Black August

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘All right—all right,’ the offender protested. ‘I ain’t a-goen’ to do no harm.’

  Four more men joined the group and Kenyon felt that it would be a risky business to start a fight now that they were surrounded. He might shoot a couple but how could he protect Ann in the mêlée—better be tactful and after having been searched for food they would probably be allowed to proceed. ‘As you like,’ he agreed with a shrug, ‘but it’s late and I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘Foller me,’ the man who had first challenged them turned on his heel and led them through a small coppice and out on to the open heath while the last four arrivals followed.

  ‘Cattermole,’ called the leader as he halted on the lip of a shallow dell, ‘do you want to have a look at two folk a-goen’ to Hollesley?’

  And Kenyon, peering over his shoulder, saw that two hundred or more men and women were seated in the hollow, their faces shadowed or illuminated alternately by the flickering flames of a small bonfire. From what little he could see he judged them to be agriculturists, farm labourers and the like, accompanied by their women. Then a tall man in gaiters and a yellow waistcoat came up the slope towards them.

  After a sharp glance he nodded to his lieutenant. ‘Bring them down to the fire, Rush, we’ll see ’em better there,’ and, the men behind closing in, they were hustled forward into the dip.

  The ragged people crouching round the blaze regarded them with scant interest, most of them were busy on a meal of roots and vegetables which they were eating with their fingers from still-steaming pots.

  Kenyon was questioned by Cattermole who seemed to distrust his well-fed appearance, but was obviously only out to secure further supplies of food, and after Ann’s suitcase had been searched it looked as if they would be allowed to go on their way again, until Rush suggested to his leader: ‘Better keep ’em with we till by and by, hadn’t us? Or they might let on to what’s up—’

  Even then it is probable that no harm would have befallen them if a stout red-faced man had not glanced at Kenyon curiously as he stumbled past them to the fire.

  He stopped dead in his tracks and thrust his face nearer, then suddenly he cried: ‘Blow me if this ’ere chap ain’t one o’ they hisself!’

  ‘What’s that!’ snapped Cattermole and in a second a score of figures had crowded round them.

  ‘’E’s one of they,’ declared the farmer angrily, ‘him an’ his khaki boys took a dozen hins an’ a pig off me three weeks ago—I’ll swear to he and no mistake.’

  A growling murmur ran through the hollow-eyed throng as they pressed nearer, and when a rasping voice cried: ‘Hang ‘un then,’ the cry was repeated from a dozen throats: ‘Yes, hang ‘un—hang ‘un!’

  Too late Kenyon realised his crass stupidity in not having forced a passage in the road. Gregory would have done so, even at the price of killing half a dozen of these poor devils but, like a fool, he’d stopped to parley and now it looked as if his reluctance to shoot down unarmed men was likely to cost him his life.

  Even now it was Ann who urged him into action as she clutched his arm and whispered fiercely: ‘Shoot, Kenyon! Shoot! It’s your only chance!’

  ‘Run for it then—I’ll follow if I can.’ He thrust her from him and pressed the trigger of his gun.

  Rush had caught her words and flung himself on her as she spoke, but with a sudden wrench she twisted from his grip and, ducking under the arm of another man, fled up the slope.

  The man in front of Kenyon gave a gasp and, clasping his hands to his stomach, sank to his knees. The revolver cracked again and another livid spurt of flame lit the darkness. The red-faced farmer let out a howl of pain and, tumbling into the heather, clutched at a shattered knee cap, but the others were upon Kenyon before he could fire again.

  A heavy cudgel caught him on the shoulder, a piece of wood with a nail driven through the end descended on his upper arm, and as he stepped back, bashing sideways at a nearby face with the butt of his pistol, another cudgel came down upon his head.

  His weapon was wrested from him and with the blood streaming into his eyes he fell half fainting to the ground. Someone kicked him savagely in the ribs, and a second blow on the head as he lay gasping in the heather made him see a horrid succession of bright stars and circles until blackness supervened and he lost consciousness.

  Only the efforts of the gaitered Cattermole saved him from being kicked to death there and then, but he stood over Kenyon’s prostrate body and drove off his followers with an angry snarl.

  ‘Stop it, you fools,’ he shouted, ‘he’ll be more use to us alive than dead—and you can always hang him later.’

  With surly looks they reluctantly gave up the lynching, and instead tied Kenyon’s hands and feet, then left him.

  By that time he was beginning to come round. Vague thoughts of Ann in Gloucester Road and the Mid-Suffolk Election came to him, but as he struggled feebly to sit up the full realisation of his wretched position flooded his mind.

  He lay very still then, reasoning that no crowd, however maddened by fear and hunger, ever hanged an unconscious man. To be a really sporting event the victim should be dragged screaming to the gallows, or at least be sufficiently conscious to kick lustily as he is hauled off the ground, and Kenyon meant to postpone his threatened execution to the last possible minute.

  Inch by inch, with the most desperate care not to attract attention, he shifted his position slightly so that he could see what was going on, and found that he was lying a little outside the circle of light upon the rim of the small natural amphitheatre. He searched the crowd swiftly for signs of Ann, but she was nowhere to be seen and he gave a sigh of relief at the thought that she must have got away, only a moment later realising with a new wave of distress that she, like himself, might quite possibly be trussed and lying hidden in the heather.

  Cattermole stood near the blaze, his arms akimbo and his hat perched well upon the back of his semi-bald head. He was addressing the gathering in short sharp sentences, and as Kenyon listened, he caught both the trend of the speech and the reason for the crowd’s violent hostility to himself. The last rousing sentences came clearly on the night air.

  ‘Didn’t they?’ he cried with a challenging note. ‘And what right have they to do that? None say I! Not under law or reason, soldiers as they may be. Property is property and if a man’s no right to keep the things what he’s bred—what rights has he got I’d like to know? It’s every man for himself these days, not to mention the wife and kids he’s got to fend for. So, if you’re game to back me up I’ll lead the crowd of you down to Shingle Street and we’ll teach these thieving soldiers a thing or two. There’s not many of them but there’s a lot of us, and if we stick together we’ll be having a square meal that we’ve a right to before the morning.’

  Loud shouts of approbation greeted the conclusion of Cattermole’s impassioned oratory, and Kenyon let his aching head sink back in the heather while a host of new thoughts struggled with the pain for supremacy in his mind.

  These were wretched people whose homes they had robbed and looted, now banded together and planning a bloody revenge. He must warn Gregory! But how could he? His own skin needed saving first and of that there seemed little enough hope. The cords which bound him were cutting into his flesh already and he knew from his first efforts to free himself when still half conscious that his bonds had been tied with savage tightness. His friends at Shingle Street would be surprised and massacred—but no, it was far more likely that Gregory’s sentries would rouse the garrison, and this unwieldy crowd, surging forward in the darkness, be mown down by the blast of the machine-guns, or caught as they fled in the treacherous pits and nets.

  Both alternatives were horrible to visualise but Kenyon had little time for further speculation. A burst of cheering came from the dell and two men running up the bank seized him and pulled him to his feet.

  He kept his eyes fast shut and tried to make himself a dead weight, but someone flung a pannikin of water in his face
and his eyes flickered open at the shock. It was useless to pretend any longer that he was still knocked out.

  His feet were untied and with his arms still bound behind him he was pushed roughly into the centre of the crowd.

  ‘We’re going to Shingle Street,’ said Cattermole briefly—‘they’ve got arms there—haven’t they?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Kenyon, ‘plenty. So unless you all want to get killed, you’d better keep away.’

  ‘That’s my business—how about sentries?’

  ‘Yes, they’ve got sentries too. You’ll never take them by surprise. For God’s sake be warned in time.’

  ‘You can keep your warnings. What’s the password?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  ‘Naturally you’d say that, you thieving, murdering swine, but I’ll unloose your tongue. Bring me a flaming stick, Rush.’

  Rush pulled a long branch from the blazing pile and Cattermole took it from him: ‘Now, are you going to talk?’

  ‘I can’t,’ protested Kenyon, ‘there is no password. You’ll be met by the ordinary challenge—that’s all.’

  ‘Hold him, chaps.’ As Kenyon’s arms were seized from behind. Cattermole thrust the lighted end of the stick against his chest. He flung back his head in quick recoil, choking as the stench of burning clothing filled his nostrils.

  ‘I can’t,’ he gasped again, struggling violently with his captors as the sharp pain seared his chest. ‘If I said “stale fish” you might believe me, but there is no password.’

  Cattermole removed the brand and nodded with slow understanding. ‘All right,’ he muttered, ‘I reckon that’s the truth, but what’s the most likely spot to get through the sentries, eh?’ He advanced the red-hot piece of wood again threateningly.

  Kenyon, the water starting from his eyes, sought wildly for some sympathetic face among the crowd, but their famished features showed only grim approval of their leader’s tactics and a hard, gloating amusement.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ he protested, ‘if I tell you, what guarantee have you got that I’m not lying; and they’ll shoot you down whichever way you try to rush them.’

  ‘Well, you’ll be the first to get it in the neck if that’s the truth so you’d best take us the safest way,’ Cattermole laughed with a bitter, scornful savagery. ‘Why else d’you think I saved you from being lynched on the hill there? Come on, chaps, who wants red meat for supper!’

  It was useless to argue further. Maddened by hunger the mob were prepared to take any risk and were as clay in the hands of their determined leader. With an answering shout they followed Cattermole from the dell as he pushed Kenyon before him, jabbing him in the back with his own pistol.

  Muttering and cursing as they stumbled in the darkness the whole party streamed across the heath and out on to the road, then in a straggling body they set off towards Shingle Street.

  As he trudged along, the unwilling head of the procession, Kenyon racked his brains for a way out of his dilemma. There were by-paths through the marshes by which he could lead these maniacs so that they would get very near the defences before the challenge came, but that would be a sheer betrayal of his friends, yet there was no prospect of escape if he did otherwise and his whole soul revolted against the thought of a sudden and violent death.

  In twenty minutes the short journey was accomplished; he stood again with the salt breath of the sea filling his lungs and heard the murmur of the surf upon the beaches. Only a few hundred yards in front lay Gregory’s outposts.

  ‘Which way now?’ came a sharp whisper. ‘And remember you’ll get all that’s left in this the moment your people open fire—that is if you can’t stop ‘em. Now march!’ Cattermole thrust the revolver into the middle of his back again.

  ‘To the left,’ he gulped, ‘it will be easier there,’ and he felt the hair prickling on his scalp as he led them deliberately in the direction of Silas’s Redoubt, the strong point in Gregory’s whole system of defences.

  A sickening fear filled him that when the time came his courage would ebb away. Wedged in front of the party he would stand no earthly chance of surviving the murderous hail of bullets which would sweep across the open fields, and if by some miracle he did, Cattermole would shoot him from behind.

  As they advanced across the seemingly endless field a light wind rustled the tall grasses. No sign of life came from the fortifications, invisible in the pitch blackness relieved neither by moon nor stars, and for a moment it flashed into Kenyon’s mind that perhaps after all the garrison would be taken by surprise. It would mean life to him, but what of the others, and Ann might be among them now for there could be no doubt that she had got clean away. At every second he expected to stumble into one of the stake-filled pits—the sentries must be sleeping. Then a tiny bell tinkled in the distance, someone had stumbled over one of Gregory’s alarm wires and instantly the challenge rang out:

  ‘Halt! who goes there!’

  ‘Friend,’ rasped Kenyon.

  ‘Halt, friend, and give the countersign!’

  Even in the second of horror and dismay, his gorge rising in a sickening fear, Kenyon found himself admiring Gregory for the faultless training of his little band. There was no trace of hesitation in the swift reply.

  With a superhuman effort he braced himself. Then with all the force of his lungs he yelled: ‘I am Lord Fane but captured by the enemy—Guard, turn out!’

  A single rifle cracked, then with a savage will to live he kicked out violently behind and flung himself flat, dragging the two men who held his pinioned arms down with him.

  His heel met solid flesh—there was a grunt and then a deafening report as the pistol went off behind his ear. Next second the whole emplacement had leapt into flame. Silas was in action.

  Kenyon kneed one of his captors in the belly and kicked the other in the face, stood up, staggered, fell again while the bullets sang and whistled overhead. Screams, curses, blasphemies came from the miserable people caught in that open field of fire so skilfully planned by a brilliant tactician. He jerked himself to his knees only to flop head foremost into a muddy ditch. He wriggled out and lurched up the steep bank, catching his feet in one of treacherous, low-lying nets and sprawled his full length, howling with pain as an upturned nail penetrated his thigh. Groaning, he wriggled free of it, scrambled up once more and blundered on, uncertain of his position yet instinctively trying to avoid those horrid, stake-filled pits. A bullet, searing like a red-hot iron, ploughed through his shoulder. Another streaked through his hair, then suddenly a voice came sharp and clear only a few yards ahead: ‘Cease fire’ and on a lower note but quite distinct: ‘They must have had enough by now. It may teach them to stick to their blasted ship.’

  Sobbing like a child, Kenyon swayed towards the dark figure. It was Gregory, calmly directing fire from the parapet. As he fell against the earthworks Rudd, catching a glimpse of him, leaned forward with levelled pistol, then, thinking better of it, seized him by the collar and dragged him in.

  ‘Made a prisoner, eh?’ Gregory’s voice was cold. ‘Best shoot him and have done—we’ve no room for useless mouths in Shingle Street.’

  But Rudd had felt the cords that secured Kenyon’s arms and pulled him over on his back. He stopped for a second to peer into his begrimed and bloody face, then he stood up.

  ‘Lumme, if it ain’t our bloomin’ Lord.’

  ‘What!’ snapped Gregory.

  ‘It is, sir, Mr. Fane ‘imself, or I’m a Dutchman.’

  Then Gregory was kneeling beside him in the trench, his arms were free again, and Rudd was holding a flask of spirits to his lips.

  ‘Well done, Fane! Well done!’ Gregory repeated over and over again with an unaccustomed tenderness in his voice. ‘Thank God you got away. I suppose those blasted sailors caught you on your return trip?’

  ‘Sailors,’ gasped Kenyon, spluttering as the fiery spirit burnt in his throat, ‘what sailors?’

  ‘Why those damned mutineers of course. The Shark anchored o
ff here this afternoon and sent a landing party. They want to collar our supplies.’

  ‘These aren’t sailors,’ Kenyon stammered. ‘You’ve been massacring those poor devils of farmers that we robbed.’

  ‘Easy now,’ Gregory threw an arm about his shoulders. ‘It’s their own damn fault if they’re fools enough to attack us here. The only people I’m scared of are the mutineers—you see they’ve got guns.’

  At that moment there was a dull boom to seaward, a flash, and almost instantly a livid explosion on the beach a few yards short of the Martello Tower.

  22

  ‘The Strongest Shall Go Down into the Pit’

  ‘It’s this little upsydisy wot we bin havin’s woke ’em up, sir,’ Rudd declared.

  That’s about it.’ Gregory stared through his night glasses out over the darkened waste to seaward; ‘seeing us attacked they thought it a good time to join in.’

  The clouds which had obscured the sky were travelling fast, and through a partial break some stars now lessened the blackness with a faint uncertain light.

  The destroyer was just visible, a jagged outline low in the water, less than a mile from the shore. A flash came from her bow, another dull boom followed and almost instantly the crack of the shell as it landed in the marsh beyond the tower.

  ‘They’re bracketin’ on the Albert ‘All,’ said Rudd.’

  ‘They shouldn’t need to,’ Gregory grunted, ‘but even if they’re amateurs they’re devilish dangerous with that gun. We must evacuate the tower at once—give Lord Fane a hand—come on!’

  With Rudd’s aid Kenyon limped down the trench; his shoulder had gone numb but his thigh was hurting badly where the nail had caught it, his chest was smarting, although he had been little more than singed, and his head seemed to open and shut with every step he took.

  Gregory paused for a moment further along, where Silas was leaning against a traverse, hands in pockets, near a Lewis gun.

  ‘Keep a look out this side,’ he warned him, ‘but it wasn’t a landing party—only some farmers, and I should think they’ve had their belly full.’