by Tim Standish
The lane curved slowly round to the left and as we walked on a little further an inn came into view, its windows glowing with light and warmth. A pair of old-fashioned lanterns mounted on posts lit either end of the pub’s driveway where it swung in from the road. It was an old building, perhaps a few hundred years in age but it was well cared for, with whitewashed walls and no sign of the disrepair that I might have expected from a pub in such a remote location. Not quite opposite the pub was an even older church, sitting on higher ground that rose gently away from the road that we were walking along. Again, the church was well looked after, its low wall and grounds well maintained, with a small flock of sheep grazing amongst the gravestones. It struck me that, though remote and small, Warehorne wasn’t quite the down-at-heel hamlet that I had first imagined it would be. Beyond the church I could make out a small cluster of cottages strung out along one side the road while opposite them were a few grander houses, though none sizable enough to be that of the local landowner.
As we drew level with the pub we could make out its sign in the moonlight and the horse struggling beneath a load of white bales told us that we were in the right place. Now that we were close enough we could hear the noise of conversation and laughter from within and, under it, the sound of music.
‘Hold on, Sterling. How do you want to play this?’ asked Church as we reached the door to the pub.
‘You’re Arthur, I’m Ralph and our motor carriage has broken down. Let’s take it from there and see how we go,’ I said.
‘Sounds like a plan.’
Church pulled the door open and stepped aside to let me go in first.
Inside was a porch and a second door which I walked through into the welcome warmth of the public bar. It was a large room, plainly furnished but homely with some nice photographic prints of country life hung on the walls. The room was lit by gas lamps around the walls and the low red glow of a large inglenook fireplace that took up almost the entire left wall of the room. Next to this fire sat a trio of men in tweed trousers of varying degrees of sophistication, their matching coats hanging up on a row of pegs nearby. Two more patrons stood next to the finely carved, dark wooden bar, one a younger man in relatively well-turned-out business attire, the other much older, with a red-faced complexion set off by a startlingly overgrown set of white whiskers.
On the other side of the bar a tall but elderly barman was carefully pulling a pint, which I rather imagined may have been the focus on attention for at least one of them until we walked in. At this precise moment, however, all five customers were looking in our direction with guarded expectation and not a little suspicion, as if judging what level of unwelcoming manner to reward us with. I walked up to the bar while Church closed the door behind us and came to stand slightly to one side of me, towards the trio by the fire.
‘Good evening,’ I said, as cheerily as I could.
The man standing nearest to me, he of the white whiskers, took a deep drink from a pint glass of something pale and murky that may have been cider. As if acting on a signal, the rest did likewise, all in silence, and for a brief moment I entertained the idea of trying out French to see if that would make any difference. For a few moments the only sound in the room was provided by a cylinder player tinkling its way through a jaunty, music hall tune on a low table by the windows.
‘Good evening gentlemen!’ The barman, having finished pouring the pint which he placed in front of one of the men, now turned his attention to us. ‘There’s nothing hot till six o’clock if that’s what you’re after but there’s mutton that I could use for sandwiches. Or maybe some hot cider to warm away the cold?’ His accent was softly burred, slightly like the accent of a West Countryman, though less strident and with the slightest trace of London woven through it.
‘Well a drink sounds like a brilliant idea, doesn’t it Arthur?’ I said to Church.
‘Always does to me,’ he replied, beaming at the room in a cheerily convincing way. ‘I’ll have a pint of ale along with a wee dram of something, as those Scottish laddies say.’
‘Same for me, barman,’ I said. ‘And while you’re doing that could you think of somewhere nearby where we can have our car repaired?’
The barman looked up, paused with his hand on the beer pump. ‘Ashford would be closest, wouldn’t it lads?’
At this point, our attentive audience, whose intent scrutiny of the two of us had shown no sign of waning, replied to the barman by variously agreeing with his suggestion, puzzling loudly over possible alternatives, suggesting that we could try walking to Hamstreet, and, in the case of whiskers, proclaiming us bloody fools to break down with the weather the way it was.
‘What’s the problem with the car?’ asked the office worker once his companions had had their turns. He was a youngish and thin-faced man who, unlike the others, sipped carefully at his pint rather than gulping it down as if for sustenance.
I smiled as I spoke to him. ‘You know, I’m not sure. It’s quite a new kind of car, some sort of combustion engine. I’m not really an expert you see.’
‘It’s not steam then?’ asked the red-faced fellow, who in my head I had begun to think of as Rufus.
‘No, it’s not.’
‘Or electric neither?’ asked one of the men by the fire, about the age of Rufus but in better shape, thick armed and broad shouldered. Though dressed in fairly coarse tweed, he sported a rather thick and ornate gold watch chain. He took a few large gulps of the ale he was drinking, emptying his glass and holding it above his head to catch the barman’s attention.
‘No,’ I said, ‘it runs on petrol. Oh thank you,’ I added as the barmen placed our drinks down on the bar. He pocketed the coins that I gave him and turned his attention to the man by the fire, taking his empty glass and beginning to refill it.
Church had thrown back his whisky while I was paying but waited for me to pick up my own pint then, with a quiet ‘cheers’, he took a sip of ale.
‘Cheers,’ I said.
‘By the way, where are you off to?’ asked the young man in the suit.
‘On our way down to Rye,’ I said. ‘For a birthday party.’
‘Bit of an odd way to come,’ continued the young man.
‘Now, now, young Matthew,’ said the barman, handing Gold Chain’s refilled glass back to him, ‘let these gentlemen catch their breath.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘Actually we were stopping off along the way to pick up a couple of friends. Maybe you’ve run into them?
‘Maybe,’ said the barman, busying himself under the bar.
‘There’s two of them,’ said Church, ‘one’s about Ralph’s age, tall, well-dressed, short beard, name of Seb Fuller and the other one’s older, shorter, balding, called Baxter.’
I took another drink. In the silence that followed Church’s description, the only sound came from the player by the window, its finished cylinder spinning endlessly in silence, the needle jumping with a small click as it did so.
‘Here,’ said Rufus, indicating us with an unsteady wave of his glass. ‘They’re them.’
‘Them who?’ I asked, pint in hand.
‘The ones we were warned about,’ he continued, winking grandly at the barman. ‘Foreigners.’
‘I think there’s some mistake,’ I said, taking a sip of ale. ‘Nothing foreign about us.’
‘Oh I think we’ll be the judge of that,’ said the barman, straightening up from behind the bar and, as he did so, raising the shotgun that was in his hands and aiming it at the two of us. Rufus and the young man next to him stepped away from the bar, moving over into a doorway leading through into the other bar. The three by the fire, meanwhile, held us intently under what they surely imagined to be watchful observation. Church and I both raised our hands.
The barman spoke again. ‘Check outside, Matthew.’
The young man strode over to the door and flung it open before walking outside and having a look round, then coming back in and closing it again. ‘No one out there, George.�
��
‘Good,’ said the barman. Now bolt it shut and come back over here. Now you two gentlemen,’ he continued, gesturing at us with the barrel of the gun, ‘I’m going to have to ask you to stand very still while Matthew here calls the constable in Hamstreet.’ He nodded behind him. ‘Phone’s in the other bar, Matt, the number for the constable is on the wall next to it.’ The young man left his station by the door and walked through to the other bar.
‘George is it?’ I asked. The barman said nothing but he couldn’t very well deny it. ‘George. If you could let me reach into my pocket, I have some identification that I would like to show you.’
‘Oh, going to try and tell us that you’re police now are you?’ asked Gold Chain. ‘The Colonel said you would try and pass yourselves off as constables of some sort.’
‘The Colonel?’ asked Church. ‘Which Colonel would that be?’
‘Ha!’ said Rufus from the doorway. ‘Shows how much you know. His name isn’t Fuller, it’s McKindrey and he’s a colonel in Army Intelligence.’
‘He’s been spying in France!’ declared one of the mean by the fire.
‘On Her Majesty’s service!’ added Rufus.
‘Is that a fact?’ asked Church.
‘He told us that he was being followed by two men from a Foreign Power,’ said George the barman while holding his shotgun steady and covering Church and myself with his aim.
‘Did he say which one?’ asked Church, barely containing his exasperation with the situation.
‘The Prussians it was I thought,’ said Rufus.
‘No, no, it was the French,’ said Gold Chain.
‘All he said was European,’ said George, seeming to become a little exasperated himself at the contributions of his clientele.
‘Tell me, George. What’s your opinion of young Matthew?’
‘Why do you ask?’ replied George, his eyes narrowed with suspicion.
‘I mean,’ I said, ‘do you think he is a sharp enough young man?’
‘He should be,’ said Rufus, ‘he’s George’s nephew.’
‘He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,’ said George.
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Well then, I’d like you to be very calm and think very carefully what you do next, George.’ I paused. ‘Because by the time that you manage to flick your safety off, my man behind you will have shot Matthew through the head.’
Panic showed in the barman’s eyes for a second, then he regained his composure. ‘Will he now? You know, that trick was old when I was young so I think I’ll just keep an eye on the two of you,’ he said and smiled, confident in the knowledge that he had seen through me. ‘Matthew,’ he shouted. ‘How’s that phone call coming?’
And suddenly Mac was there, immediately behind the barman, pressing the gun to the back of his neck, causing most of the room, including the barman, to give a startled jump, and while I threw myself to the left, Church dived in to push the shotgun upwards so that the blast went into the ceiling. I bounced back off the wall next to the fireplace, dislodging a picture as I did, and looked around, drawing my revolver. The barman was kneeling down with his hands folded on his head, Mac covered him while Church, now holding the barman’s shotgun, was telling the rest to do the same. The gold chain wearer by the fire looked as if he was going to try something while Church’s attention was divided but he paused, half-risen from his stool, when he saw my pistol and sat slowly down again.
The other Jay, Baker, appeared in the doorway, pushing the barman’s nephew in front of him and making him kneel down next to Rufus. Having done that, he stepped back a few yards from the pair and readied his weapon with a loud, mechanical click.
‘Now then George,’ I said, ‘I am going to reach into my pocket and pull out my identification and prove to you that we are who we say we are.’
‘You expect me to believe you’re some sort of policemen after what you have just done,’ said the barman. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘It would be fake anyway. You’re no policemen,’ said Gold Chain from the fireplace. The men with him muttered their agreement.
‘That’s right,’ said Rufus from where he was kneeling in the doorway and half leaning on a chair next to him, ‘and those fellows are made up like dervishes! No Englishman would do such a thing!’
I sighed. ‘Okay, have it your way,’ I said, ‘We are agents of a foreign power searching for Colonel McKindrey and if you don’t tell us what we need to know, I will order my men to kill one of you every minute till we get what we want.’ I turned my wrist and pushed back my sleeve with a flourish, displaying my watch for the benefit of all.
Church looked across at me and raised an eyebrow, sceptically. I shrugged by way of reply.
A silence slowly filled the bar while I ostentatiously watched the second hand on my watch.
The moment the minute was up I spoke: ‘Alright men. Let’s start with the boy.’
‘A man came and took them outside,’ said the barman. ‘He looked official. I heard them say something about an airship.’ He looked directly at me. ‘You’ll never catch them,’ he added, defiantly.
‘Tie them up,’ I said, ‘put the telephone out of action, and I’ll get the car.’ I unbolted the door, opened it and turned to face the room. ‘Dankeschön meine Herren!’I said, and stepped as dramatically as I could into the night.
Behind me in the room I heard a triumphant ‘Told you’ before Church shouted them into silence.
20. Springheels
‘What does it look like?’ I called up.
‘It’s small. An aerial sloop maybe,’ came the shouted reply from Church, standing on the flat top of a family memorial at the top of the slope. He was squinting into a pair of powerful nightscope binoculars. ‘Looks like they’re making straight for the coast.’
I turned to Mac, standing next to me. ‘How fast do those things go?’
He thought for a moment. ‘In this wind? Maybe fifteen knots.’
‘We’ll never catch it.’
‘We’ve got some springheels with us,’ Mac replied. ‘Might do it. Curtis, get Garner and bring them up here.’ Curtis headed back through the graveyard and vaulted over the low wall into the road where the car was parked.
Church dropped down from the memorial and stood looking over Baker’s shoulder at the map spread out on its stone surface. ‘How far away are they?’
‘Looks like five-and-a-half, maybe six miles,’ replied Baker. ‘If they’re doing fifteen knots they’ll be over the coastline at Dungeness in about…’ he looked at the map, ‘twenty minutes give or take.’
‘And how long will it take us to catch them?’ I asked.
The Jay looked at me. ‘In springheels?’ He smiled wryly, ‘About twenty minutes, give or take.’
‘Better get a move on then,’ said Church as Curtis and Garner came up the path carrying a long wooden crate which they put down on the ground near us. Curtis dropped a crowbar on top before the two ran back to the car again. Church took the crowbar and prised off the lid. ‘Baker,’ he said, ‘help Sterling get into these. Mac, let’s get the rest of the kit.’
‘These’ turned out to be what looked like a metal set of legs, about four feet long and made of heavy brass. Visible within each leg was a mass of rugged looking gears while a central piston ending in a long, jointed foot protruded partially from the bottom. ‘Right then,’ said Baker, ‘let’s get you strapped in, boss.’ He lifted out the first of them. ‘Easier if you sit down.’ He pointed to a nearby gravestone in the shape of a curved coffin lid. I sat down and waited while he guided my feet into the legs, then clicked home curved metal facings that wrapped securely around the bottom half of my legs. Once this was done he pulled me to my feet so that, now elevated by the mechanical extensions, I towered over him precariously, holding onto his shoulder for balance. ‘One last thing, sir,’ he said and reached down to the legs, tugged quickly at a metal ring on each of them that came away, bringing with it a long ripcord. Almost immediately the legs hiss
ed into action, pistons extending them a few feet further, while around my legs I suddenly felt some sort of inflatable material expanding to hold them firmly in place and, in a few moments, I realised, balancing was no longer a problem. They must have been gyroscopically stabilised, I thought, as I tried a few tentative steps then stopped. I looked across the graveyard to where a small flock of sheep, wary of this intrusion into their normal routine, regarded me with mute disapproval.
‘Best keep moving,’ said Baker, looking up at me.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Because the engine in the middle of them is chemical and it tends to overheat if you stand still for too long,’ said Church putting down another of the crates.
‘It blows up,’ explained Baker cheerfully.
Curtis and Garner dropped down two more while Mac dropped down two of the large, black canvas bags that had been ferried across from the postal van. ‘Baker,’ he said, ‘get one of the rockets out and give Sterling a quick run through.’
‘Rockets?’ I asked.
‘Hale Mark Nines,’ called Baker bending down to unzip one of the canvas bags and standing back up holding a dull grey metal tube, about four feet long and about ten inches wide, with a pistol grip about halfway down and a canvas carrying strap fixed along its length. Baker held it up to show me. ‘Have you used one before?’ I shook my head. ‘You have to release the cover first.’ He unclipped a metal cover from one end and, as he did so, a portion of barrel seemed to automatically extend itself several more inches. ‘Then you flip up the sights,’ he continued. ‘Use them to aim. Lift up the trigger guard and you’ll see two trigger buttons built into the handle.’ I nodded as he showed me. ‘The top trigger fires wire guided up to eight hundred yards; keep the target in the sights and the rocket will follow wherever you point. You’ll get a warning bell when you’re about to run out. Hold down both triggers for free fire which is good for about a thousand yards.’ With some struggling he managed to clip the lid back on and pass it up to me. ‘The warhead’s high explosive, will go straight through anything less than three-inch armour.’