Black August

by Dennis Wheatley

  ‘If that’s so I’d best go out and see if Fane’s among the wounded.’

  ‘That’s nice of you, Silas,’ Kenyon stumbled forward, ‘but by a miracle I got through.’

  ‘My hat! Then there’s a God in heaven yet.’ The big man’s voice came warm and cheerful as he gripped Kenyon by the arm.

  ‘Don’t,’ moaned Kenyon. ‘For God’s sake—I’m hit.’

  ‘Sorry—brace up, old chap—but tell me, did you see the kid, or did they pinch you before you got to Orford?’

  ‘What, Ann! Yes and I was bringing her back with me, but we were separated—I—I’d hoped that she was here.’

  Gregory shook his head. ‘No—I’d know of it if she’d turned up on her own.’

  ‘Then she’s lost somewhere out on these cursed moors,’ Kenyon passed his hand across his throbbing forehead wearily. ‘Oh, God! I’m sick with worry for her.’

  ‘Take a pull,’ Silas tried to comfort him. ‘She’s full of pluck so she’ll make Shingle Street some time before the morning.’

  A third explosion sounded from the beach and Gregory turned away quickly. ‘Come on, Rudd, that Martello was never built to resist modern shells—once they get the range they’ll pound the place to pieces.’

  He climbed out of the trench and with Rudd’s aid Kenyon followed. Three minutes later they were in front of the Anchor.

  ‘Is Veronica in?’ Kenyon asked Gregory.

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Then I’ll get her to patch me up—I feel about all in.’

  ‘That’s right, I expect you need a meal as well. Get Andrews to cook you something and open up one of his remaining bottles. If you feel fit enough you may be able to give us a hand later.’ With a quick smile Gregory hurried on into the darkness.

  Andrews stood in the porch of the inn watching the bombardment. ‘Why, sir, we’d given you up for lost,’ he exclaimed as he saw Kenyon.

  ‘Had you—well, I’m back again, thank God. Where’s my sister?’

  ‘You’ll find her in the sitting-room. I tried to persuade her to come out here and see the fireworks—but she wouldn’t. Still, I mustn’t stay here talking when you’ve had no supper. I’ll get the girls to cook you something.’ With a friendly grin on his chubby face the little man went off towards the kitchen while Kenyon pushed open the sitting-room door.

  Veronica lay back in a low arm-chair, her feet cocked up on the fire guard, showing a long length of leg, browned by three weeks’ exposure, to excellent advantage. She was reading and did not turn her head but gave a little gurgle of laughter.

  ‘Andrews, isn’t Dickens too divine—do you think people ever really made love like that?’

  ‘I don’t know—or care.’ Kenyon closed his eyes and dropped on to the sofa.

  ‘Darling!’ At the sound of his voice she cast the battered volume on the floor and jumped to her feet. ‘Oh, Kenyon, we’ve been worried stiff about you. I couldn’t even watch the fighting for fear you were mixed up in it somewhere outside the camp—so I’ve been trying to sink myself in David Copperfield.’

  ‘I was,’ he murmured. ‘They damn near killed me too.’ Instantly Veronica was beside him, her long fingers tenderly investigating the cuts upon his head, and the wound which still ebbed blood in his shoulder. ‘My poor lamb, what have they done to you—I’ll get some water to bathe that horrid place.’

  As she left him Kenyon sank back on the pillow, his bodily distress momentarily submerged, now that he had time to think coherently again, in fear for Ann. She must have escaped when he was captured but what had happened to her since? Perhaps she was lost and crouching in some ditch, desperately frightened by those ghoul-like creatures who prowled the lanes, or worse, she might already have fallen prisoner to some gang of roughs. He knew that men had become crazed by their misfortunes; morals and all sense of decency had been flung aside, so it was hideously possible that these men turned brutes might seize upon any diversion which offered even temporary forgetfulness of their hunger. His tortured brain began to visualise the drama that might be proceeding in some lonely wood if half a dozen of them came upon a lovely girl alone and unprotected—fine sport for the night, to satiate at least one appetite.

  His terrible forebodings were cut short by Veronica’s return. She bathed his wounds and sought to comfort him, as he told her of events at Orford, the return journey, and his fears for Ann.

  No bones seemed to be broken in his shoulder, and by the time she had bandaged the gash and plastered up his head, his supper was on the table. His anxiety had driven away all appetite but she forced him to eat it, telling him meanwhile about the arrival of the destroyer.

  ‘Crowder’s not with them,’ she declared, ‘he and a dozen others took the second boat and made for Harwich. For a time it seems they’ve been playing pirate up and down the coast, raiding the smaller places for supplies, and now they want to take possession here.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Kenyon asked dully.

  ‘Gregory got it out of them this afternoon at a sort of powwow. They sent a boat ashore.’

  ‘I wonder that they thought it worth while risking their skins.’

  ‘Worth it, my love?’ She took him up quickly. ‘Twelve hundred chickens in the poultry farm, and a hundred head of cattle in the corral; Gregory adopted no half-measures when he turned cattle-thief.’

  ‘Yes—I suppose so, but what happened at the parley?’

  ‘They said at once that they meant to land a party and seize all our stock.’

  Kenyon nodded. ‘I suppose Gregory threatened to turn a machine-gun on them if they didn’t sheer off at once.’

  ‘Got it in one, my sweet, but luckily for them they were halfway back to the ship before Silas arrived with the arsenal.’

  ‘I wonder they didn’t attack the place right away.’

  ‘No, they flagged a message saying that they would give Gregory until nine o’clock tomorrow to capitulate, and that if he wouldn’t they’d blow the lot of us to hell, but he was afraid they might start in on us tonight.’

  ‘I see, that’s why you were all up and dressed when I came on the scene then!’

  Every few moments a deafening explosion punctuated the conversation with clock-like regularity, and Kenyon, his nerves keyed up but feeling a different man after his meal and Veronica’s attentions, decided to go out and see how the sailors’ marksmanship was progressing.

  On the doorstep of the inn with Andrews and Veronica beside him he watched the bombardment. As they opened the door a shell pitched at the foot of the tower and even from that distance they could hear the whine and rattle of the pebbles, as they sang through the air and bounded along the beach. The next shell fell slap on the roof of the old fortress, bursting with terrific impact and hurling lumps of stone in all directions.

  ‘Put out that ruddy light,’ cried a voice they recognised as Rudd’s from further along the foreshore, and a few moments later he loomed up out of the darkness beside his master.

  It looks like a hectic night at the Albert Hall’ Veronica used Rudd’s nickname for the Martello which they had all adopted.

  ‘Yes,’ Gregory agreed grimly. ‘If they keep this up for half an hour the place won’t be even fit shelter for the chickens in the morning. I got all our stores but we’ve lost poor Thompson.’

  ‘Is—is he dead?’ Veronica hesitated.

  ‘Yes—a fragment of the third shell caught him.’

  ‘What filthy luck—such a decent fellow too, but couldn’t we do something?’ Kenyon stepped forward from the doorway. ‘I’m pretty groggy still, but I’m game to have a cut at them.’

  ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do against shell-fire, that’s just the devil of it.’

  ‘Couldn’t we man a boat with a volunteer crew and a couple of Lewis guns? Under cover of the darkness we might get near enough to wipe out the men who are serving that gun.’

  ‘Stark lunacy, my dear chap. They’d sink us before we got a hundred yards.’


  Shell after shell burst upon the ancient tower with reverberating thuds which seemed to shake the very ground beneath them. The starlight showed a great crack which had appeared in one side of the fort, and large lumps of stone slipped and tumbled to the ground after each explosion. The strong point in their defence, which Gregory had counted impregnable, was being pounded to a heap of ruins.

  Suddenly the firing ceased. They waited in the doorway with strained, breathless anxiety—two minutes, three—four—five—then a long finger of bright light flashed up to the clouds, circled slowly and, descending, was brought to bear upon the village. Hovering for a second here and there, the searchlight picked out every detail of the foreshore and, as it moved on, the little group at the entrance of the inn were momentarily blinded by its powerful glare.

  ‘Hell!’ exclaimed Gregory pushing the others into the hallway. ‘With that damn thing they’ll be able to pick us off like rabbits—this is even worse than I bargained for.’

  The beam swept slowly back and forth, strong depths of shadow playing about its edges but revealing ail within its circle with the vivid brightness of full day; then, as it passed on, its late discoveries sank again into the unnatural blackness of an even deeper night.

  There was a sharp whine, a rending crash, and then the rumble of falling masonry.

  ‘Next door but one,’ cried Kenyon.

  ‘Come on—out you go,’ Gregory pushed Veronica before him and they stumbled through the back entrance of the inn. Shouts and cries came from the neighbourhood of the demolished house and from further off the sound of people running. Andrews’s maids were already on the lawn, one of them was screaming in a fit of hysterics.

  ‘Stop it—d’you hear?’ Gregory seized and shook her roughly.

  ‘Can’t we—can’t we help them,’ hazarded Veronica.

  ‘No, if they’re not dead they soon will be. Come on, all of you.’ Still gripping the girl by the arm he hurried them round the corner of the stockade, but Andrews stopped and turned.

  ‘What is it?’ muttered Kenyon.

  ‘My money. I’m not going to leave my cash for others.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ snapped Gregory. ‘What earthly good is it to you?’

  ‘You never know.’ At a quick trot the little man started back towards the Anchor.

  ‘Hurry then,’ Gregory called after him. ‘There’ll be another in a minute,’ but his warning came too late. There was a blinding flash, the small hotel seemed to stagger for a second and then, as though some giant invisible hand had crushed it flat, it disappeared into a shapeless heap of debris, leaving a black empty gap between its neighbours.

  Andrews had been halfway across the garden. They saw him stagger for a few steps like a drunken man and then slip down into a pathetic little heap.

  Kenyon dashed back to him and raised his head, but a lump of flying brick had caught him on the forehead and killed him instantly.

  ‘Oh, Gregory, I’m hating this.’ Veronica’s grip tightened on his arm.

  ‘Of course you are.’ His voice thrilled her by its tenderness. ‘But you’ll stick it, won’t you? I’ve got to run this beastly show and it will be hell for me if you break down.’

  She nodded quickly. ‘I’ll be all right—don’t worry about me, sweet—just do your job.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He smiled in the darkness as they stumbled on. ‘This last month may have been hell for some people but I’ve enjoyed it more than any time in my life. We’ve had a lot of fun, Veronica.’

  ‘Yes, darling, we’ve had a lot of fun.’

  Kenyon, his wounds throbbing afresh from the exertion, caught them up. ‘Are you going to evacuate the village?’ he panted.

  ‘Not except as a last measure. I must protect the Shingleites as well as I can, and how could I do that once they’re outside the fortifications—think of all these women and kids straggling about in the darkness.’

  Yes, the farmers would set on us again for certain; there were a good two hundred of them, and that one burst of machine-gun fire couldn’t have laid out more than twenty or thirty.’

  Gregory led them swiftly towards the Redoubt, where Rudd, who had run on ahead, was already assembling the villagers. Silas came out to meet them. ‘All quiet, General,’ he reported laconically.

  Kenyon gave a brief, strained laugh.

  This end I mean,’ the American amended. They seem to be making the village a pretty lively little hell.’ As he spoke another shell came over crumpling up two fishermen’s cottages.

  ‘Yes. The inn’s gone,’ Gregory informed him.

  ‘Any casualties?’

  ‘Sergeant Thompson and poor old Andrews, and half a dozen more I expect by now.’

  That’s bad—I wouldn’t give a dime for our chances here either if they turn their little pop-gun on us.’

  ‘Nor I,’ Gregory agreed. A direct hit would go plump through the roof of any of these dugouts. I wish to God we’d had proper engineers’ materials to make them with; still they are better than nothing.’

  Silas made Veronica comfortable in what he called his ‘parlour’ while the other women and children were packed into the larger dugouts, and the fishermen, scattered through the trenches, miserably watched the destruction of their homes.

  The single line of houses was now burning fiercely at one end, shell after shell crashed into the remaining buildings, and still the malevolent eye of the searchlight picked out fresh targets for the merciless gun.

  ‘Wonder why they keep it up like this,’ Silas muttered. ‘They know we can’t reply to them—it seems stupidly vindictive to create such senseless havoc’

  ‘Drunk, I expect,’ Gregory replied tersely. ‘Once some madman started in on us when the farmers attacked, the rest began to glory in the fun. That gun’s like a new toy to them now they are able to blaze off as much stuff as they like at real targets.’

  ‘Well, there won’t be much left of the place when they come ashore to drive the cattle off in the morning.’

  ‘Unless they come tonight. They can’t have seen much red meat themselves in the last fortnight, so they may if someone thinks of chops for supper.’

  ‘What’ll you do if they turn that darn gun on to us here?’

  ‘Evacuate—only thing to do—but I dread it with all these civilians to look after.’ Gregory flung a glance over his shoulder. ‘Where’s Fane? Oh, there you are. Look here, the three of us had better arrange the order of our going if we are forced to quit.’

  While the three of them went into conference, Veronica, her nerves strung to the highest pitch, sat fiddling with the papers on the table in Silas’ dugout. Suddenly the drawing of a woman caught her eye. She moved the candle nearer and saw at once that it was a portrait of herself—a beautiful thing, showing her lying on the beach, her hands spread out behind her, her legs stretched to their fullest extent and crossed. The toe of one of her shoes was turned up and in the drawing she was smiling at it pensively. A characteristic attitude of hers, but how clever of Silas, she thought, to have caught it. She rummaged among the papers and found others, nearly two dozen of them and all of her in different positions. She realised then with a little catch in her throat that every waking moment he had spent there must have been devoted to making these charming studies of herself.

  Gregory was just a lovely madness of course; the old tag came into her mind ‘Man cannot live by caviare alone,’ and Gregory was caviare. Quite marvellous if you liked that sort of thing, and Veronica did: ‘We are a couple of rips, my dear,’ she had told him once, ‘and we wouldn’t be otherwise for a million pounds,’ she remembered how he had chuckled mightily—but Silas—

  ‘Like ‘em?’ said a voice behind her and she looked up to see him in the doorway.

  ‘I’m a brute to look but I think they are divine.’

  He adjusted the blanket carefully over the entrance and took the drawings from her. ‘Just a little hobby of mine,’ he said quietly. ‘I felt they’d be good to have if we got separate
d.’

  ‘You’re a dear, Silas—how’s the war?’

  ‘Not so bad considering it’s one-sided, but the General’s scared they’ll turn that gun on this place.’ He carefully folded the drawings and tucked them in his tunic.

  The dugout seemed to rock as a new concussion demolished the last house their end of the village. ‘It’ll be sheer murder here if Gregory’s right,’ he added.

  ‘I see,’ her fingers drummed nervously upon the table. ‘It looks as if we’re for it then?’

  ‘Not quite, I’ve got a proposition I want to put up to you.’ His eyes held hers, kind and firm.

  ‘Well—let’s hear it then.’

  ‘It’s this way. One woman’s easier protected alone by a man who’s useful with a gun, than she is with a whole crowd; so if we get out together now there’s a chance for us. If we run into the farmers we’ll be for it mind, but I mean to strike south along the coast, out of this area that Gregory’s made so hellish hostile. Even then we’ll be up against everyone who hasn’t had a meal in days, but as long as they’re only in batches I’ll bluff them or shoot my way through. It’s a better prospect to my mind than staying here, so if you’ll trust me I want to take you out of here right away.’

  For a second Veronica was silent, then she shook her head. ‘I’d trust you, Silas—anywhere, but we mustn’t let Gregory down. I know it is unofficial and you’ve a perfect right to clear out if you like, but you are one of his officers in a way.’

  He smiled quickly. ‘Don’t fret your sweet heart, Gregory and I fixed that between us.’

  ‘What—he agreed?’ Veronica’s delicate eyebrows went up in astonishment.

  ‘Yes, what else would you expect—you ought to know Gregory if anyone does.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘You can’t kid me, Veronica; I don’t go about in blinkers, and I know pretty well how things stand between you and him.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said slowly, ‘I’m glad you do, and he’s just the sort of adorable blackguard who can be trusted to do the proper thing. He would pack me off with you if he thought it would save me, even though he knows that you are in love with me.’