Hartinger's Mouse (Commander Shaw Book 12)

by Philip McCutchan

  “No,” I said, “you don’t need to go on. But I think you ought to tell your signals sergeant and his brother-in-law and all your field commanders, that the seawater just may not work in all cases. There hasn’t been enough time yet. Fesse hasn’t a cure either, according to Weiler, but he’s undoubtedly the most likely man to come up with one sooner or later.”

  Daintree nodded, but I saw in his eyes that he doubted any commander’s capacity to keep the guns quiet when the troops reached Fesse. Frankly, I doubted my own too.

  *

  If it was Fesse, he wasn’t dead. Not yet. Another report of disease came in late that day, from a village called Drumbarrie, a little closer as the crow flies to Kyle of Lochalsh, but north of Sallachy towards Loch Carron.

  I looked at Daintree’s map. “He can’t be making for the car ferry, surely?” I said. “There’s one at Stromeferry.”

  “There’s one at Kyle of Lochalsh, too.” Daintree frowned. “I agree with you, he’d hardly make for a car ferry. I don’t think it can be that. An immediate check will be made in the area, anyhow.” He nodded at one of his staff officers, who saluted smartly and went towards the radio truck. A report came back within the hour that no-one answering the description of Fesse had been seen by the police or military and also that so far as could be ascertained no strangers at all had been in Drumbarrie for many days past and none of the villagers had gone elsewhere and returned. There had been no contact.

  “It could be livestock,” I said. As a matter of fact I’d said this before, and it hadn’t had much of a reception from General Daintree. He’d said he could hardly be expected to check on animals, though as a matter of routine any farmers with livestock had been asked about their cowmen or shepherds or what-have-you, and it had appeared that the farm animals were under the same sort of restraint as their owners simply because no-one had been willing to move them and all dealings in animals had stopped. I had gone on to rats, then. And mice. Daintree’s opinion, with which in fact I agreed, was that the thing wouldn’t have moved so fast if it had relied on rats and mice for its onward transmission. The distances involved were pretty large, after all.

  I thought again about that monstrous great sheep. Very curious indeed, the way the disease affected animals. That was another thing I would like to talk to Fesse about, and so, I was sure, would Porton Down. That side of it held possibilities, perhaps, though currently I couldn’t see just how it could be applied. A certain amount of alarm and despondency might be spread in the ranks of a potential or actual enemy by upping the size of his beasts of burden, domesticity and wild life, but, militarily speaking, I didn’t quite see the purpose. Porton might.

  The sun was going down now; it was a clear evening and there would be a moon. I watched the glint of that declining sun on the waters of the River Elchaig flowing north-westerly into Loch Long, and laying a sunset mantle on the trees. I looked along the river. Beyond Loch Long lay Loch Alsh, and then the Inner Sound; and beyond this again the Minches — the North Minch and the Little Minch, patrolled by naval vessels that would very quickly pick up a submerged submarine on their detector gear if one should be in the vicinity. Beyond the North Minch, past Cape Wrath, lay the wide Atlantic. If Fesse could get clear and away around the Butt of Lewis he would very likely make it. But why hadn’t he headed towards Cape Wrath rather than these restricted waters lower down the western Scottish shores? I didn’t feel he could have much of a chance of making it from anywhere around here. Neither did Daintree.

  “What’s the bugger up to?” he asked.

  I said, “Maybe he has the death wish, General.”

  Daintree gave an uneasy laugh. “If I was on my own, a hunted man in these parts,” he said, “I think I might have it too.”

  So might I; the surroundings were beautiful enough but there was a sense of awe and loneliness in most of Western Scotland that could quickly get a man down. Nevertheless, that hadn’t been quite what I was getting at. I felt Fesse had the wish of death for me. He would know well enough that, if I had got away from his tunnel, I would be up here taking part in the hunt. And the chances were strong that he did know I’d made it out. I could take it for granted he had a radio receiver with him; listening as it were between the lines of the announcement, he would know just what was going on. But he probably would not know just where our command HQ had been set up. Nor, of course, could he be certain I was at that HQ. Therefore it was unlikely he was making for this part of the country in any certainty of finding me; yet the more or less direct path he was taking gave no evidence at all that he was twisting and turning like a hunted man who knows his situation is desperate.

  He had a purpose in coming down this way, sure enough; but what was that purpose? And why, for heaven’s sake, was he virtually signposting his way along by leaving the disease in his wake?

  Maybe I was as crazy as Fesse himself, but it seemed to me there was only the one likely answer: he hoped to draw me after him.

  So maybe he’d better succeed, and fast. The way out to sea from Loch Alsh was far from clear and easy, but it was still a way out and Fesse could take it once he realized the net was drawing too tight for safety.

  I looked at Daintree, who was now walking up and down, restlessly, while he waited for more reports to come in. I said, “General, I think I’m a spare part round here.”

  He stopped his pacing and lifted his eyebrows. “How d’you mean, Shaw?”

  “You can manage very well without me. I’m going to Sallachy. On my own.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “Perhaps it is,” I said. I got to my feet. “Perhaps it isn’t.” I told him how my thoughts had been running. “Bait has got to be laid down before it’s too late.”

  “And you’re the bait?”

  “That’s right. This has to be a man-to-man job after all. I think I’ll have a better chance. I know Fesse, you see.”

  Daintree said. “Well, if you really think it’s best.”

  “I do. But I don’t propose to waste too much time in searching. I want him homed on to me. That’s where you can help, General, if you will.”

  “Of course. Anything you want.”

  “Right. Then will you contact London at once and ask for an announcement to be made on all BBC radio channels. I’m missing. I’m believed to be in the area between Loch Carron, say, and Loch Long. Put out a description of me and ask anyone with knowledge of my whereabouts to contact the nearest police station or army unit. Can you do that, General?”

  “I can, of course.” He still sounded very doubtful.

  “Thank you. After that, I’d like you to send orders to your units that they’re not to take a blind bit of notice of the broadcasts. I want to do this thing on my own, because I’m convinced now that it’s the only way. If Fesse gets in a tight corner and sees troops closing in on him, I believe he’ll kill himself.”

  Daintree nodded but asked, “Shaw, isn’t there a danger he’ll see a trap in this?”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “there is, but we have to chance that. If I flush him out as a result of his thinking that, then the ships out in the Minches ought to pick him up. But I still don’t believe he means to run till he’s got me.”

  “All this … it’s just a hunch, isn’t it?”

  “You could call it that.”

  Daintree said with a harsh crispness, “One can’t work on hunches. At least — not in the Service.”

  I grinned. “I know,” I said. “That’s one reason I left the Navy, years ago. You’d be surprised how often a hunch pays off, General!”

  *

  I hoped to goodness it would this time. I felt right out on a limb soon after I’d left the mobile HQ behind me and was heading on foot across country for Dornie and the road bridge that would take me over the entry to Loch Long — I wanted to keep on the seaward end of Fesse’s apparent line of advance. It was around eight miles to Dornie and another three to Sallachy, and of course Fesse wouldn’t be hanging around Sallachy for long. He w
ould be gone by the time I got there, but I hoped to pick up some sort of lead there. If I didn’t, I would just have to hope the broadcasts from London would work out the way I wanted them to.

  The walk to Dornie was in fact more than eight miles the way I found I had to go, which meant a bit of a detour from the direct line, by way of the valley of the River Elchaig; I didn’t fancy going across the mountains, somehow! It was far from an easy walk and it took me very nearly all night. By the time I saw a town ahead I’d just about had it, but I pressed on and got into Dornie, after a short rest, as the sun started to climb up behind me and throw a wonderful golden light over the hills and the water. I waited around till the shops opened and I had a bite of breakfast and two cups of coffee in a café kept by a rosy-cheeked, smiling old lady who pressed Scotch pancakes on me and told me I looked tired. I said, “I am, but I’ll survive.”

  “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Sallachy,” I said.

  She drew in her breath. “They have the sickness, in Sallachy. Or so I hear.”

  “That’s bad,” I said.

  “Ye’ll no’ go on, then?”

  “I’ll go on all right. I have business there.”

  “Business?” she said, giving me a queer look. I don’t suppose I looked much of a businessman after that night trek through the wilds of Ross and Cromarty. “Ye’re no’ a Scot?”

  “No.”

  She shook her head in bewilderment and brought more Scotch pancakes. They were a shade hard on the digestion so early in the morning, but I ate them to please her. I expect she thought I needed to keep up my resistance if I was venturing into Sallachy. I believe she thought I was mad and I felt it was quite likely she would hare off to the police the moment I was gone. Evidently the BBC hadn’t yet come on the air with my description, or if they had the old lady hadn’t been switched on, but I knew that the moment she got to hear about the broadcast she would tick over; which was pretty much what I wanted. The word would soon spread.

  Having eaten I went on across Loch Long and a little way beyond Ardelve I took the road for Sallachy. I was just a mile, by my reckoning, along this road when I saw a car ahead, facing towards me, but stopped. Coming closer, I saw a woman behind the wheel. I went on, wondering if I might ask her to turn around and take me to Sallachy. I could do with transport; for obvious reasons I hadn’t been able to bring one of the army’s staff cars. When I came right up close to the car I saw that the woman was slumped sideways in the driving seat and it didn’t take me long to find out that she was dead. She was a mass of sores. Maybe she had been heading for the sea. She hadn’t made it, though there was not far to go. It looked as though the process was speeding up even more now. You itched, you became sore, you died — with no time to reach the cure if you lived far inland. I lifted the head; she was just a girl, around eighteen or nineteen at a guess, though it was hard to be sure with the face all eaten away. I knew I was safe to touch the body, with my own immunity. I lifted it out of the car and laid it gently at the roadside, then got in and turned and drove off for Sallachy. As I drove I was thinking of the dead girl. I wondered what the authorities would do with Fesse if and when I got my hands on him and handed him over. Whatever they did was going to be too good, too easy. I began to find myself in agreement with Daintree — Fesse would be a damn sight better dead.

  Perhaps I would kill him.

  I drove into Sallachy, where the first thing I found was a detachment from Daintree’s command. There was a captain in charge. I asked if the BBC had done its stuff yet.

  “Yes,” the captain told me. “If any of the locals sees you around, you’ll be reported.”

  “That’s all right,” I told him. “If anyone questions me, I’ll admit my identity and say I’ve already reported in and the panic’s over. The word’ll spread that I’m around. All I want is for it to spread as far as Fesse. Any word of him at all?”

  “Not a thing.” The officer looked thoroughly frustrated. “He’s just vanished.”

  “You don’t think he’s still here in Sallachy?”

  “I’m damn sure he’s not! My chaps have been through the area with a toothcomb. They couldn’t have missed him.”

  I nodded. “How’s the sickness going?”

  “Spreading — at least, it was, among the older people, the ones who couldn’t make it to the sea straight away when the scare started locally. Some died before seawater could be brought in.”

  “The salt water’s working, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s something to be thankful for, Captain.” I took my leave of him and drove on through. Reports had in fact come in to Command HQ before I left that indicated the success of the seawater elsewhere; it was like a miracle, a real deliverance from evil. But I knew it could turn out to be only temporary. This thing of Fesse’s, this organism, lived; and we all had evidence that it had grown stronger since its wholesale release. So there was at least a possibility that a strain might be evolved that would prove resistant to salt water. Just as our own earth-bound microbes had to a large extent grown resistant to penicillin. That wasn’t at all a happy thought.

  The road I was on led through to Killilan and Carnach, a drive of less than ten miles. I doubted if Fesse would be doubling back on his tracks to that extent, but since I was here I decided to go on and see what I could pick up and when I reached Killilan I was very glad I had. There was a police car stopped on the fringe of the little place and I pulled in behind it and looked out. Two policemen were conferring with a civilian.

  One of the policemen came towards me.

  “Yes?” he said. He looked worried, and didn’t recognize me, though he must have had the BBC’s description.

  I said, “The name’s Shaw. You’ll have heard of me.”

  “Aye — I’m sorry, sir. We’ve heard the broadcast. We’ve been told to disregard it ourselves, however. Can I help you at all, sir?”

  I said, “You can tell me what you’re doing here.”

  “Will you get out a moment, sir, and I’ll show you.”

  I got out. The policeman led me ahead of the patrol car and pointed down at the road. The others joined us. I looked, and I saw a faint yellow dusting. I didn’t need to look any closer. I said, “That’s what began it all. If I might coin a phrase, Fesse was here. And it looks as though this is how he’s been spreading the thing afresh. That may be useful to know.” I looked all around, and felt the ground, though I knew already there had been no rain. I said, “He’s just sowing the wind now, I fancy. Sowing the wind with death.”

  The policeman, who was looking green in the face, indicated the civilian and said, “This gentleman reported this and other deposits in Killilan, sir. We were sent out for a look before we made an official statement.” He added, “Is there anything I can do?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing, except have it made official just as soon as you can — and don’t, repeat don’t, touch the powder. You haven’t touched it, have you?”

  “I have not. I knew about the first reports of it.” He looked at me, puzzlement in his face. “This man Fesse, sir. If he’s spreading the powder, surely he’s in danger of catching it himself?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “He’ll have an immunity, I expect. He’ll have seen to that.” But even as I said it, I knew I wasn’t at all certain. If Fesse was putting his faith in his own antidote, which Weiler had said didn’t work, then he would be on a rotten wicket healthwise … but he might have had an attack of the disease himself — just the itch, followed by a quick wash, like me. Then, if he did get a full-scale go of it, he would at least live.

  I got back in the dead girl’s car and drove on through for Carnach, which wasn’t all that far from General Daintree’s HQ, on the other bank of the Elchaig River. After that I turned back on my tracks, heading again for Sallachy, intending to turn onto the main road, the A87, and go north from there to Braeintra and Achmore and Stromeferry before closing in on Kyle of Lochalsh itself. But I
didn’t get anything like that far because I hadn’t even got back to Killilan again when Fesse supervened. This was a tremendous surprise to me. He seemed to come out from nowhere. One moment the way was clear and the next I saw Fesse in the middle of the road with a huge pack on his back and a sub-machine-gun in his arms. The moment I saw him the gun roared off at me. Strictly speaking — not at me: at the tyres and bonnet of the car. I drove straight at Fesse while I still had way on, but he nipped smartly aside and then the car stopped, after doing a nasty bounce on its front wheel rims. Something drastic had happened in the engine. I slewed in the seat and saw Fesse coming for me, slow but careful behind the sub-machine-gun. By this time I had my own gun out — not my customary Beretta, but a Service .45 loaned me by General Daintree. I aimed through the back window at Fesse, but he was faster and before I could fire a stream of bullets smacked into my gun and the .45 zipped back at speed and smashed what was left of the windscreen.

  Fesse put on speed himself after that and I next saw him looking through the front near-side window, still behind the gun, which was weaving around in his grip. It didn’t look too safe. He said, “Out you get, then. Do not waste time, Commander.” He looked physically fit, not in the least tired, but his eyes were staring.

  I stayed where I was. “Time?” I said. “I rather thought you must have plenty of that, the way you’ve been wandering around the country. I’d have thought you’d have used a nicely prepared escape route and vanished.”

  “Out,” he said. “For your information, yes, I have an escape route. It will now be used. Get out, or I shall shoot.”