The Abbot of Stockbridge

by Philip McCutchan

  Klaus and Brother Peter nodded. Brother Werribee looked down at Shard. “You’ll be sorted out, I reckon, at Jervaulx.” He gave a coarse laugh. “Tell you something, shall I?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Word of advice: prepare to meet thy God. Reverend Father’ll likely shove you down the big hole so you go with the bang, right?”

  There was an immediate reaction from Klaus The Long Knife: the German hadn’t liked the mention of the hole or the bang and was signalling his dislike with his eyes. Brother Werribee said carelessly, “So what the hell! He’s not going to get away.”

  Shard, not going to get away, thought he might get an answer to a question in the circumstances. Or might not; the look in The Long Knife’s eyes was against it. Brother Werribee wouldn’t be risking any further leaks: the German was known to be a dangerous man.

  *

  Fountains was very bleak. The air was damp and as at the exit from the fissure on to Salisbury Plain, now well south, the wind was blowing. The custodian at the entry was concealed in his little wooden hut, but ready to pounce out to take the money for the car park. The coaches halted; Reverend Father leaned down. His hand held a number of five pound notes.

  “Private party,” he said.

  The custodian looked into the leading coach. “Any OAPs, are there? Any National Trust members?”

  “No OAPs. No National Trust members. We’re a party of social workers. On a course,” Reverend Father added. “Field training.”

  “Field training?” The custodian seemed astonished.

  “The social field, my dear fellow, not the agricultural one,” Reverend Father said. “Investigating the vagaries of human nature and all that.” Cousin Wally, Hedge thought sourly, was managing to look quite like a social worker: he wore an open-necked shirt, grubby jeans, and wore one earring plus a thin gold chain round his neck.

  “Not from these parts?” the custodian asked.

  “No, no. Cambridge.” The coaches bore the name of a firm in Ely. The custodian waved them through and they ground on into the car park, scattering the perennial ducks, Hedge hoping there would be no jokes on his adopted name. They disembarked and set off in double file for the Valley of the Seven Bridges. Hedge caused a diversion. “I need to go to the lavatory,” he said to Brother Infirmarer. He had noted a sign to the Ladies and Gents at the far end of the car park, a rather muddy end. Hedge’s need was genuine enough but there was an ulterior motive: a hope, however forlorn it might be, that there could be an avenue of escape.

  But not so. “Pee from one of the bridges,” Brother Kitchener said, “or along the track if it’s that urgent.”

  It was urgent and not only in the case of Hedge. But it was all right: it was early and there were only the resident cows to watch. The calls of nature answered, the supposed social workers plodded on across the bridges, entered the heavily wooded area at the end of the dale or valley, found the rocky overhang and the beck where they were met by the ferocious-looking skinhead who announced that he would guide them the rest of the way and that Arry from Ripon was inside.

  “Inside?”

  “Not in that sense. Inside the bloody rock. Reverend Father,” the skinhead added as an afterthought, remembering Arry had said this bloke was particular. They all followed him in, along the beck and the underground passage, through the hole and into the compartment where the high explosives were stacked. Hedge gave a shiver; he was now, he supposed, in the very bowels of the earth where the explosion was to take place. There would be absolutely no chance now of escape. No chance to issue a warning, though by now such consideration had taken a poor second place to anxieties about his own skin. He uttered a sharp cry of alarm when, alongside him, Brother Kitchener stumbled over a small projection of rock.

  “Bugger,” said Brother Kitchener, rubbing his shinbone.

  “Is … is this the place?” Hedge asked, his mouth dry with terror and his flesh crawling.

  “Only a part of it.” It was Reverend Father who answered. “Just a small offshoot. All the same, there’s quite enough here, Brother Ducky, to despatch you to Kingdom Come.”

  “You too,” Hedge said through set teeth.

  “Oh, yes. But naturally I’ll not be here when the time comes, will I?”

  “And — and me? Do you mean —”

  “That depends, Brother Ducky,” Reverend Father said. “You see, dear cousin, we have a use for you. You are to be the magnet, don’t you see? Or shall we say the fuse?”

  Hedge felt the last of his courage drain away. The magnet … magnets and explosives, they could perhaps go together in some dreadful way. The fuse … there could be some as yet unimagined horror in which his body could be used as it were to touch the match to the flintlock or whatever. “Magnet?” he managed to ask.

  “The magnet that draws the brass to Candleby. The brass, with Mrs Heffer, dear boy.”

  “H-h-how?”

  “You’ll be given full details later,” Reverend Father assured him. After that he would say no more. Hedge, as the party advanced behind the beam of the torch carried by the skinhead, felt his stomach loosen. He was absolutely done for; the one slight ray of hope lay in the fact, the possible fact anyway, that by now Whitehall as represented by the Head of Security upon whose orders he was acting might be concerned about him, he not having been in touch since his departure on his supposed defection. The authorities might be worried; Mrs Heffer included. And surely, if she was worried, she would do something about him, put the wheels of succour in motion? But she would have to hurry before she, too, was blown into little pieces.

  *

  Later that day, with the man called Arry now leading, there was a mass exodus. The exodus took place along a fissure in the rock that led off from the cavern into a blankness that brought more terror to Hedge as he stumbled along between Brothers Kitchener and Infirmarer. He knew not where they were going other than yet deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth. Earlier conversation between Arry and Reverend Father had told Hedge just one thing: they were about to join up with the advance party that had left Stockbridge by tunnel prior to Hedge’s arrival there, and the advance party would, Hedge was now certain, include Shard. And a fat lot of use Shard had turned out to be — a closely-guarded prisoner like himself. There were many things Hedge could say to Shard when they met but he was already too dispirited to say them. No doubt a dignified, forbearing silence would be the best way. One more point of hope had occurred to Hedge earlier and he still clung to that hope even though Reverend Father had dashed it on enquiry. MI5 would surely by this time have descended in force upon the monastery of God’s Anointed and would have probed deeply.

  Reverend Father had shrugged that off with a laugh “They’ll find nothing of any help at all,” he said. “That’s been seen to, Brother Ducky.”

  “But suppose they find that slab, and the descent?”

  “Oh, they probably will.”

  “So if they do —”

  “It really won’t matter, dear boy. It simply ends on Salisbury Plain, doesn’t it? No clues from there. Just a nice blank.”

  Yes, that was true. Hedge said, “But surely … all this is terribly unwieldy, isn’t it?” As a defector who was there to help, it was imperative he should take an interest. “I mean —”

  “If it’s unwieldy for us, it’s unwieldy for the government, isn’t it?”

  “Oh,” Hedge considered this point. “What you’re saying is, if you don’t know what you’re doing, neither do they?”

  Reverend Father had laughed and clapped his hands. “Oh, well put indeed, Brother Ducky … only it’s inaccurate as it happens. I know very, very well what I’m doing, don’t worry.”

  Hedge had thereafter remained silent. Yet, as the awful underground journey continued, seemingly without end, he was still able to nurture his hope. Even MI5 couldn’t possibly be so stupid as to find nothing of consequence in the monastery, nor so stupid as to deduce nothing from the admitted blankness of Salisbury P
lain at the tunnel’s end.

  Or could they?

  Soon Hedge was forced to proceed on hands and knees as the headroom came sharply down. He kept on butting his head into the buttocks of Brother Infirmarer who after the sixth butt protested angrily that he wasn’t bloody Brother Peter and would Brother Ducky please leave his bloody bum alone or when they reached journey’s end he would give him what for.

  Hedge apologised but when he tried to hang back he got further complaints from Brother Kitchener, this time about his feet.

  Thirteen

  Hedge was most terribly tired long before journey’s end was reached, journey’s end being beneath the ruins of Jervaulx Abbey, a distance of perhaps around fifteen miles, or less by fissure, and which felt a lot longer even though they had rested half way in a part where the fissure widened out into a sort of chamber. Reverend Father had remarked that they were not far from Mother Shipton’s cave, the place where Mother Shipton, or her present-day representative, accepted for a fee articles from tourists for fossilisation and collection around six months later, there being some very special property about the air or water or something in the cave. Mother Shipton’s, Hedge happened to know, was not far from the large city of Harrogate, between there and Ripon, quite a populous area beneath which to site an enormous and dangerous explosives store; and he remarked on this during the stand easy.

  “Oh, there are no explosives here, Brother Ducky. They’re behind us and to the east and north.”

  “I thought you said the dump at Fountains was only a part?”

  “Yes, indeed I did. But only a very small part and none of the storehouse system leads this way. It extends by way of other fissures such as this one … north and east, a long way, dear boy, until it terminates beneath Cam Fell and Foxup Moor … between Langstrothdale Chase and Horton-in-Ribblesdale. Potholing country — Candleby. But of course all the entries to the magazine itself are very effectively sealed off, with no chance of anyone getting in.”

  “Then how do you —”

  “I should have said, no chance of anyone getting in by accident.”

  Hedge nodded; Cousin Wally would of course have his entry nicely prepared. Hedge had heard from Whitehall sources that the underground complex was unguarded. No need had ever been seen to put the system under guard, but Hedge believed that there was a remote control surveillance in existence, something to do with electronics or television or maybe computers. When he mentioned this to Reverend Father in the hopes of deflecting him from his purpose, it turned out that he knew the facts already. Hedge wondered about the explosives near Fountains Abbey, a long way from Cam Fell and Candleby, and the very open entry to the cavern where they lay. He asked Reverend Father about this.

  Reverend Father said, “They’ve only recently arrived there, dear boy.”

  “Oh.”

  “By arrangements of my own. This is currently unknown to your mandarins in Whitehall. And I have my own guards, who are well able to deflect the odd potholer.”

  Hedge saw the point: one look at the skinhead would be enough for anybody, and no doubt there would be other skinheads to share his duties. Reverend Father went on, “I need hardly tell you, I do not propose to be anywhere near Foxup Moor when the whole shebang goes up. Hence my little store at Fountains. I’m sure you’ve heard of fuse trails, dear boy. I have any number of reels of fuse wire. And there’s a trail already in position.”

  “All the way along?”

  “All the way along, Brother Ducky, all the way along.”

  Hedge’s brain whirled: Cousin Wally, by the sound of it, couldn’t fail. Mrs Heffer, also many innocent farmers and other inhabitants of the area — probably all the people in Horton-in-Ribblesdale — were now in immense danger of their lives. Hedge very nearly fainted with the awful burden of his knowledge: he really ought to make a bid for escape, but where was the chance of that now? It was obviously nonexistent. And he remembered all those weapons in Cousin Wally’s apparently private cave. Probably they were there for eventual use by Klaus The Long Knife, who would perhaps go into action when that bastion of liberty (Mrs Heffer) had been blown into little fragments …

  Soon after this the party was got on the move again. When finally they stopped Hedge, who was almost out on his feet, flopped to the ground more dead than alive. His sleep verged on unconsciousness; it was impossible to rouse him, even though Brother Werribee, who had now joined the main party along with Shard and Brother Peter and the German, tried to do so with a kick in the ribs. In this almost drugged sleep Hedge suffered alarming hallucinations and terrifying dreams. In one nightmare he was back at Stock-bridge and had under pressure attended Compline. The monks taunted him, laughing at his tonsure and the way he wore his unaccustomed habit, and then they had all pelted him with paper darts made from prayer sheets. Another dream concerned Mrs Heffer. Mrs Heffer was with the Queen, insisting that it was necessary to have a royal presence at the explosives dump, and Her Majesty had bravely offered herself but her offer had been sunk without trace by the Lord Privy Seal who had reminded Mrs Heffer that the presence of Her Majesty would be bound to steal her own thunder, whereupon Mrs Heffer had rounded on the Queen and had accused her of interfering in matters that were the sole concern of a duly elected parliament and Britain was, after all, a democracy … A very disturbing element in the dream was that the Lord Privy Seal had actually appeared as a seal, shiny and with flippers and whiskers and a friendly face topped by a gold coronet. It was at this point that another kick, a heavy one, was aimed at Hedge and he woke to find the seal’s friendly face merging into the truculent one of Brother Werribee.

  “All bloody poms do is bloody sleep,” the Australian brother said. “You’re wanted, Brother Ducky. Reverend Father.”

  Hedge struggled from sleep. “W-what for?” he asked.

  “Make a bloody phone call.”

  *

  “No, Rufus, Tuesday will not suit. I have a delegation from the Women’s Institutes as you should very well know.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister, but this inspection is becoming a most important matter —”

  “So is the women’s vote.”

  “Undoubtedly, Prime Minister. But a postponement will not, I feel sure, have any long term effect on the women’s vote, whereas the farmers —”

  “Tuesday will not suit. Is that clear, Rufus?”

  The Home Secretary gave a sigh. “Yes, Prime Minister.” When he had withdrawn, Mrs Heffer got to her feet and went across to a window from which she could catch a glimpse of Whitehall at the end of Downing Street. All those people, hurrying about their business or going to and coming from the Jobcentres … Conservatives, Socialists, various kinds of Liberals, Greens and other fringe groups including the Monster Raving Loonies or whatever. Such a variety; but most of those people, she believed, were Conservatives at heart even if on occasions they were stupid enough to vote Labour. A kind of mental aberration, really, for which they couldn’t perhaps be blamed, a sort of involuntary mad cow disease induced by clever — yes, she would admit a degree of cleverness — Labour propaganda. Such a useless bunch … Mrs Heffer steeled herself. As Prime Minister of Great Britain, she was the leader of them all and never mind their political persuasions. She must act in the best interests of the whole country and hope that when election time came they would all see sense and become, once again, True Blue. Blue was such a positive colour, which green and yellow and rose pink were not and never would be. She alone stood guard between the largely unthinking masses (Socialists, that was) and the horrid threat of the mailed fist of a resurgent and reunified Germany as represented by this madman they called Klaus The Long Knife, such a stupid thing to be called when you really thought about it — all this, and Rufus could think of nothing but the wretched farming communities in North Yorkshire and their sheep. Although Mrs Heffer well recognised that her presence alone would give an immense uplift to the Yorkshire people’s morale, there were currently much more important considerations — and where, for
heaven’s sake, was Mr Sedge?

  *

  Hedge was walking along a road, the road that led past Jervaulx Abbey’s ruins from Ripon to Leyburn on the fringe of Wensleydale. With him, close on either side, were Brothers Werribee and Infirmarer; the strong arms of Brother Chamberlain (arms that would have made a more effective escort than those of Brother Infirmarer, a skinny man who before entering the monastery had been a failed male nurse) being otherwise occupied in mounting guard on Shard back in the fissure, which had in fact come to an end beneath a concealing heap of stones in the abbey’s ruins.

  In the small village of East Witton stood a telephone box. Hedge was led towards this. While the escorting brothers lounged outside Hedge entered the box with Reverend Father, who was also accompanying the party.

  Money — pound coins, fifty-pence pieces and an array of smaller stuff — was thrust into Hedge’s hand. “You know what to say,” Reverend Father said.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t make a cock of it, then.”

  To his immense alarm, Hedge felt the hard snout of an automatic against his spine. Cousin Wally was turning nasty, showing his true colours and his basic lack of trust in his kinsman.

  Hedge pressed the buttons for Downing Street.

  “I wish to speak to the Prime Minister,” he said in a high, unnatural voice. “My name is Hedge and the matter is most urgent.”

  *

  Brother Chamberlain had absented himself. “Gone for a pee,” Brother Peter said informatively.

  “Where?” Shard asked.

  Brother Peter jerked a thumb upwards. “Open air. In the ruins.”

  “Won’t he be seen?”

  “If he is, he’s just a tourist. No-one’ll ask questions.”

  “I see. How long do we stay here, Brother Peter?”

  “Don’t know, do I? Up to Reverend Father, that is.” Brother Peter added, “P’raps we’ll know more when Reverend Father gets back with your mate.”

  Shard nodded. It was now known that he and Hedge were connected professionally: Hedge’s reaction when coming out of his trance-like sleep had been lacking in circumspection. He had addressed Shard by name in the hearing of Reverend Father and the cat had leapt finally out of the bag, confirming Reverend Father’s earlier guess back in the monastery. The only difference it had made had been that henceforward Shard was more closely guarded. He was not questioned again; now his boss was here, it would be the boss who would get the questions, and Reverend Father himself was in personal charge in that respect. In the meantime Shard was keeping his eyes and ears open and he had already heard quite a lot. He knew broadly what was going to happen; his own concern was to get away from custody and crack the threat wide open before the Abbot of Stockbridge went into action.