It was a quarter to nine. Lex, bruised, worn-out and still dopy, was fast asleep. We extracted the brown paper parcel and ran down into Hinton FitzPaine.
I went into the pub and called for rum–since it was what I had been drinking–and offered a note in payment. Of course I got three half-crowns which were no good for the slots in the telephone box. I ordered another drink–for I didn’t want to ask outright for shillings and sixpences in case someone guessed I wanted them for a telephone–and in my eagerness to attract the attention of the landlord pushed further into the room.
It was the foulest piece of bad luck, equal to all that careless and insanitary cow had brought on me. I ran into the county surveyor, who was having a quick one on his way home from the inspection of some miserable local drainage scheme.
“Well, if it isn’t Roger Taine!” he roared, exploding my name from the smoke around the darts board.
I hoped the local policeman wasn’t in the bar. No one else, I thought, could know I was wanted till the morning papers. Nevertheless I watched the room rather than the surveyor, and met the fixed stare of a man sitting on the settle along the opposite wall. He composed his face, and looked away with a slight flush. He was a bad actor; but I doubt if I, in the horrified surprise of hearing my name, was any better.
My confounded friend shoved his way round the table towards me. I told him that I was in a desperate hurry, but I had to have a drink with him. I was sure that Sandorski, in his present mood of reckless impatience, would come storming into the bar if I kept him waiting long.
The man on the settle waited a minute, and then got up and passed the length of the bar, saying casually and rather loudly to the landlord that he was going to call his wife. The telephone was out of sight, on the wall of the passage that led out to the scullery and the beer barrels.
“I’m sure I know that man,” I said to the landlord.
I didn’t, of course, and didn’t want to. He was a type I don’t care for–worn and frustrated and keeping up a smart, gray mustache to compensate for his general air of genteel futility.
“Likely you would, sir. He keeps the filling station and cafe on the main road. Looks like Aladdin’s cave in the pantomime, though it wants a bit of paint and plaster, as who doesn’t? Teddy Bear’s Picnic he calls it, ‘cos ‘is name is Edward Bear. Ah, ‘e’s a one, ‘e is! Ever heard of the People’s Union?”
“Why, let me see–”
“Didn’t think you would ‘ave! But we has to hear of it. Mr. Bear is the county secretary, he is. I don’t allow no politics in ‘ere. Still, his People’s Union don’t ‘ardly count as politics. More like one of them last-day religions if you ask me.”
It wasn’t surprising that Hiart had mobilized any of his People’s Union stalwarts who might be of use. It was also possible that the police, as a matter of routine, had warned filling stations on the main road. I escaped from the pub, while the chorus of approval was going on, and found Sandorski fuming at the corner of the village street.
“I know, but listen!” I said. “I’ve been recognized. There’s a man who mustn’t see a stranger telephoning. I’m going to lead him away. I’ll give you ten minutes to finish and get back to the car. Don’t be longer.”
I poured a stream of small change into him, and hurried up the street again to the pub. I was only just in time to draw the attention of Mr. Edward Bear, who was looking for my car. I pretended not to notice him, and walked out of the village in the direction of the main road. He followed, but let the distance between us grow too far. It was a lonely road and pitch dark, and he wasn’t used to trailing murderers. Who is? I don’t think he had any enthusiasm for the job. It was a bit different from distributing pamphlets.
Where a farm track crossed the road I allowed him to lose me. He made halfhearted darts up the three possible ways I might have gone. Then he stood at the crossroads, mumbling to himself. The only words I could catch were a pathetically childish I wish I hadn’t, and later on a stern Service, Edward, service!
This was annoying. I had given Sandorski his ten minutes, and the ten lengthened into twenty. I was far too close to the wretched man. I couldn’t move. Then it occurred to me that he wasn’t waiting in pure indecision, but for somebody’s arrival. I did not know what to do. To break cover and bolt was far too compromising.
I heard a car coming down the road. Mr. Bear stood in the shaft of light and waved. The car stopped. Inside were Hiart, Pink and a driver. Hiart got out.
‘Well, Bear?” he said in his high-pitched voice. “Well? I thought you were to wait for us at the inn. You must get used to obedience, you know. You’re working for the state now, not the party. Good practice for you!”
I didn’t wonder he had specialized in Intelligence. As an officer in command of troops, he would have been shot in the back. This was the rebuke educational. Officers will remember that they command Citizens, and will exercise Patience at All Times. I’d rather have Sandorski at his worst than be Shown Patience by Hiart.
“I followed him here,” said Bear sulkily, for he had been expecting praise.
“Here? Here?”
“Yes, here,” said Pink wearily. “He said here, and I suppose he means here.”
Mr. Bear explained rapidly what had happened. He was a tiresome little bundle of pretenses, but, if you come to think of it, he had shown a heap of guts.
“Then his car is up one of these two tracks,” said Pink.
“Oh, nonsense!” Hiart exclaimed, his voice leaping to an offensive falsetto on the first syllable. “You haven’t heard a car, Bear, have you? No! Well, if he knew he was followed by you, he’d have driven off very fast. And if he didn’t know he was followed, he’d have driven off normally. The car isn’t here at all. Flash your light on that mud, and see!”
It was no wonder that Hiart was disliked. And he was ten times more exasperating because he was always right.
“Taine is probably behind the hedge,” Pink said, “with a gun trained on you.”
Hiart jumped to the other side of the car.
“I find those remarks in poor taste, Pink,” he complained.
Fortunately Pink didn’t test his theory, for I was behind the hedge.
Hiart turned to Bear.
“What was he doing in the pub?”
“Having a drink of course,” Pink interrupted impatiently. “Why not?”
“Nonsense! Nonsense! That’s a risk Sandorski would never have allowed.”
“You’ve got Sandorski on the brain,” Pink answered. “Taine burned up Lex, and therefore he shot Riemann, and we don’t know who put him up to it because you didn’t stop to see. And I rather think Riemann is alive–unless you shot him yourself and know he isn’t.”
“Deplorable!” Hiart protested.
There was a certain smug satisfaction in his voice.
He evidently liked to be accused of daring deeds.
“Bear, since you have been here, have you heard a car leave the village?”
“No, sir.”
‘Then they are still here, and somewhere on the other side of the houses.”
They all got into the car and drove down into the village. I ran after them as close as I dared. They stopped at the pub and went inside–no doubt to find the surveyor and confirm my identity.
In that one street, it was difficult to pass the car and its driver. All I could do was to enter the inn yard, go round behind the building and come out again into the open with my back to the car. I walked unsteadily and gave a loud belch of satisfaction as if I were bound homewards from the side door. As soon as I had passed out of the range of one village light, I ran for my car.
Sandorski’s mood had changed. He was still on edge– but merely because he couldn’t think what had happened to me. Otherwise he was purring with pleasure. He had at last got hold of his friend Roland, who had promised to prepare the flat at 26 Fulham Park Avenue forthwith. Roland as yet had heard nothing of our adventures, but had warned the general, on principle, not
to wreck all chances of help by getting himself and Lex arrested.
In the silence of the night I heard Hiart’s car pull away from the village pub. If I reversed down the lane I should arrive at the corner about the same time as they did. If I stayed where I was, I feared they would have a look at the tempting mouth of the lane and walk far enough up it to find us. The worn and stony surface might or might not reveal the fresh track of tires, but I had an exaggerated respect for Hiart’s hunting instinct; he would spot that lane as just the place to leave a car if you didn’t want it to be seen while you went down to the village.
So there was nothing for it but to go on up the hill, and pray that we didn’t find ourselves in a cul-de-sac. As we went I tried to tell Sandorski–without very much success– what had happened. For Lex’s benefit I called our pursuers the deviationists. At any rate I made it clear that they were not the police.
The lane was so narrow that I could drive without lights. The hedges on each side brushed the wings, and loose stones crackled and spurted under the wheels. The gradient at the worst places must have been one in four. The noise of our progress in bottom gear attracted Hiart and Pink. Sandorski reported lights behind us.
At the top was a stout five-barred gate. The general jumped out and opened it.
“Give me a rendezvous, quick!” he demanded.
“Can’t. I don’t know where we are.”
“Damn! Wanted to puncture their tires when they stopped. Pity–ha?”
It was a pity. But we might never have met again, and I didn’t know what the plan was if ever we reached London. We went on. The lane ended and we bumped over some sort of grass track. I had to use my lights. They revealed nothing but more grass and ruts.
This was not the sort of situation that suited Sandorski, for we dared not show fight. By one of his favorite rearguard actions we had everything to lose. If Lex were caught and his papers recovered, nothing could save us from the dock–though, I suppose, after months of agony for me and my family, we might have been acquitted. Still better for Hiart and Heyne-Hassingham was our death. That would be the end of any evidence of what had really happened at my shoot, and Hiart–if he arranged things to prove self-defense and could put his fingers in his ears at the critical moment–would be thanked by the police for his gallant chase.
I came to a cow-trampled mud hole where the ruts petered out. Beyond the hole were two roughly stopped gaps. Both led to cultivated fields. This looked uncommonly like the end. I turned off my lights and got out of the car, waiting to recover my night sight. It was the usual dirty, damp November night. We might have been on some exotic plateau of Rockies or Andes instead of a hill in populous England four hundred feet above the sea. There wasn’t a signal from humanity, except the faint smell of wood smoke drifting up from the village on the southwest wind.
The car behind us had stopped to go through the gate. I heard it shut again behind them. I let them drive on towards me, for the ruts leading into blackness would take their attention away from anything that might be happening in the outer dark. Then I turned my car to face the open grass and shot off into the night like a plane taking off. It sounds dangerous, and it was. On the other hand one somehow knows, in a countryside that forms part of one’s blood, what the sweep of the land is likely to be. I merely mean that I knew I should meet an obstruction before I went over the edge of anything, and that the obstruction would be soft. I also felt sure that I wasn’t going to meet anything at all immediately. That may have been due to the feel of the grass or the wind, or, less mysteriously, to rum. One in the car and three more, unwanted, on an empty stomach undoubtedly made my driving optimistic.
We had the devil’s own luck. I missed a pond by inches, and then went slap through a barbed-wire fence into a field of kale. It couldn’t have been better The kale was high enough and formed a dark enough mass for me to begin to brake in time. When we hit it, we merely crashed for a few yards through the soft stalks.
On the damp plowland it took time to reverse and turn. Lex and Sandorski jumped out to push. I doubt if they made much difference, but I wouldn’t like to underrate the sheer nervous will-power of Sandorski in a crisis. What really saved us were the fibrous stumps of the kale, which gave just enough purchase for the back wheels.
When I had pulled out, and back through the gap in the fence, I stopped for the two to get in. Meanwhile Hiart and Pink had followed up the ruts to the mud hole. There they picked up our tracks in their lights, and came nosing along them. They were now something less than three hundred yards away. They couldn’t see us, for the bushes at the edge of the pond I had just missed were partly in the way, and the background and skyline were broken; but undoubtedly they would pick us out as soon as we moved. Sandorski told Lex to lie on the floor, and folded himself into a small tense spring between the dashboard and the front seat.
I started rolling gently over the field towards the lane. The movement, as I feared, attracted attention, and the two great eyes of the following car swiveled round until they were full on my side. They rested there a couple of seconds as Hiart’s driver swung round in a quarter circle to keep me in view. Then he quickly turned the full semicircle, and lit up the rolling field ahead.
“He’s going for the gate!” yelled Sandorski.
Of course he was. I might have bet Hiart would think of that. Once he had his car across the gate or in the lane, there was no way out for us except on foot. We might have tried it, I suppose, and played another successful hide-and-seek in the darkness, but dawn and the police and dogs would soon have settled us.
My course into the kale had taken me more or less diagonally across this great field or down. I now had to run parallel to its lower boundary in order to reach the gate, and at some time I had to swing well out into the field in order to go through. What the boundary was, I don’t know. The thick black shadows looked like a young plantation. At any rate it was something impassable to cars, and I had it looming fifty yards to my left. To my right and about two hundred yards away was Hiart’s car. I call it Hiart’s, but remembering this moment of violence I am sure Pink had taken command, and that he was thinking in terms of a naval engagement.
On went my headlights. They showed good grass ahead, and I pulled up level. For a second or two we were racing on lines not quite parallel that would intersect at the gate. Then our courses rapidly converged. I couldn’t avoid it. I was driving along the obstruction to my left, and it was curving and forcing me closer to Pink.
I had one vast advantage over Pink’s driver. I was running for my life, and he wasn’t. A split second before I got jammed against the edge of the plantation, I braked hard and passed behind them and took the outer berth. My car had terrific acceleration in second, and I pulled up level again at the cost of two leaves of a spring. There weren’t more than twenty yards between us, and Pink took a shot at me. I think it must have been meant for the tires, for he would find it hard to satisfy the police that a shot at obvious fugitives was in self-defense. It went through the rear window and nearly got Lex, who was being tossed under his coat from floor to air and back again. It was a good bit of gunnery from one moving car to another. He was only three feet high and left.
I don’t suppose we ever went much above thirty miles an hour, but over that surface the speed was as alarming as eighty on a bad road. I closed in on them from the outside in order to wreck the driver’s nerves and force him into the plantation I had just escaped. Then I heard Pink’s quarterdeck voice:
“Ram him, Jimmy!”
The driver must have been a naval man too. His quick response was worthy of the service. I turned away and skidded, and he just touched my back bumper. I heard Pink open up with his forward turret. This time he only scored the number plate and a ricochet off the wing which starred my driving window and frightened me into an extra burst of speed.
Pink was so pleased to have something to shoot at that he stayed on my tail a second too long. He allowed me to get so far out into the field that I
could go for the gate. If he had raced straight for the objective, he would have had his car across it before I could complete my turn.
I could distinguish the gate now. It was shut. I’ve seen a galloping horse miss his jump and shatter a five barred gate without breaking his legs. I prayed that my car would do the same and roared straight at it. Pink, too late, cut across behind. He was only three or four lengths away, and it seemed certain that this time he must ram me broadside on before I could be through. By how much he missed me I don’t know. There was a crash and a lot of flying wood; then another crash as Pink’s car hurtled into the hedge; and I found myself shooting down the lane, fighting to control the car as it bounced from one bank to the other.
Near the bottom of the lane I slithered and scraped to a stop, and told Sandorski that we were out. He uncurled himself, and straightened painfully into the front seat. Lex remained groaning and muttering in the bottom of the car. I began to feel sorry for the poor man. Ever since we had picked him up, he had had the life of a sack of potatoes going to market.
“What happened?” the general asked.
I told him that the deviationists were in the middle of a hedge and probably upside down, that we had a minute or two at least before they could disentangle themselves, and that I’d explain it all later. The question now was: should we turn left at the bottom of the lane into the unknown, or right and up to the main road through Hinton Fitz-Paine?
“I low many people were there in the car?” he asked.
“The two you know and the driver.”
“Not the man you call Teddy Bear?”
“No.”
“Then they left him behind to telephone the police.”
“If he did, we’re mighty near the end,” I said. “One of the springs is on its last legs, and we must be nearly out of petrol.”
He bounced into the lane, and beckoned me to join him where Lex could not hear what we said.
A Rough Shoot Page 9
