by John Creasey
‘For the duration of this, yes.’
‘We can’t ask more,’ said the girl, and she stepped to her brother and gripped his arm.
‘Jim, we’ve got to beat Forster.’
‘But Garry...’
‘Forget the buts,’ snapped Loftus. ‘Get those lights repaired if you can. We’ll need all the Government officials there are on the premises, and all the light. How many spare pairs of glasses have you?’
‘Two,’ said Cartwright.
‘I’d better have one,’ said Loftus. ‘Then...’
They heard a shout from the front door, and then the unmistakable crack! of a rifle shot. Another and another—and accompanying them were a series of dull thuds, telling Loftus that bullets were thudding against the door outside.
‘Get moving,’ he said sharply. ‘Garry, make him see sense. I want my two men, and the policemen.’
‘Jim!’ The girl sounded desperate, and something in her voice seemed to jerk Cartwright out of the coma. He moved with surprising briskness, and took a small case from his pocket.
‘Put these on, Loftus. Garth, release the two prisoners taken from this room and bring them here immediately. Loftus, if you try to get outside, you’ll be shot. Garry, go to the back of the house and take control there. Use the gas if necessary.’
‘What?’ exclaimed Loftus.
‘A weak gas,’ Cartwright said, ‘and there’s too much wind outside for it to take much effect tonight, I think. It might help. We’re not unprepared.’
‘What’s happening now?’ demanded Loftus.
‘I have a man with a rifle at each major door, and they can see into the grounds,’ said Cartwright. ‘I was afraid Forster might locate us, but wasn’t sure.’
‘You should have had bigger forces,’ said Loftus. ‘Where’s that good telephone?’
‘It needn’t interest you,’ said Cartwright. ‘I can’t call more men in a hurry, and you’re certainly not going to call the police. And don’t’—he snatched a gun from his pocket, and the sight of the thin, somewhat ascetic-looking man with the gun would have been amusing at another time—‘and don’t try to use force. If you’re going to help, help.’
Loftus tightened his lips.
‘I’ll need a gun for that.’
‘You can’t...’
Cartwright hesitated, and before he went on, the door opened and Oundle and Thornton came in. Neither looked the worse for wear, but both were surprised at the sight of Loftus.
Garth, a thickset, burly man, carried a gun.
‘Those lethal weapons, Cartwright,’ said Loftus firmly. ‘We’ll get rid of the Forster bunch first if you don’t stand there all night. We can talk afterwards. It...’
Across his words came a heavy thud. Another and another. He knew what it was, and from Cartwright’s expression it seemed that the smaller man did.
There was a battering ram at the front door.
Cartwright snapped:
‘Return their guns, Garth! Loftus, I am relying on you and your friends to keep the front door safe.’
He swung round and hurried from the room, while Garth took Loftus’s automatics from a capacious pocket, then Oundle’s, then Thornton’s. From another pocket he began to take torches, and Loftus stepped into the hall, speaking as he moved.
‘Set the torches so that they converge on the front door, Garth—put them on chairs, or something about waist-high. We’ve declared a truce, the mutual enemy being at our gates.’
Almost absentmindedly he put on the glasses as he reached the darkened hall. Odd that he should be so preoccupied with his thoughts that he should not be on edge when about to try the spectacles. He admitted afterwards that it was not until he got them on that he realised there was anything unusual in him wearing them.
But as they went on he forgot everything but the glasses in front of his eyes. He looked along the hall, seeing everything in a faint blue light. It was not bright nor garish, and it was not to be compared with day, but he could see everything clearly. Even the small panes of glass in the door, which was being battered from outside. Even the small pieces of carving in the oak-panelling of the hall. Everything was visible in minute detail, clear-cut and strongly marked.
It was then that he realised one strange thing. There were no shadows.
He stood there like a man struck dumb, until Oundle’s voice came in his ear.
‘Busy, Bill?’
‘I—sorry,’ said Loftus. He had forgotten for the moment that the others could not see. ‘The torches, Garth, quickly. Ned, the position briefly is that Pale-face, known as Forster, is attacking the other birds, known as Cartwrights, and that we’re pro-Cartwright at the moment. If we get through, the earlier hostilities are resumed, presumably.’
‘So what?’ asked Thornton sepulchrally.
‘Forster and company can see, so can most of the other fellows,’ said Loftus, ‘be it light or dark. Keep the beggars from breaking in through this door, and if they do break in, stop them getting farther along.’
‘Right,’ said Oundle.
But it was too late.
It would have been too late even before Loftus had wasted precious seconds with the glasses. There was a resounding crash on the front door, and then another. A crack that seemed to waken the dead, and then the door burst inwards, pieces of glass flying in all directions. Four men, holding on to what looked like a young tree, staggered into the room.
‘The doors!’ snapped Loftus.
It was action now, and he would always show to best advantage when the need came for heavy work. He slipped into a doorway, and the others followed suit, firing as they moved. Three of the four men crashed down in the porch. The other managed to dart back into safety, out of the light of the four torches which Garth had set so that their beams converged on the doorway.
Garth had taken up his position by one of the doors.
The Department men were each at separate doors, and for a moment there was a lull in the activities. From somewhere else there came the sound of shooting, and there was a muffled explosion which suggested that Forster and company were trying to blow their way through one of the other entrances. Loftus called quietly:
‘Keep well under cover, fellows—ah!’
Almost on his words came the tap-tap-tap of a machine-gun from outside, and bullets began to spray into the hall. No one could cross the hall or approach the doorway without running into that barriage of lead—lead that meant death.
With the glasses on, Loftus could see in the poor light from the torches, although not so well as with the naked eye for there was a bluish tinge to everything. Suddenly the lights went out. Bullets struck each of the torches and they clattered to the ground.
Then Loftus could see clearly.
The spurts of yellow flame were coming, although he could not see the muzzle of the machine-gun. He knew that only Garth of the others could see, and he could only call out to Thornton and Oundle:
‘Stay put, and wait for the word.’
He stopped, and the shooting increased. Rightly or wrongly he imagined that the flashes of fire were coming nearer, and that they seemed longer. A moment later he saw the end of the gun, and he waited tensely.
The spraying bullets made a wider arc.
Loftus saw the man holding the gun—and then, not for the first time, a daring idea flashed through his mind. The men in the porch expected little opposition, and were growing bolder. In a few seconds they would cross the threshold, unless Garth started firing and drove them back.
He looked across the hall, and he grinned. For Garth was gesticulating wildly, and showing his open palms. He had no gun!
‘Nice work,’ said Loftus gently.
Oundle and Thornton kept quiet, as he knew they would, and the men holding the Tommy-gun came bodily into the hall. Two others were just behind him, carrying ordinary automatics.
Loftus cried:
‘Now!’
Thornton and Oundle fired towards the flashes from the g
un, and the man holding it staggered and then fell backwards. The gun crashed to the floor, while the brace who had come in support darted back for the porch. Or started to. Loftus stopped there, getting one man through the head, and another through the waist. He stepped forward, safe—until the shooting started from the porch—except from Oundle and Thornton.
‘Enough!’ he snapped. ‘Wait for it!’
And he moved.
He went for the gun that was lying ten feet away from him. He knew that the moment he was in line of vision the men outside would start shooting—and his knowledge did not let him down. As he went he felt bullets plucking at his clothes, felt one stir his hair. But he reached the Tommy-gun, stooped, lifted it, and then leapt for the doorway in which Garth was taking cover.
He made it.
Garth stretched out a hand to support him.
‘Good work, sir...’
‘Take my gun, and make it better,’ said Loftus.
It was not his first experience with a Tommy-gun, and he did not expect it to be his last. He swivelled the gun round, and he opened fire, praying that the belt and ammunition holder had been refilled just before he captured it.
A burst of shooting brought a scream, and a man pitched forward into the hall. Loftus crept nearer knowing that with the Tommy he could keep the men at bay. He called: ‘Heavy furniture across the doorway, fellows. Garth will direct you. Make it snappy, we haven’t got all night.’
How they contrived to move a mountainous piece of Victorian furniture from a wall to the door and put it in position he hardly knew. He heard them swearing and straining, heard Garth giving instructions.
‘A little to your right—right again—now back. Forward a bit, you’ve nearly got it—right!’
Loftus had stopped shooting for the past few seconds, and lent a hand. Shooting came, but the sideboard—or what looked like a sideboard—was nearly waist high, and by stooping low they were safe. They brought other, smaller stuff from the dining-room, and piled it on top of the sideboard, then reinforced the whole with heavy chairs and a settee, turned upside down. As they finished the shooting outside stopped.
‘They’ve withdrawn to compare notes,’ said Loftus. ‘And we can do the same!’
And then suddenly the lights were switched on!
Loftus was startled, for the effect on him was the reverse of what it would be for Oundle and Thornton. He could see, but only dimly. He could see at a distance, but everything—near or far—seemed to be covered with a bluish mist.
He took the glasses off slowly, to find the others screwing their eyes against the light.
‘Cartwright’s found an electrician,’ said Loftus. ‘Keep right here, you two, and if there’s another attack make sure it fails. Clear?’
‘We’ll do it,’ said Oundle, and his saucer-like eyes no longer looked ingenious.
‘You’d better,’ said Loftus. ‘Oh—don’t go outside, it won’t be healthy.’
‘I’d gathered that,’ said Thornton.
‘Because Garth has instructions to shoot you in the back,’ said Loftus gently. ‘Be friendly with Garth. He might even find you beer.’
He was moving fast as he spoke, and he went through the kitchen quarters, more concerned than he liked to admit about Garry Cartwright. He smelt the cordite, and knew that there had been plenty of action in the rear of the house as well as at the front.
The girl was wearing her coat again, and smoking a cigarette. Her hair was ruffled, but she looked as cool as when Loftus had first seen her. She lifted a hand in greeting, and her smile had the mischievousness of a child.
‘Hallo, partner!’
‘Hallo yourself,’ grunted Loftus. ‘We’ve forced ‘em back.’
‘Yes.’ She frowned. ‘I’m not happy about it, they seem pretty strong in numbers.’
‘Can’t you persuade that damn’-fool brother of yours to telephone for the police?’
‘Not in a thousand years. Anyhow, the line’s been cut. You needn’t worry—if he says it’s a truce, he means it. But when it’s over there’s going to be trouble with the police—if you let them out. Is it wise?’
‘I can handle the police and the Cartwrights,’ said Loftus grimly. ‘Where are they?’
‘I’ll show you. Look after things, Appleby.’
A tallish man, wearing suède shoes and dressed in a dandified fashion which was absurdly incongruous in the scullery where they were standing, nodded and smiled. He had long, dark hair which fell into his eyes, and his complexion was smooth and dark. He held an automatic as if used to it. So did three other men, while the linoleum-covered floor was littered with spent cartridge cases, and the glasses of many cupboards had been smashed to smithereens. The light was on, and none of the defenders was wearing glasses.
Garry Cartwright led Loftus to a cellar.
Crowded there like a lot of sheep were the men from the billiards-room, a dozen servants—the women in a smaller cellar on their own—while Mayhew and his three policemen were nearest the door.
Loftus told Mayhew what was happening, and he let the others know that there was an attack on the house, that every one of them had to take a share in the defence. He promised them that there would be no need for worry or anxiety once the police came from outside—and he prophesied that it would not be long before they did.
‘But what are we to do?’ a man called.
‘Barricade places,’ said Loftus. ‘Four in a room at a time. Heavy furniture against all windows, and all doors leading outside.’
They dispersed quickly. Mayhew hesitated only for a fraction of a second, during which time his gaze rested on the girl.
‘I’m taking these as orders, Mr. Loftus.’
‘Good fellow,’ said Loftus cheerfully, and the girl laughed as soon as Mayhew was out of earshot. Loftus looked at her with his head cocked on one side.
‘You won’t laugh if Mayhew gets hold of you, honey-bunch. Now where’s this precious brother of yours?’
‘At the side entrance,’ said Garry Cartwright. ‘Don’t get too angry with him, he means well.’
‘So do you, presumably,’ said Loftus.
Before she could answer the house seemed to rock, the walls shivered, and a fire-extinguisher hanging in a wall-bracket crashed to the ground. A moment later there was a boom! that deafened them, a second, a third. The very floor shook beneath their feet, and the girl stared at Loftus, showing alarm for the first time.
Loftus said:
‘High explosives, Garry, and that’s not nice. Let’s move.’
He ran for the stairs leading towards the ground floor, and as he went he wondered whether Forster had contrived to force an entry, or whether he was set only on destruction now that he had failed to get through with his first attack. He reached the servants’ hall, and there he saw something of the effect of the explosion. The bombs had been thrown against the back entrance, and lying on the white-covered floor was the man named Appleby. What was left of his face was not nice to see.
Two other men were lying stretched out, and badly hurt.
While the barricade that had been hastily put up was gone, and through the dirt and debris and the smoke the first tongues of flame began to lick towards Loftus, he knew that the battle would have to end one way or the other before long.
It did not look like ending his way.
13
Triumph for Forster
‘This doesn’t look so good,’ said Garry Cartwright.
Even in the circumstances, and with the thought of the possible effect of the fire, which was starting, uppermost in his mind, Loftus had to smile.
‘It isn’t so good,’ he said. ‘Trouble is, young woman, you’ve put us all in a spot. Your own people, a dozen of the hated Government officials, servants and my trio are liable to suffer badly for this escapade.’
‘It can’t be helped,’ she said. ‘We didn’t expect Forster to trace us here.’
Forster’s men undoubtedly surrounded the Manor. He might have
a dozen with him, or even more. It was reasonable to suppose that he had more than one machine-gun, and as reasonable to assume that he was able to see in the dark. Which meant that it would be impossible to get out, for any sortie would mean ruthless gunplay.
He was taking chance enough as it was.
The Manor was a mile and a half from the village, and on a quiet night it was likely that the shooting would be heard. Certainly flames would be seen if they reached any proportions. There were lights blazing from some of the windows, for the niceties of black-out had been ignored; any casual passer-by might see that, and report. In fact help might come at any moment.
And might not.
Loftus straightened up after putting the unconscious man in the passage, and saw that the girl had gone. He heard hurried footsteps. Mayhew and a policeman came towards him, and Mayhew’s face held more than a hint of alarm.
‘Loftus! They’re using incendiary bombs!’
‘Don’t talk in exclamation marks,’ said Loftus irritably. ‘I fancied they were. Where?’
‘At the side entrance.’
‘Have you been to the front?’
‘Yes, it’s all quiet there. But what are we going to do?’
‘What can we do?’ asked Loftus. ‘Try to put the fires out, and hope to God that someone gets along in time. We can’t go out.’
‘Someone must get word through to Winchester,’ muttered Mayhew. ‘The water comes from a well, and it’s been blocked up. We’ve no means of putting out the fire, and it will be blazing everywhere in half an hour.’
‘Ye-es,’ said Loftus. ‘All the same, we can’t get out.’
‘We can try,’ said Mayhew grimly.
Loftus rested a hand on his shoulder.
‘Mayhew, I agree with you in principle. But we’ve got to try parleying with the gentlemen outside. If we try to get through for help, we’ll just be mown down.’
‘In the dark...’
‘It’s not dark to them,’ said Loftus quietly.
‘Don’t be a damned fool!’ snapped Mayhew.
‘Loftus!’
The call came from some way off, but it was comparatively loud and spoken so oddly that Mayhew broke off in the middle of his sentence. The voice, thought Loftus, was coming through a megaphone, and probably from the direction of the front door. He did not recognise it, but the ‘s’ had a sibilance that reminded him of Oundle’s description of Forster’s hissing utterance.
