‘Do you think we’d be able to defend this place against troops then?’ Silas asked.
‘Yes,’ Gregory declared firmly; ‘the surrounding marshes form a natural barrier and all the ordinary approaches are now so skilfully protected that I am prepared to hold Shingle Street for the Shingaleese against all comers. They won’t have any artillery and nothing short of shell fire could drive us out of here.’
During all his days of labour at the entrenchments and palisades, Kenyon’s thoughts had never been far from Ann. Had he supposed her threatened by any danger, he would have set out for Orford instantly, but Rudd had reported her safe delivery into the hands of her delighted uncle with a wealth of fluent detail. He reported that the leading citizens of Orford had formed themselves into a committee to deal with any emergency and that, just as at Shingle Street, a plentiful supply of fish could be relied upon to keep the small population from any danger of actual starvation. The little town was shut away from the industrial areas and great trunk roads by miles of desolate heath and sparsely-populated farm lands, so there seemed little imminent risk of invasion by hunger marchers; feeling her to be secure, Kenyon had flung himself whole-heartedly into the work alloted to him in the early days of their arrival.
As time wore on the urge to see her again was strengthened by a desire to reassure himself about her safety, and in the second week he spoke of it to Gregory, but the General reasoned with him.
‘Hang on for a day or two,’ he begged. ‘Ann’s no fool and if there is any trouble at Orford she’s certain to seek shelter here. I simply can’t do without you, even for a day, until Shingle Street is straightened up and my plans completed.’
‘Perhaps she would like to now but is afraid to face the journey with all these toughs on the roads.’
‘Nonsense, Kenyon. They wouldn’t attack a woman; it’s food they are after, and anyhow, she knows the district like the back of her hand, she could easily come by bypaths if she wanted to.’
‘All right,’ Kenyon agreed reluctantly, his uneasiness quieted for the moment by Gregory’s reasonable hypothesis, but as the days passed he began to worry again. Orford might have its watch committee, but the town possessed no military strength, so how could they resist the growing bands of hungry desperadoes who were pressing daily nearer to the sea? Despite the hard labour on the fortifications which left his body tired each night, and should have ensured a sound healthy sleep, he could no longer quieten the wild and horrible misgivings which filled his brain. His imagination began to play havoc with his nerves and night after night he tossed and turned sleepless with anxiety until the paling of the stars.
When Gregory spoke of the possibility of organised attack, therefore, he could bear it no longer but declared his intention of visiting Orford on the following day.
The General shrugged his lean shoulders. ‘If you want a holiday by all means go; it’s Sunday tomorrow, anyway, and now we have broken the back of our job we might as well reinstitute the ancient custom of the Seventh day. The men will get stale if they’re not allowed a break now and then.’
‘Good. Then I’ll set off first thing tomorrow.’
‘As you wish, but I wouldn’t fret yourself. I was in Orford a few nights ago and the place was perfectly peaceful. You’ll find a picket at the approaches to the town, but I expect they’ll let you through when you mention Ann’s uncle. I had to dodge them, of course, myself, but that was easy at night because I have the sort of eyes which can see in the dark better than most people’s.’
Kenyon had already consulted Rudd on the best way of getting to Orford and knew it to be a longish journey. True it was no more than six miles as the crow flies but the River Butley, only a tiny stream at low tide yet with formidable mud banks on either shore, cut off direct approach from the south-west. He must strike north, cross the stream three miles inland, and turn south-eastwards along the Woodbridge Road, a good ten miles in all; but one of the villagers possessed a bicycle and proved willing to lend it to him for the day, so on Sunday, despite dull and cloudy weather, Kenyon set off immediately after breakfast with his heart high at the prospect of seeing Ann again.
He stopped for a moment at the Labour Colony to exchange a few words with Merrilees whom he met just starting out to visit Gregory. The little man was highly elated at a report that order had been restored in Ipswich and a limited ration, procured from where he could not say, was being issued to residents who had remained in the town; but his brief mention of a Workers’ Council which was apparently in control caused Kenyon to dis-count the goodness of the news. Merrilees would naturally suppose them to be an honest body, similar to his old colleagues of Trade Union days, but if Gregory was right they would prove a greater danger to the countryside than the unarmed stragglers who infested the woods and moors at the present time.
One thing was certain: no such groups could possibly be powerful enough to reorganise the country with such a terrible upheaval still in progress, and the probability was that, after a brief local reign, they would disappear or develop into bandit formations, who would levy a regular toll upon the produce of the surviving peasants in their area, just as their predecessors had in the dark ages.
With these black thoughts, Kenyon pedalled on through Capel St. Andrew, Butley and Chillesford. Here and there upon the roadside, even in these quiet lanes, he passed an abandoned motor-car or tradesman’s van, and twice saw helicopters which had been forced to land in the open fields. Once he caught sight of some fifty people slouching along the road in his direction, and thinking discretion the better part of valour hid behind a hedge until they had passed, but for the most part the people that he saw seemed frightened of him and bolted into the bracken at his approach. Those whom he passed at close quarters showed faces grown gaunt and evil by lack of food.
Just after he reached the main Orford Road he got a nasty scare. A newly-erected bungalow stood at the roadside apparently deserted, but a big Alsatian suddenly leapt the wicket gate and came for him with gaping, slobbering jaws. Evidently the poor beast, maddened by hunger had taken on the semblance of his half brother the hunting wolf and famished, perhaps for days, was now grown bold enough to attack a man.
Kenyon was knocked spinning from his bicycle and rolled into the ditch, but the dog got his forepaw caught in the spokes of the front wheel so he had a moment to whip out his jack-knife, a souvenir of the Shark, and by the time the animal was free he was standing again, ready to meet its attack.
The dog howled pitifully as the blade went home between its ribs and Kenyon felt almost worse about it than when he had had to levy toll on the defenceless farmers, but it was absolutely necessary, and as he mounted again he felt that he had had a lucky escape from being badly mauled.
‘Orford could not be far now,’ he thought, and the last few miles of the way thither, he began to be more than ever satisfied that Gregory was right about Ann’s safety. The scattered farms grew more infrequent, alternating with long stretches of beautiful but desolate heath where little woods of pine and birch, or wide Stretches of golden flowering gorse, broke the monotony of the rolling sweep of heather. A land that had known the imprint of the hand of man for centuries but one with which he had dealt kindly, never settling in his hordes to blacken it with smoke and grime. As the road narrowed Kenyon felt that in normal times one would not see a human being in a three-mile stretch, the way leading nowhere but to Orford and the sea. The last mile or so lay downhill through narrow twisting lanes and there was the little town sleeping in the sunshine as it had slept for centuries, cut off on the north by the great sweep of the Aide and on the south by the Butley from intercourse with its neighbours, its only method of communication the solitary inland road. He noted that it was even separated from the sea by a strip of water which he remembered to be the River Ore; a mile of marshland had to be crossed before the beach could be reached, and there no stretches of fair golden sand lay spread to attract the tripper, but a hard steeply-shelving foreshore where the waves broke
monotonously upon the pebbles. Ipswich might be barely a hundred miles from London and its population of eighty thousand people had enjoyed, up to a month ago, all the amenities of modern civilisation, but Orford, although only a further sixteen miles from the metropolis, was literally in the back of the beyond and the life of its inhabitants differed little in essentials from that of their predecessors two hundred years before. In the days of the Flemish weavers it had been a prosperous little port—now it was only a village. A few crooked streets with rambling houses and fishermen’s cottages clustered about the great Norman Church; yet even that relic of bygone splendour was in partial ruin, the transepts fallen away, the main aisle only kept watertight for a limited number of parishioners. No railway station linked it with modern life, the nearest being at Wickham Market, seven miles away and only a branch line. Where in all England could Ann live more securely at such a time?
At the first houses four men with staves, and brassards on their arms, stopped him but one of them knew Ann so Kenyon was allowed to pass, having learnt from them that the Reverend Timothy Croome was not the incumbent of the parish as he had supposed, but lived retired at Fenn Farm some way outside the town. The shuttered shops in the straggling square seemed no more strange than on a normal Sunday and turning to the right he took the road beneath the great eight-sided single tower of the Castle, which dominates the coast for miles around, out into the open country once more. After a little it faded almost to a track running parallel to the sea, and passing two small farms half a mile or so apart, he came to a solitary house which he knew must be his destination.
The track ended there and he propped his bicycle against the ramshackle gate, noting as he did so from the hill upon which the place was set, the broad mud flats of the Butley which cut it off so securely from the south and west. For a second he wondered if Ann would run out when she saw him, and if they would kiss, but his thoughts were chilled by the bleak appearance of the house. Its peeling paint and dilapidated exterior suggested straitened circumstances and, set in this desolate spot between the wind and sea and sky, the thought of easterly gales beating upon its jimcrack doors and windows leapt to his mind, and how cheerless the place must be when the grey mists crept up to it from the marshes in the winter.
He paused for a moment irresolute beneath the scanty foliage of a tree warped by the constant pressure of the wind. The house was silent as the grave; silent with a sinister silence that seemed to catch at Kenyon’s heart. Why were there none of the little noises that spoke of peaceful habitation? Why no questioning bark—there should at least have been a dog. The iron gate clanged behind him with a dismal sound, yet no inquiring face appeared at the windows.
‘Ann!’ he bellowed, ‘Ann!’ but no small figure appeared to greet him. The house remained cold, a cheerless example of Edwardian architecture, grimly foreboding in its continued silence.
With a set face Kenyon hurried up the path. Something was wrong, he knew it with a horrible certainty as he pressed the bell in the absurd ornate porch which gave the place the air of a suburban villa that had gone a-wandering. Jarringly the peal shrilled through the house but no answering footsteps sounded in the hall. He pressed again but no stir or movement broke the following silence, now weighing like a cloak of dread upon his troubled mind.
He left the porch, stepped back to stare up at the windows and noticed for the first time that the curtains were drawn. Perhaps the place had been abandoned, yet somehow he did not feel that it had, a second sense seemed to tell him that there were people in the house. In search of another entrance he walked swiftly round the corner and coming at once upon an open window, thrust it up, pushed back the curtains, and peered into the dim recesses of the room.
The furniture was in keeping with the house, an Edwardian mahogany dining-room suite, heavy and tasteless. The remains of a meal lay spread upon the table, but Kenyon’s thoughts were not upon the furnishings.
An elderly woman lay stretched on her face in the doorway, she was quite still—dead undoubtedly, and the dark matted patch in her grey hair showed that she had been struck down from behind. By the fireplace lay another huddled form, black clad, a clergyman—his white collar proclaimed the fact—but that was stained with blood, and the head hung back at an unnatural angle. Horrified but fascinated, Kenyon could not drag his eyes away from the white face and the red gash beneath—for the man’s throat had been slit from ear to ear.
‘Ann,’ he called again, but his voice only came in a hoarse choking whisper, and still there was no answer.
20
A Beacon in the Darkness
For a moment Kenyon leant against the window-sill, almost sick with the fear he now felt for Ann, then, with an effort he pulled himself together and scrambled inside.
He stooped for a moment over the prostrate clergyman although he had no hope that his eyes had deceived him. The man had been brutally and abominably done to death. Next he turned to the woman and found her too, stiff and cold. It seemed the work of a maniac; then Kenyon noted that, although the knives and forks on the table remained unused, there was not a scrap of food left in the dishes, and he knew that men driven desperate by acute hunger must have done the killing. Staggering slightly he stepped across the body of the woman to the door.
It opened on a narrow hallway. A hat-rack showed him the position of the front entrance and two other doors stood on either side of it. He flung open the one on the right and poked his head into an ordinary country drawing-room. Chintz-covered chairs, a mantelpiece loaded with indifferent china, and a piano decorated with photographs. Closing it softly behind him from some instinctive reverence for the dead who lay so near he tried the other. That led to a small study, and a little pile of silver coins lying on the top of a cheap light-oak roll-top desk were evidence that the murderers had not broken in for money. Food was all that mattered. For a second Kenyon ran his eye along the shelves of worn books; most of them were on ancient coinage, evidently the dead man’s hobby, and that seemed in some way to bring the tragedy nearer. Softly he closed the door.
A green baize curtain beyond the stairs caught Kenyon’s eye and with the sudden thought that the murderers might still be in the house he drew his revolver and tiptoed towards it. Beyond lay the kitchen, orderly and tidy as the old woman must have left it, but the larder had been ransacked. A broken dish and fishbones scattered on the tiles showed the haste which the ravenous pack had made to satiate their hunger.
He crept back into the hall and peered into the shadows of the stairway. It was possible that they were sleeping off thir debauch upstairs. Gingerly, and testing each stair before he trod upon it, he made his way up to the first floor landing. In the dim light three doors were visible and with sudden decision he stepped briskly towards the one which opened into the room above the study.
As he opened it a new tension gripped his strained senses. It was Ann’s, he knew by the very scent of it before he had the door open a foot. The bright simplicity of the furnishings, so different from the rooms below, confirmed his thought a second later and then he looked towards the bed.
Ann lay there, a small dishevelled figure, huddled upon the outer coverlet, her head buried in the pillow. For a second he felt a restriction in his chest as though his heart had ceased to beat. Was she still alive? Perspiration broke out in little pearls of cold dew on his forehead as he stood crouched in the doorway. He wanted to run to her but his legs seemd paralysed and he could not move a foot. Veronica’s prophecy came back to him, and with leaden fear that it might have been fulfilled he whispered again:
‘Ann, darling, Ann!’
She did not move, but lay there horribly—unnaturally quiet. Then breaking through the invisible bonds that held him rooted he stepped across the narrow room and put his hand on her shoulder. Still she did not stir but beneath the thin cotton frock he felt her flesh warm to his touch.
‘Ann,’ he spoke louder now, shaking her slightly, and at last she rolled over on her back.
‘
Kenyon!’ The big eyes opened.
He covered his own for a second; wiping away the beads of sweat, and sank to his knees beside the bed.
She sat up suddenly, staring with wide distended eyes round the familiar room, then with a little gasp she flung her arms round his neck.
‘There,’ he soothed her, ‘there, don’t worry, sweet. No one shall hurt you now. I swear they shan’t. Thank God you’re safe!’
For some strange timeless interval they clung to each other, speechless instinctive creatures seeking escape from the horror of a world that had gone insane. Cheek pressed to cheek, their only realisation was that they were together again, although about them mountains slipped into the sea. Her body shook with frightening, tearless tremors, but in his relief at finding her alive, it was his eyes which filled with tears.
‘Kenyon?’
‘Ann dearest.’
‘Have I gone mad or is it really you?’
He pressed the little body in an even stronger grip, seeking to assure her by sheer physical force of his actual nearness.
‘Yes, really, Ann darling, and we’re both alive and well.’
She laughed then, but her laughter had a jarring note bordering upon the unnatural. For a moment he feared that her brain had given way.
‘No nonsense,’ he said sharply. ‘You must try and pull yourself together, and tell me what’s been happening here.’
She stopped then, as suddenly as she had begun, and drawing away put her hands upon his shoulders. As she stared at him her eyes were strangely bright and the pupils horrifyingly enlarged.
Black August Page 27
