The Secret Vanguard

by Michael Innes

  ‘And there’s always the chance,’ said Dick, ‘that they’re phony themselves. Or I gather that’s the idea: here and there the enemy is keeping a wolf or two in sheep’s clothing.’

  Hetherton’s bonnet shook as he nodded agreement. ‘Quite so. But how confusing it is!’ He glanced at Sheila, who felt that he was really far from confused. ‘Little did I ever think to take part in such an orgy of transvestism. And, like Flute, I have a beard coming.’ He stroked his chin. ‘But that may be all to the good.’

  And suddenly Sheila saw. ‘Mr Appleby,’ she said, ‘are we going–’

  He laid a hand on her arm. ‘Get behind us. The gate is only about twenty yards along this wall. Evans, lengthen your stride. Hetherton, get out your pipe… Now!’

  They swung forward; a high stone wall with a gate was before them – and by the gate a tall man standing with one hand in a pocket. As they hurried towards him the man straightened up and waved them away. ‘Nothing the matter!’ he shouted. ‘A drunk man driving a car. Mr Mannering asks you not to enter this garden.’

  Appleby walked on, ignoring him. The others followed. The man shouted again, angrily this time, and his hand went down as if to lock the gate. Then he took another look at them and suddenly grinned; he spoke again, and this time not in English. Out of the corner of her eye Sheila saw Hetherton’s bonnet grotesquely bobbing over his pipe; beside her Dick’s strides were those of a giant. They were up with the man and round him. He was lying stunned on the ground.

  ‘To the far corner – run!’ Appleby spoke and darted forward; gathering up their skirts they went pelting after him. Sheila tripped, recovered herself, and ran forward. A flight of steps was before her and then a long blind wall: they rounded this and she saw familiar ground. It was the balustraded terrace and below them was the loch.

  ‘There’s a good chance,’ said Appleby, ‘that almost the whole team is working on the cars. It’s a big place to hunt for their prisoner. But it must be done.’

  ‘The study.’ Sheila spoke urgently. ‘Mannering’s study: that’s where they were going to trap me. Try that. The third or fourth window from the end.’

  They dashed along the terrace and nobody appeared to stop them. Appleby, revolver in one hand, tried the fourth French window with the other. It was curtained and fastened. ‘That’s it,’ said Sheila – and as she spoke he ran back the breadth of the terrace, buried his head in his arms, and charged. The effect was not unlike that of Mackintosh’s dash in the Rolls Royce. There was a crash and a gaping hole. Appleby had disappeared. And then – for it was all like a film fantastically accelerated – he was out again almost before they had time to think of scrambling in after him. Sheila remembered a picture in her nursery: a fireman emerging through flames with a child in his arms. But this was not a child; it was the inert body of a grown man.

  ‘Run!’ It was Appleby’s familiar command. And they ran.

  Sheila saw that Dick had the revolver now; she saw the steps again; the garden; they were almost clear. Then a space of confused impressions that were familiar too: shouting, perhaps shots. And, finally, calm: they were all tumbled in a little hollow of turf and screened from the castle by a shrubbery.

  ‘Look.’ Appleby had laid down his burden and twisted round. They turned. About two hundred yards up the road stood two dull green motor lorries, empty. These rapidly backed and vanished as they looked; for a moment there was discernible activity in a clump of whins near at hand. ‘Lewis gun,’ said Appleby, ‘And look.’ His finger swept round the pine trees before them. Here and there a figure flitted rapidly in and out of view. ‘They’re closing in round the castle with both flanks pinned on the loch. Mackintosh wasted no time. Our friends are caught.’

  ‘Caught?’ A new voice spoke unsteadily from the ground: Rodney Orchard’s voice. ‘It’s just as well. They got it, you know. My formula.’

  Appleby knelt down. ‘You mean the drawings? We’ve got them.’

  Orchard – and he was oddly like the false Orchard, Sheila thought – weakly shook his head. ‘The drawings? That was a good dodge… No, not that. Afterwards. They got it out of me.’ He smiled faintly. ‘Nothing lurid. Just science against science. Some infernal drug that relaxes all power of inhibition. One chatters happily. I must chase it up some day… But point is they’ve got it. So – whoever you are – get them.’ He tumbled back on the turf.

  ‘Appleby’ – it was Hetherton’s voice, suddenly incisive – ‘can they get the motorboat?’

  ‘No.’ Appleby had jumped to his feet and was scanning the loch. ‘I can just make out the cordon the troops are forming. And the cove where we left the boat is a good hundred yards beyond. Only–’ He stopped and his face grew troubled. ‘What do you think has happened to the mothers’ meeting? The marquee is open; they’re not there. Where can they be?’

  ‘I think–’ said Dick, and was interrupted by a shrill whistle. They turned again towards the road and saw advancing down it an ugly little armoured car; on either side the woods showed suddenly alive with khaki-clad steel-helmeted men.

  ‘Castle Troy,’ Appleby said, ‘has about five minutes to go. But you think–?’

  ‘That the women are inside.’ Dick turned again towards the loch. ‘Great snakes – but they’re not! Look at that.’

  They all stood up and looked. The terrace on which they had themselves stood only a few minutes before was now thronged with moving female figures – with female figures moving with a definite and immediate end in view. Scores of women were hurrying down the steps to embark in the little fleet of pleasure craft below. Already some of these were casting off; a chatter of excited voices rose as they watched; plainly it was the grand treat of the day about to begin.

  Appleby jumped from the hollow and ran towards an officer who had appeared with Mackintosh from among the trees not forty yards away. The others, uncertain what to do, stayed where they were. Of whatever happened now they seemed condemned to be spectators only. And as spectators they would here obtain an excellent view.

  Oars plashed and here and there a sail was up: quickly the boats spread out over the nearer surface of the loch. At one point Sheila heard cries of surprise and saw women pointing at the squads of soldiers now rapidly enveloping the castle and the end of the loch. But the excitement died away; it would be thought that manoeuvres were in progress; all were now embarked and the water was a confusion of bumping and scudding craft. And nothing but women: that was the point. Nothing but women ineptly splashing about a loch before retiring to a marquee for meat pies and strong tea. Only in one or more of those little boats the women were bogus, so many wolves disguised as Red Riding Hood’s grandmother: which was why they themselves had succeeded in breaking into Castle Troy… But what was the good of it; how could this hiding amid a huddle of women save these people in the end? Already the situation seemed in hand: from the water’s edge the powerful voice of a sergeant was vigorously ordering the boats back to the shore. Some had understood and turned; presently all would do so and any craft attempting to pursue a course up the loch would be known for what it was and if necessary brought under fire. So why–?

  And then Sheila saw the big boathouse. A group of three or four boats, farther out than the rest, had approached close to it: and on that side of the loch the nearest troops were still perhaps some three hundred yards away. She grabbed Dick by the arm. ‘The boathouse: do you think–’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. And so does Appleby. They have it pretty well covered from this side. But there’s that mess of women: three boatloads probably of genuine old wives. Look how close they’ve contrived to bunch them before the doors… And there!’

  Suddenly the boathouse was open: the doors which Sheila remembered as having the appearance of utter neglect had vanished with the speed of capital machinery; one of the little clump of boats had shot inside; and in the same moment two of the others had been overturn
ed, leaving a dozen women floundering in shallow water.

  ‘No shooting there for a few minutes,’ Dick said. ‘And to secure those few minutes if needed is what this whole flummery was gotten going for. And now for what they’ve had hidden inside.’

  ‘I fear,’ said Hetherton, ‘that it can be nothing less than–’

  ‘Sure. And here it is.’

  A slanting grey snout had appeared from the boathouse; in a matter of seconds a small grey flying boat was floating free on the loch, its wings gracefully unfolding themselves as if it had been a living thing. There was a roar of the starting engines, a choke, a further roar, and the craft was scudding rapidly up the loch. It cleared the area of the boats and the bobbing women – and as it did so Sheila heard for the first time the sound of something like battle. But the rattle of small arms lasted only for a minute; the flying boat, climbing steadily, was out of range up the loch.

  And Sheila stared, unbelieving. It is hard to see in a flash that one is beaten… And then she grabbed Dick’s arm again.

  ‘Dick, it must have been hit; look how it’s travelling – like a hurt bird.’

  ‘Not hit.’ The voice was Rodney Orchard’s beside them. ‘Spot of engine trouble: I could hear it as they were taking off. Not tuned up. They weren’t planning this desperate emergency exit; they were going off quietly by car. They may come down. But more probably they’ll get through. Clever chaps. Damn my idiotic holiday and damn that formula. Find another perhaps…’ He sat down limply on the grass.

  They could see Mackintosh turn round and run for the road: run for one of the lorries which would take him to the nearest telephone. But that would be far too late. Already the flying boat was a speck on the horizon. Sheila turned and looked at Appleby: he was gazing fixedly into the western sky. And so was Hetherton. ‘It’s the aeroplane we saw before,’ he said. ‘I believe it is coming this way. Can we signal? Will the soldiers, I wonder, have wireless or a heliograph?’

  It looked as if Appleby was making similar inquiries: he was pointing and talking rapidly to the officer beside him. The officer shook his head; Appleby turned away and broke into a run; in a few seconds he had disappeared behind a fold in the ground. ‘A resourceful man,’ said Hetherton. ‘But one scarcely sees what he can do. The aeroplane is flying due east, and will pass over the loch perhaps a couple of miles away. Would a volley from the soldiers attract its attention, and is there somewhere where it could land?’

  Dick shook his head. ‘There may be some possible landing ground some miles away, but that’s not the point. The flying boat, even if running badly, is making out of Scotland at two hundred miles an hour. Only an immediate intelligible signal is any good. Strips of stuff on the ground would do it, but there’s no time for that… Ah!’ He paused, listening. ‘We’ve heard that sound before.’

  They had indeed heard it before: it was the roaring engine of their motorboat. And a second later the little craft shot into view, just beyond the last of the bobbing rowing boats. Appleby was in it alone. And it leapt down the loch.

  Soldiers lined the banks, immobile and staring; on the terrace clustered the bewildered women; above the marquee the Union Jack and the Scottish Standard blew in a freshening breeze. It was like some bizarre regatta… And suddenly the motorboat crazily wheeled. It was going all out; behind it curved a knife-edge of foam; it wheeled again and almost turned over; there was a smother of spray and it was off once more on another curve, like a giant white chalk sweeping over blue paper… And, high in air, the plane banked, turned, appeared to hover.

  Sheila shut her eyes and counted twenty slowly. ‘Dick,’ she asked, ‘has he done it?’

  ‘He’s doing it. More slowly now. He’s been spotted and can be less spectacular.’

  ‘And the aeroplane,’ asked Hetherton. ‘Will it possess some form of wireless communication?’

  ‘Three separate systems. Don’t worry.’

  26: Nothing Is Concluded Yet

  It was evening as the train drew out of the quiet Highland station. Hetherton, who had mysteriously provided himself with a copy of the Journal of Classical Archaeology, settled himself comfortably back in a corner. ‘I am sorry that Appleby and that interesting fellow Orchard are not travelling with us,’ he said. ‘But it was necessary that they should fly. Appleby tells me that he has to deliver Orchard at an important conference, and that then he himself has an overdue appointment with a burglar in Putney. And, Sheila, you will leave us at the next station: Colonel Farquharson will meet you. So our little company is breaking up. Mr Evans, what are your plans?’

  Dick Evans had a newspaper before him; he shook his head absently, slightly sombrely.

  ‘I myself return to my very commonplace round.’ Hetherton shook his head regretfully and was silent for a moment. ‘I wonder,’ he asked suddenly, ‘if anything can be retrieved at Dabdab?’

  The engine, whistling eerily in the dusk, gave the only answer. They travelled in silence. And then Dick said: ‘Here it is.’

  Sheila looked up sharply. ‘What?’

  ‘Just the end of our adventure. Quite a scoop for the local press. The Forres, Elgin and Nairn Gazette–’

  ‘A good title.’

  ‘–Northern Review and Advertiser–’

  ‘Is that the same paper?’

  ‘Sure. Northern Review and Advertiser, Strathspey and Badenoch Times… Shall I read it?’

  ‘Do.’

  ‘“Stop Press. Residents in the district this morning witnessed an impressive display of aerial strength when extensive manoeuvres were carried out over the Moray Firth. Among the machines engaged were, it is believed, a number of the new Hurricane fighters recently described by the aeronautical correspondent of our distinguished contemporary The Times.”’

  Hetherton laid down his journal and chuckled. ‘Capital,’ he said. ‘I like that.’

  ‘“The exercises were marked by an accident, fortunately not of a serious character, near Forres. In the course of the morning guests at the Hydropathic establishment were startled by gun fire and a loud crash, and it was found that a flying boat, of a type at present unidentified, had made a forced landing near the summit of Cluny Hill, narrowly missing the Nelson Monument, a well-known landmark which commemorates the connection with the district of the great admiral’s friend, Captain Hardy.

  ‘“According to a reliable report emanating from official quarters–”’

  Hetherton chuckled again.

  ‘“According to a reliable report emanating from official quarters none of the Royal Air Force personnel on board the machine sustained any serious injury.”’ Dick grinned. ‘We can take that as entirely true.’ ‘“The shock, however, had for a short time a curious effect upon some of the crew, who appeared to hold the dazed belief that they were operating under actual battle conditions and had been forced down on enemy territory. Certain measures which had to be taken to meet this remarkable circumstance are believed to be responsible for unfounded rumours now in circulation. Interviewed by telephone at Inverness, a high official of the Coastal Command announced that all the occupants of the machine were receiving appropriate treatment in comfortable quarters. It was likely that they would not again be effective units of their force for some time.”’

  ‘The Secret Vanguard,’ Sheila said. There was silence. The train rocked through the evening. She peered out. ‘It’s going to be dark early. Great shadows and masses of cloud.’ She began to collect her things. ‘We didn’t do badly.’

  ‘It’s a round to you,’ said Dick. He smiled. ‘I’m glad that I got tied up in it.’

  ‘And I’m glad you got untied – there in the croft. It would have been a different story but for that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was no longer silence. Hetherton had put down his journal again and was looking at them gravely, a little sadly. ‘You remember t
he last chapter of Rasselas?’ he asked. ‘It is called a Conclusion in which nothing is Concluded. That is so with us. And you must neither of you think that because war is coming other things must go for good. The shadows are dark over Europe; so dark’ – he smiled – ‘that Caravaggio himself might be baffled by them. We must wait, knowing that always there are torches which do not go out.’

  ‘Meantime,’ said Dick, ‘I suppose there is nothing to be done.’ He looked at Sheila.

  The train had stopped. She rose. ‘Nothing.’

  He opened the door. Through it came the same indefinable mingling of scents that had come to her at Perth. The smell of Scotland.

  She said goodbye.

  Note on Inspector (later, Sir John) Appleby Series

  John Appleby first appears in Death at the President's Lodging, by which time he has risen to the rank of Inspector in the police force. A cerebral detective, with ready wit, charm and good manners, he rose from humble origins to being educated at 'St Anthony's College', Oxford, prior to joining the police as an ordinary constable.

  Having decided to take early retirement just after World War II, he nonetheless continued his police career at a later stage and is subsequently appointed an Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police at Scotland Yard, where his crime solving talents are put to good use, despite the lofty administrative position. Final retirement from the police force (as Commissioner and Sir John Appleby) does not, however, diminish Appleby's taste for solving crime and he continues to be active, Appleby and the Ospreys marking his final appearance in the late 1980's.

  In Appleby's End he meets Judith Raven, whom he marries and who has an involvement in many subsequent cases, as does their son Bobby and other members of his family.