Tender to Danger

by Eric Ambler

  It was the rhythmic, jigging phrase from Till Eulenspiegel.

  Thirteen

  Andrew’s head swam. He felt as if he had been kicked in the head again. Then, after the first shock, he had a new fear. Vague at first, like something seen in the far distance, it rushed upon him with the speed of an express train. He could not evade it. He was tied to the line. The train passed over him and swept on, leaving the clatter of a name in his head.

  Charley Botten.

  He shook his head, fighting off the implications. Mr. Jolly-Face and Charley Botten, the two of them at dinner last night, the departure of the guest, Botten’s return, his keen interest in Groper’s Wade, the pinpointing of the large-scale map…

  But no, it was impossible! He had known Charley Botten for years. And, anyway, this was no moment to bother about him. There were other things to think of, and little time to act. When Mr. Jolly-Face found that the prisoners had flown, he would stop whistling Till Eulenspiegel.

  Andrew forced his mind to deal in practicalities. “When we get to the car,” he said, “climb in the back and keep down on the floor. It will be safer if that bird starts shooting.”

  “What about you?” she whispered.

  “I’ll keep my head down. I don’t expect he could hit anything with that thing anyway.” He grasped her arm and pulled her towards the door. “Come on now, quick!”

  They ran for it, but no bullets poured from the side window upstairs. Mr. Jolly-Face must have been in one of the other rooms. Ruth flung herself down in the back of the car. Andrew leaped into the driving seat, his hand reaching for the starter button. He was about to press it when a shock of despair paralysed him. He had left the ignition key in the instrument panel. It wasn’t there any longer.

  “What’s the matter?” the girl demanded breathlessly.

  “It’s no good. They’ve taken the key.”

  He spoke dully, inwardly cursing himself. Had it been his own car he would have been more cautious; had he come upon anything but a seemingly empty wilderness, he might have remembered, before he left the car, that the key was where the garage hand had placed it for him. Even with the arrival of Haller and Kretchmann he had failed to think of the key.

  “What do we do now?” Incredibly, it seemed to him, the girl still looked to him for help, and all he could do was sit there behind the wheel in a kind of daze. He could neither think nor move. In cramped suspense he awaited release, and found it quickly in the sound of a petrol can bumping on the handlebars of a bike. He looked through the windscreen and saw Kretchmann and Haller returning across the marsh.

  He crouched down along the front seat. The car was a good enough hiding place for a moment or two, but they must find something better and quickly. To run for it was out of the question. The way was too exposed. If they were seen, they would have two armed men after them; and Haller, also, might be armed. Kretchmann, for one, would think nothing of shooting them.

  “Keep down,” he said, “but get ready to go.”

  “We can’t go back to the cottage,” she said.

  He knew it. If he had anything in mind it was that they should make for the cover of the dunes beyond the cottage. Once the alarm was given, the three might disperse in a frantic search for the fugitives. If this happened there might be a slender chance of escape, how slender he did not dare to think.

  Surely, by now, Jolly-Face had discovered their flight from the room upstairs. The broken door on the landing and the rope must have made the truth immediately apparent, and it was a little puzzling that he did not hurry down to take action, even if he had not yet realised that Kretchmann and Haller were back.

  Andrew waited, head raised so that he could just see the door of the cottage.

  At last the man emerged, still holding his automatic waist-high in front of him but with a vague abstracted look on his face; as if, under his breath, he was still trying to improvise something on the theme from Till Eulenspiegel. For a moment he paused and looked round him in a puzzled way. Either he did not care that the prisoners had escaped or he knew nothing of them. Then, suddenly, he turned and walked away in the direction of the sand dunes.

  Andrew thought quickly. The dunes were no longer a possibility. They could not stay indefinitely in the car. The only alternative was the windmill.

  He didn’t like it. They might simply be rushing from one trap into another. Besides, the door might not open. It could be locked or nailed up. But where else could they go? They would just have to take a chance. The enemy was pressed for time. They must sail at nightfall.

  “We’ll try the mill,” he whispered.

  “When?”

  “Ill give the word.”

  Kretchmann and Haller were close by now. The dull clunking sound of the full petrol tin against the bicycle grew louder and faded. Then after a moment or two there was the faint tinkling of a spanner on a cylinder block.

  Now, while the two were concentrating on the engine, was the time to move.

  “Now,” he said.

  Andrew got out of the car and closed the door soundlessly. Ruth followed him.

  They ran to the wall of the cottage, then halted for a moment.

  Haller was swinging the starting handle of the engine now. The engine fired once and then died. Andrew pressed Ruth’s arm and they went stealthily round the corner and along the front of the cottage, then ran the few remaining yards to their objective.

  In the last split second the question posed by the closed door seemed an enormity, so fateful that Andrew was afraid to grasp the handle, yet there could be no hesitation. He gripped and turned and pushed, and the door would not budge. He thrust with a shoulder, and it yielded, swinging in on creaking hinges.

  The relief was almost painful. He pushed Ruth through the opening, followed her, and closed the door slowly and quietly. His need now was for something with which to barricade the door, but, in the first moments, the darkness inside the mill seemed impenetrable. They waited, straining to accustom their eyes to the gloom. They were afraid to move because of possible obstructions and hazards of collapsed flooring or open traps. After a while they saw that there was a little light. Slats had rotted and broken away from the boarded windows, and the day seeped in through the gaps.

  They moved in from the doorway, testing the floor and finding it sound. Great rectangular shapes loomed in the heavy dusk, barring the way, and there were voices uttering inarticulate sounds of warning. Inside this place the grinding metallic noise caused by the shifting sail-frames was magnified enormously, and a hundred creaking and screeching overtones came down from the cap on the top of the structure to join in an eerie concert. The wind that blew gently from the sea was an orchestra in this sounding-tower, running a dynamic scale from a whisper of flutes to a gusty percussion, and sometimes there was a sound almost like a human cry for help.

  Andrew felt the girl’s hand on his arm. He pressed it with a reassurance he did not feel, then got his lighter out. The warmth of his body might have evaporated enough fuel for a momentary flame. The flame lasted three seconds, but in that time the rectangular shapes took a third dimension and became great wooden bins. A small square of dim light showed in the low ceiling and Andrew saw steps ascending. He began to drag one of the heavy bins towards the door, but a new sound, distinctive, standing out against the background concert, made him wheel. The hinges creaked. He drew Ruth closer towards him, and they both saw the door open; saw the figure of a man in the slot of light; saw the door close again.

  “The steps!” Andrew whispered. “We must climb to the next floor.”

  They moved silently. Then the beam of a torch cut across the darkness and travelled round the chamber. The two dropped down behind one of the bins. The beam travelled past them and was switched off. They waited. They heard no sound from the man, but they knew he was there with his automatic pistol held in front of him, guarding the door. A pause, and he came towards them. He bumped against one of the bins, but did not use his torch again.


  Andrew looked up at the square of dim light in the ceiling. The steps were there, only a few feet from them. The noises of the place would cover any sound they made. He touched Ruth’s hand, and she followed him, keeping close as he slowly proceeded, feeling his way cautiously, wary of obstacles. There was another long bin to conceal them, but when they reached the steps they were without any cover. He explored them quickly with his hand.

  “There’s no rail,” he whispered. “Be careful, and go quickly.”

  He was suspicious, fearing that the torch might spear through the darkness and pin them on that fixed ladder, but it did not happen. They reached the floor above without mishap, and, in a few seconds, had lowered a trap door into position and silently moved a heavy bin on top of it.

  There was more light on this floor, more gaps in the boarding of the windows, and they could see where they were. The bins were smaller than those below, and on one side was a small milling machine that had been worked by a driving belt from the next floor. A series of chutes also came down from the next floor, but Andrew was interested only in the tactical possibilities. They might ascend to the main grinding floors, and go higher still, past the great stones that had once pulverised the grain, till they reached the cap with its shafts and cranks and cogwheels.

  They peered up into the tower through the open trap above and heard the noises of the mill in louder concert. They were nearer the source of the creaking and groaning, and also it seemed that the wind from the sea was getting up a bit. The mill was more restive, straining as if it wanted to set its sails going again and its great stones turning.

  Ruth said: “If we have to go up there, I’m going to surrender.”

  “We’ll stay here,” Andrew promised her. There had been no movement of the bin, no attempt to lift the barrier, but this fact was not reassuring to Ruth.

  “We’re bottled up,” she said. “If they don’t make that engine work, we may be here all night.”

  “What about Charley Botten?” he said.

  “What, indeed?” she answered grimly. “That’s his friend downstairs, isn’t it?”

  Andrew was silent. He looked through a chink in one of the windows, but all he could see was the empty stretch of Groper’s Wade. The afternoon was dying gloomily. It would soon be time for the yawl to push off if Kretchmann was to fulfil his plan.

  He crossed to the opposite window and from there he could see the craft. Kretchmann and Haller were still working on the engine. They had been doing something to the magneto and were now replacing it. Haller was reaching down, working with a screw wrench. Kretchmann was fitting a lead from the distributor, to a sparking plug. When they had everything ready, Haller swung the starting handle, but the only improvement was that the engine gave an extra cough before it spluttered into silence. Haller swung the handle again and again, but it was hopeless, and by now they both knew it.

  They talked in German. Andrew strained to hear, but failed to catch a word. Kretchmann gestured widely, pointing to the sky, then waving towards the cottage. Haller nodded, but seemed reluctant about something. The tide was running out now, and Kretchmann had to step up onto the landing stage. He walked up the knoll and disappeared, and a moment later the sound of an engine revving came from the yard. Ruth, sitting on one of the bins in deep dejection, raised her head.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “That’s our car,” he answered. “It was Kretchmann who had the key. I think the yawl has beaten them. They’re going to run away.”

  The diagnosis was reasonably correct, but Kretchmann had not yet finished with the yawl. When Andrew looked again through his spy hole, the German was backing the car slowly down the knoll to bring it to the edge of the landing stage.

  What happened next made Andrew rub his eyes. He took another look, then beckoned to Ruth.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “I’d like to know,” he answered. “Either they’re mad or I am. They’re taking the ballast out of the yawl and loading it into the back of the car. Pig iron.”

  She stood beside him, peering through the gap in the boards. She saw the two men straining as they lifted the heavy bars of metal onto the landing stage and then into the car. Another, and another, and another… smeared with some black substance, filthy with oil and grease. They were careless of dirt; they were eager, concentrating on the job, heedless of everything but that grim-looking cargo.

  “Pig iron,” Ruth said. “Pig iron!”

  Then down the knoll walked Jolly-Face, still following the pointing muzzle of his automatic. When he was three yards from the car he called out something that the wind blew away from Andrew, but Kretchmann and Haller heard it, and Kretchmann turned as if he had been hit by a bolt of lightning. Jolly-Face raised his pistol and aimed it at Kretchmann’s head and Kretchmann and Haller lifted their hands up and reached high.

  Jolly-Face motioned sharply with his gun and shouted something. Andrew caught enough of the German to make out the whole of it. Kretchmann and Haller were to keep their hands high and get back in the boat.

  Kretchmann objected: “What are you going to do with us?” “You have no need to worry. I am not going to turn you adrift. The car-” Andrew missed what was said about the car, but heard something of what followed. “You will be extradited, no doubt. Belgian… looking for you… Kusitch.”

  Kretchmann argued sharply. “You can’t hold us. You’ve no warrant.”

  “This will do for a warrant.” Jolly-Face gestured with his pistol. “I will bring you the English police. With them you may discuss warrants. Meanwhile you will rest in the saloon of your treasure craft. March!”

  The plump little man and Charley Botten! Wartime colleague! So that was it!

  Andrew stood up.

  The little man had the controlling hand only so long as he kept the pistol pointed and his finger on the trigger. He was one against two, and Kretchmann was cunning, resourceful and ruthless.

  Kretchmann continued to argue. His purpose was clear. He was trying to distract Jolly-Face’s attention.

  Andrew ran to the trap door, dragged away the impeding bin, pulled up the barrier and picked up a hunk of wood.

  “Stay where you are!” he shouted at Ruth, and he had no thought but that she would obey him as he ran down the steps and blundered across the lower floor to the door. He heard her call after him but did not pause to answer. Jolly-Face was on his side, and the enemy were cornered. With the odds evened up, they could secure their prisoners. One could stay and make sure that they did not break out of the cabin while the other went for the police. But the first essential was to get Kretchmann’s gun away from him.

  As he came round the mill, Andrew knew he was too late. Haller was already in the well of the craft. Kretchmann sprang to join him, and as he landed appeared to stumble. He waved his hands as if to keep his balance, then fell forward. When he straightened up his revolver was in his hand.

  Running down the knoll, Andrew heard the first shot. He crouched, getting the car between himself and Kretchmann, but Kretchmann, possessed, saw only the man in front of him. But he fired four times before Jolly-Face jerked back on his heels, then pitched forward on his face and began to crawl towards the landing stage, dragging himself with insect movements nearer to the killer. The little man was like a crushed beetle and as harmless, for his unused pistol had gone spinning out of his hand. Kretchmann sprang from the well of the yawl onto the deck and fired again twice at the crawling man. Andrew left the cover of the car and dashed towards the landing stage. He was as safe in that moment as he might have been in a tank, for Kretchmann hadn’t seen him. But Haller had and scrambled from the yawl to meet him. Haller was eager, too eager. His foot slipped from under him as he touched ground. For an instant he was down on his knees; then, from the starting posture of a runner, he hurled himself forward. Andrew, in the moment of advantage, swung his club and caught Haller on the head. He saw the man spin and topple and fall back into the well of the yawl, but befor
e he could lift his club again he took a blow on his own head from the butt of Kretchmann’s empty revolver.

  For a fraction of a second his mind was a blank. He must have closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was struggling with Kretchmann, clawing and punching. His club was gone. He had only his hands, and his one thought was to avoid a second blow from the butt of the revolver. Wrestling, they reeled onto the landing stage, but by some miracle they stopped short of pitching into the creek. As they turned in frantic scuffle, Andrew caught a glimpse of the fallen Jolly-Face on the edge of the creek. The little man was motionless now. He lay prone with his head on one side and his face a smother of blood. Andrew was borne past him as Kretchmann made an effort. The two were off the landing stage. Then they tripped and, falling together, rolled in the sand.

  Andrew broke away and got to his feet. Kretchmann had lost the revolver now, and came at him with wild, slugging blows, making him retreat. Then Kretchmann’s left fist landed fairly, and Andrew went down, dazed and hurt and convinced that his jaw was broken; convinced, too, that the end would be brief and cruel. Kretchmann’s boots would break his body, or Kretchmann’s revolver butt would batter his brains out.

  But none of these things happened. Panting, almost breathless, Kretchmann moved towards the car. Andrew dragged himself round and lifted his hammering head to look. The picture was hazy, as though his eyes wanted co-ordination. Then it sprang into sharp definition, and he struggled to his feet to face a new fear.

  Ruth was there. She had come down the knoll from the mill and stood in the path of the killer. She bent down, reaching for something on the ground. The effect of casualness in the movement gave fantasy to the horror in Andrew’s mind. She might have been recovering a fallen penny or picking a buttercup, but when she rose again she had the automatic pistol in her hand and a finger on the trigger. She pointed it, but Kretchmann leaped at her and brushed her aside with a sweeping blow. He was reckless of death now. Perhaps he disbelieved in it. Twice the pistol had been dashed from a threatening hand, and he was alive, going forward. He threw no glance at the girl on the ground, nor was he to be detained by any thought of the unconscious Haller in the well of the yawl. He got into the car, started the engine, and drove slowly up the knoll and past the windmill.