Picaro hadn’t been halfway sunk in the mud. All Bill’s ingenuity with planks and brushwood, me and Dismal breathlessly pushing, couldn’t get it onto a firmer part of the path. “We used to pull tanks out of the dreck in Normandy,” he said, “but this is the limit. Of course, we could wait three months for the ground to dry, except by then it’ll be wet again. If we don’t get out today Moggerhanger will have us on the carpet, and no mistake.”
“We need a tractor.”
He took a map from the car. “There’s a farm five hundred yards east, so it shouldn’t take you long. I’ll go in the house meanwhile, and have a cup of tea, till you get back.”
Knowing his non-com attitude would only rile the farmer, I took on the task, and crossed the stream by several huge stones, then pushed against four-foot nettles and pestiferous brambles, keeping the farm’s chimney in sight. My trousers turned into wet tubes of clinging cloth but I waded on, till three dogs out of hell came from the gate barking for my blood. The woman at the door, who called them off, was youngish, wore a woolly hat, a checked pinafore over her dress, and laced-up shoes.
I wished her good morning, told her where I lived, that I was in trouble with the car.
Her blue eyes glinted laughter as she called in an attractive Welsh accent: “People do get stuck there now and again. It’s difficult to park. Come in the kitchen. The rain hardly ever stops around here.”
Four chairs were set around a well scrubbed table, blue and white crockery shining from behind glas
s on the walls. “Even Lord Moggerhanger’s Rolls Royce had to be pulled out last year,” she said. “He swore like a trooper. I was quite shocked. But won’t you sit down?”
“I don’t want to dirty your floor.”
“Don’t you worry about that. David will be in for his breakfast soon, then he’ll run the tractor over for you. I’ll make you a cup of tea while you wait.”
It was such a pleasant scene, an odorous smell of meat coming from the stove, that David could have taken the whole day for all I cared, and if Bill went ragged with anxiety and impatience, and we weren’t on time to meet Moggerhanger at Spleen Manor, so what? Many people in the country lived like this, so settled and happy, and I remembered how my children used to bewail that I wasn’t a farmer so that they could have a lot of animals and ride around the fields with me on a tractor.
When the water was ready she put three spoons of tea into a small pot. No teabags here. “I’m sorry to cause so much bother.”
My remark surprised her. “No trouble at all. I see you got wet on the path. I must ask David to scythe it down, but there’s so much else to do at this time of the year.”
“I imagine that’s always the case.”
“Well, it is, but we manage as best we can, and never complain, though I suppose some people would think we farmers often have cause to.”
The tea cleared my brain, and I accepted another, as she poured one for herself. “You’re at the house with a friend, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I told her. “Lord Moggerhanger sent us up to check the place out.”
“You get some funny characters around here, but we try to keep an eye on it. David saw your friend last night, on his way back from town, a tall chap waving a flashlight on the main road, and then going into a telephone box on the corner. I thought there was a phone in the house now, but if anything goes wrong with it you’re always welcome to come here and use ours.”
“Thank you. I think my colleague wanted a chat with his wife, where I couldn’t overhear.” My suspicions were up, because who would Bill want to talk to just after I had told him of Moggerhanger’s movements for the day? I sweated with a worry I couldn’t show, and wondered whether he’d betray me for some reason and, if so, what price he’d get for it. Then I felt ashamed, on recalling how he had rescued me in Greece.
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