The Man from the Sea

by Michael Innes

  He raised a silver-topped walking-stick and pointed. “Two miles ahead – and well worth seeing. You can’t miss it.” He appeared about to walk on, when a further thought struck him. “Would you by any chance care for a lift? And have you friends with you? I think there is room for two or three.”

  “Thank you very much. I–” George stopped. Her eye had gone past the elderly man to the front of the Canty Quean. It was as forlorn as the back. But for the noise of domestic animals, one would have taken it to be deserted. She glanced at the little porch and the door within it – and suddenly her heart pounded. A shaft of sunlight, creeping round from the south-west, was playing full upon a large cobweb that draped alike the handle and the jamb of the door. The thing was as good as a seal. The elderly man had been conversing with nothing but a surface of blank wood.

  He was looking at her with a changed expression. But it was only for a split second that she distinguished it, for a sound behind her made her turn in a flash. The doors of the big car were open, and she had a glimpse of a figure disappearing behind a dyke. She shouted with all her might. “It’s a trap!” Then she ran.

  The elderly man attempted no pursuit of her. She had the impression that he had instantly turned away, shouting orders. She ran to retrace her steps to the point at which she had left Cranston. Then it came to her that this was to give too much away. She wheeled and ran for the other side of the building. The move was a bad one. Another man was coming head on at her, and she had a confused impression of being caught between high walls. The man held something in a raised arm. It was as if he was going to strike her down as he ran and then hurry on to other quarry. There was a door on her left. She had no time to turn a handle, but she lunged at it and it gave. She was inside and she banged it to. There was a bolt and she shot it. The door rattled briefly, furiously, and then she heard the man hurry on. Despite the uproar outside, there was no sound inside the building. She appeared to be alone in the Canty Quean.

  She saw in a swift glance that it was a miserable place; she was even conscious that it smelled dismally of stale beer and stale tobacco. She was in a low back passage, and she ran forward into a kitchen. There was somebody in the place after all. A bent old woman was standing by a stove, stirring at something in a frying-pan. George called out and the old woman turned round. She stared at George vacantly and without surprise. Then she turned back, muttering, to her cookery. There could be no help there, and George ran on. She found herself in some sort of tap-room or bar. It was deserted except for a black cat, asleep on top of a barrel. She looked quickly round. It was her idea to find a weapon. She had a dim notion, picked up from stories, that such places often, for some reason, kept a loaded shot-gun over a fire-place. But what her eye fell upon was a telephone.

  For a moment she stared at it, stupid and incredulous. The notion that she could have any link with an outer world seemed quite unreal. Then she ran to it. The instrument was fixed to the wall. There was a handle to turn – rather as if one were going to crank up an ancient car… But almost at once a soft Scottish voice spoke. “Number please?”

  She found that her mind was a blank. And then she remembered. “I want the police-station, please. The police-station at Drumtoul.”

  14

  George’s shout had brought Cranston out on the high-road at the double. For the first time since that fatal moment on the beach beneath Dinwiddie, when John Day had risen from the waters to fasten mysteriously upon him like an incubus, his mind was free of any thought of the man from the sea. There was nothing in his head but the girl – whom he had unforgivably let push forward as she had done. He had no hope that her shout was a false alarm – George was too reliable for that – and not much that he could in any way redeem the situation. But he made his dash all the same. He was in time to see her disappear round the other side of the Canty Quean. Simultaneously he was aware of several figures moving on the road, and he heard a call which told him he had been spotted.

  He turned and doubled round the building, expecting to meet George that way. But she had vanished. There was a wall in front of him, and she might have got on the farther side of that – in which case its shelter would take her right to the fringe of the trees. His best course was to bank on this, and himself beat a retreat. If they could all three reunite, then they might contrive to withdraw into the forest and find another plan. He heard more shouts as he ran – not random shouts, but the sharp calling out of one and another command. It seemed to him that they were in English. The impression – quite irrationally – angered him more than anything had done yet. He supposed that in addition to their own secret agents – who must at least be brave men – they hired anybody they could get. He hoped that it wouldn’t be before one of the hirelings that he would go down – if go down he must. And things looked bleak. A trap like this would take some escaping from. Once more he had been far too confident. He remembered his conviction that the little aeroplane had carried Lord Urquhart, and the recollection made him grin wryly as he ran.

  Day was before him. Day was standing with his back to a slender larch and in an attitude that suggested desperate defiance. His face beneath its injuries was pale and blotched and his nostrils were quivering. The man did, at least, intensely care. And whether it was for his queer scheme of atonement, or for some cunningly concealed design, or again for mere life – the little of life that remained to him anyway – seemed at the moment unimportant. He would fight. Blinded and with bare hands he would yet fight. And Cranston felt once more the tug of whatever it had been that had first drawn him to the man. It was something very primitive and probably entirely worthless. It shocked him now, even as he felt it. For he ought still to have no other thought than for George. “Where is she?” he called. “Where’s the girl?”

  “Ssh!” Day had gone rigid. Now he turned on him his furious purblind face. “You fool – don’t shout! What have you done? Another bungle?”

  “Just that.” Cranston lowered his voice. He felt no animosity. “But haven’t you seen her?”

  “Have I seen anything – except men as trees walking?” Day’s hiss was again savage. “Get me out of this! Haven’t you landed me in it?”

  It seemed to Cranston that the man was cracking. His fighting would be that of a cornered animal. His swift brain would no longer be behind it. Cranston put out a hand to him. “Take hold,” he said. “I’ll get you a couple of hundred yards back into the forest, and then I must have another look for George. I don’t believe she made the trees at all. Perhaps she got into the pub.”

  He led Day back as he had promised. The enemy, he guessed, were doing nothing precipitate. They would be stringing out along the high-road, and across the last stretch of the moor, preparatory to making a drive through this corner of the forest. They still couldn’t be legion – it strained credulity that there could be more than, say, a dozen of them all told – and they would have to spread themselves out thin, while carefully maintaining contact all the while.

  Once more the Canty Quean appeared through the last fringe of trees. This time he decided to skirt it on the west, for it was on that side that George had vanished. He rounded the building – and there she was. But it was only for a second. She had darted out of some side door and bolted straight for the high-road before he could give a call. He ran after her. He supposed that she had got her directions wrong, and he risked a shout. “George – it’s this way!”

  He was too late. George had vanished round the front of the building. He followed – so precipitately that he tripped on a loose cobble and lost ground. When he reached the high-road she was over it. Suddenly he saw that she knew where she was going, and he stopped. The nearest man was twenty yards up the road where it plunged into the forest. And straight in front was the big car, apparently empty. George was making a brilliant bid to capture the enemy’s transport. The man up the road had seen her and was pounding back towards the pub. It was just possible that she would bring it off, all the same. But even as her hand was
on the door-handle she was beaten. Dead in front of her a second man sprang up as if from nowhere. George saw her danger, dashed across the narrow side-road, and vanished into the trees. Both men were after her. Cranston saw what he must do. “Day,” he shouted, “this way – quick!”

  The trick worked. Even as Cranston bolted he saw both men turn and make for the pub. He had a good start, and was securely invisible among the trees before they could catch a glimpse of him.

  George was over the high-road. Provided she tried no more tricks, she was tolerably safe in the northern part of the forest, for the enemy was unlikely to spare it much immediate attention while they knew that their true quarry was close at hand in the south. And now he had better find Day again, if that was possible. It would be rash to shout, or even to give a low call. He must simply find his bearings, and then push cautiously about. Day could not be more than a couple of hundred yards away now.

  He came upon him quite suddenly, sitting with his back against a tree, but alert and listening. “It’s me – Cranston.” He dropped down beside Day. The man was evidently tiring, but he knew how to conserve his strength. “Listen. It’s not too bad.”

  “And what about your colonial giant?” Day had recovered his poise, and his question sounded decently concerned. “Have we lost her?”

  “Yes. But I think she’s got away. And we can get away too. We have this whole forest, after all. And these people can’t run their hue and cry indefinitely.”

  “They have pertinacity.”

  “No doubt. And these are lonely parts. But it’s not Siberia, and there are limits to what they can get away with. All this land is Lord Urquhart’s – and he’s pretty strict and enormously wealthy. He has no end of keepers. They’ll be on top of this invasion in no time.” Cranston realised that he had taken up the role of encouraging an exhausted man. “Even if there are a dozen of these chaps – two dozen – we can extend them hopelessly. We needn’t turn back. We can move eastwards through the forest, parallel to the high-road. And after a couple of miles we can reconnoitre it again. With luck we can be across it after all – and within an hour. After that, Urquhart’s no distance, and we’ll put our first plan through. You’ll be airborne, man, by tea-time. So come along.”

  Day had listened in silence to the whispered words. Now he was on his feet. “That damned swim,” he murmured. “Astonishing that I could race you straight after it, and feel like death now. But I can do another couple of hours. Or six at a pinch.” His laugh was low but harsh. “Lead the way. I can make you out.”

  Cranston turned silently and moved off through the trees. It came to him that whether he in his turn could make Day out was an open question still.

  Within five minutes he knew that he had been wildly optimistic in speaking of reaching Urquhart by tea-time. If they could have brought themselves to walk straight forward, with no more deviation than was required in order to thread their way among the trees, the estimate would no doubt have been reasonable. But that was impossible – because foolishly rash. Anywhere on their left the enemy might be infiltrating into the forest. Indeed, they were bound to do so, since they could scarcely afford merely to command the high-road and play a waiting game. Some sort of driving or encircling movement was essential if they were to succeed. At any moment one of them might appear, working forward from the road. Against this threat there was considerable advantage to be gained by studying the configuration of the trees so as to find a route affording a maximum of concealment. This made progress very slow – and also distance hard to calculate. Cranston aimed at getting at least two miles east of the Canty Quean before any attempt to break through to the north.

  They made perhaps a little more than half that distance in an hour. He was beginning to think of risking a turn to the left when something pulled him up. Only a short distance ahead, and directly across their path if they went on, there lay what it first occurred to him to think of as a great bar of light. For a moment the effect was of an enormous searchlight trained upon the forest. And then he realised that the occasion of it was very simple. What lay ahead was clear sunshine. But it could not, he knew, be the eastern boundary of Urquhart Forest. That, at this point, could not be less than five miles away. “Wait,” he said to Day, and went cautiously forward.

  A great straight ride was here cut through the forest – whether as a fire-break or for the convenience of sportsmen, Cranston didn’t know. But for one set of hunters its utility was obvious. He stood still, listening. The only sound was the cooing of pigeons, invisible in the tree-tops overhead. It was a peaceful sleepy sound that made him only more aware of his own strained nerves. He moved forward to the edge of the ride – once more it was a matter of nerve-racking, time-consuming caution – and found a couple of tree-trunks from between which he could make a survey with reasonable safety. The high-road was a quarter of a mile away, beyond a long straight fall of ground. He could distinguish a figure on it – immobile and looking down the ride. Still with steady precaution, he looked the other way. At about an equal distance up the ride there was another figure.

  Cranston turned and walked back to Day. “About turn,” he said briefly.

  “We can’t go on?”

  “There’s a straight swathe cut through the forest. They command it.”

  Day nodded. He seemed again to be the calm Day of the earlier stages of the adventure. “Which leaves?”

  “A damned sight less room for manoeuvre, one has to admit. A triangle, in fact, bounded by this ride, the open moor, and the high-road.”

  “Listen.”

  It was the sound of a motor-horn – particularly sepulchral in tone – that had caught Day’s attention. “Something on the road,” Cranston said. “Another proof that this isn’t Siberia. If we risk getting right up to the edge we might be able to dash out and intercept something. There’s military traffic, for one thing.”

  “We could do quite a lot with just one of those tanks.” Day turned round on this note of grim pleasantry, prepared to follow Cranston’s retreat. Then he swayed on his feet and abruptly sat down. “Damn,” he said. “Give me just a couple of minutes. Damn, damn.”

  “Take a rest – and spare your breath.” Cranston stood beside the exhausted man, frowning. The conviction was coming to him that it was the end of their tether. If the enemy really had a dozen men, seven or eight of them could effectively seal this corner of the forest. And the rest could beat through it at their leisure. He strained his ears, but heard nothing except the same motor-horn, grown fainter. Within the forest twenty men could be moving in perfect silence over the deep carpeting fallen from the pines. “We’ll try.” He spoke quietly but sharply in Day’s ear. “Get up. You can do it. You said you could. We’ll make for the high-road – and either lurk for a passing car or try a straight dash. Lean on me, if it’s any help.”

  Day rose. His swollen eyelids had closed and he appeared drowsy. But he staggered on. “This Lord Urquhart,” he murmured presently. “Might he know me?”

  For a moment Cranston thought that Day’s mind was wandering. “Know you?”

  “I know he’s not another titled dabbler in physics, like our friend Blair. But my notoriety – and the photographs?”

  “Time enough to worry about that if we ever make Urquhart. And your face is a bit of a mess, you know. I doubt if anybody would recognise you who wasn’t on the look-out for you.”

  “It’s really nasty?”

  “It certainly looks uncommonly painful.”

  “Rather a shock for my poor wife?”

  Cranston made no reply. There was something false in the question which queerly jarred on him. And he wanted absolute silence. They must now be very near the road. Once he thought he heard voices – quite far away. Round about – and apart from the laboured breathing of the man beside him – it was almost ominously soundless. It was a relief when, some minutes later, there were unquestionably voices. They were not near, but they were nearer. They were the voices of men calling to one anoth
er as they moved systematically through the trees. The outer guards were all posted. The drive had begun.

  “Come on.” Cranston quickened his pace, and tightened his grip on Day’s arm. “It’s now or never, if you ask me.”

  They hurried on. The voices had ceased and there was the silence again. But there was something wrong with it. Something that was wrong with it hammered at Cranston’s brain. Of course there were the peaceful sleepy pigeons – but their sound was so constant that it counted with the silence itself… He stopped dead in his tracks. Hundreds of pigeons. Perhaps thousands of them. But among them – a pigeon that was no pigeon at all…

  He wondered if he could recall the knack of it. He pursed his lips. “Coo-too!”

  “Coo-too!”

  “Coo-too!”

  “In heaven’s name!” Day had swung round on him, bewildered and furious.

  “Quiet.” Cranston breathed the word. He was intently listening. “I can’t be wrong,” he whispered. “I can’t be.”

  “Coo-too!”

  “This way.” He dragged Day forward. The voices made themselves heard again – very briefly, this time, but again from nearer at hand.

  “Coo-too!”

  “Coo-too!” The sound came from close to them. They advanced a few more paces. Cranston caught a glimpse of the road, and of a dark vehicle which had apparently been run a few yards off it into a small clearing. Then, immediately before them, a figure stepped from behind a tree – an extraordinary figure enveloped in black garments and wearing an ancient silk hat.

  “Quick, man – for mercy’s sake!” The freckled and perspiring face of Sandy Morrison was in violent agitation beneath the hat. “They’re a’ roon’ us in thae lairicks.” He gestured at the larch trees. “An’ patrolling the road as thick as polis on a Saturday night on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. I’m jist hoping they’ll tak’ it I’ve steppit amang the trees for the sake o’ daecency… Noo, come awa’.”