by Nevil Shute
I moved up closer to the garden hedge and began to study the house intently. There were no lights showing now. I remember that I was very cold. I thought I could see that one of the windows of the morning-room was open; for what seemed an interminable time I stood leaning on the hedge, listening to the noises of the night, watching the house.
Presently a light flashed on in one of the upper windows, and almost at the same moment I saw Compton. He was standing on the lawn in the shadow of a clump of laurels; I saw him move silently across the grass and vanish into the shadow by the window.
I sighed with relief. The main part of my job was over; from now onwards I should be acting in a purely advisory capacity. I think I really believed that at the moment. As I have said, I was most frightfully tired.
I waited for a few minutes, then got through the hedge and crossed the lawn to the house. There was somebody standing at the unlighted window; as I drew near I saw it was Joan Stevenson.
‘Mr. Stenning,’ she whispered.
I got into the house through the window. It was then about twenty minutes past eleven.
CHAPTER TWO
AS soon as I got into the morning-room I made straight for the anthracite stove; I was nearly perished with cold from hanging about outside, though it was June. For some reason connected with the old man’s health a stove was kept burning in this room all through the summer; they had not turned on a light but had made up the stove to such an extent that it threw a warm glow all over the room. Compton was sitting on a chair in front of the stove clad only in a shirt, and pulling on a pair of very large grey flannel trousers. Miss Stevenson was moving quietly about the room in the semi-darkness collecting the materials for a meal. I stood warming myself by the fire, and for a time none of us spoke a word.
Compton finished his dressing, stood up, and turned to me. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said quietly, ‘but I never asked you your name.…’
‘Stenning,’ I said. ‘Philip Stenning.’
He nodded. ‘Yes. I don’t think I need try and tell you how grateful I am to you for—for this?’ He glanced at the table and the room.
‘I don’t think you need,’ I said, and laughed. ‘What comes next?’
He did not seem to have heard my question. He stood for a long time staring down at his own feet, warmly lit up in the glow from the stove.
‘What comes next?’ he said at last. ‘If I could tell you that I don’t suppose I should be—like this. Plato wanted to know that, didn’t he? and Sophocles—certainly Sophocles. But I’m so rusty on all that stuff now.’
‘Come and have some supper,’ said the girl from behind the table. ‘You must be frightfully hungry.’
He roused himself. ‘I’m not very hungry. But thanks, Joan. What’s that you’ve got there—ham? I’d like a bit of ham. And then I must cut off again.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said. ‘Where are you going to?’
He shook his head. ‘God only knows,’ he muttered. ‘I must lie low for a bit.’
I saw the girl pause in the dim light behind the table, and stare at him. ‘You must get out of the country somehow, Denis,’ she said. ‘You must get to France.’
He looked at her vaguely. ‘I suppose that’s the thing to do,’ he said at last. ‘But I’ve got to stay in England for the present.’
She looked at him in that uncomfortable, direct way that she had. ‘What do you mean—you’ve got to?’
He pulled out a chair from the table and sat down. ‘I don’t know if you imagine that I cut out of prison for fun,’ he said heavily. ‘Anyway—I didn’t.’ He relapsed into silence again, and sat for a time brooding with his eyes on the table.
The girl looked at me helplessly.
I cleared my throat. ‘I don’t want to butt in on any private business,’ I said. ‘But isn’t this going a bit slowly? I don’t want you to tell me anything that you’d rather not talk about before a stranger. But I owe you a good bit for what you did this afternoon, and I’m ready to help in any way I can. I’ve come here prepared to do so.’
I hope that I may be forgiven for that lie. I thought for a minute, and then continued: ‘I didn’t quite realise from what you said this afternoon that you really mean to stay in the country. I’ve been thinking about getting you out. I’ll even go so far as to say that I’m pretty sure I can get you to France within the week. I mean that. But if there’s any other way in which I can help I hope you’ll let me know.’
‘I don’t want to get you into trouble,’ he said.
‘It doesn’t matter a damn about me,’ I said. ‘But it seems to me that by staying in England you run a great danger of being caught again—in fact, it’s pretty long odds against you. But—from now onwards you’ve got to think about Miss Stevenson here. If they get you they’ll pretty certainly be able to trace out everyone who’s been in contact with you, and that may mean trouble. I understand that you got out of prison for some reason—and by the way, it would be interesting to learn how you did it. The point I want to make is that if you stay in England it’s up to you to avoid being caught, and it seems to me that that’s a far tougher proposition than getting you out of the country.’
‘I see what you mean,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, I see that.’
He turned from me to the table and began to eat. He had had no food for thirty-six hours, he said; at the same time, he had very little appetite and ate a surprisingly small meal. I mixed myself a stiff whisky and sat down by the fire, wondering what on earth was going to happen to this chap. Now that I had time to study him more closely, I liked the look of him. He was much my own build with very much the same hair and complexion, though his hair was short while mine was long and brushed back over my head.
The girl came and sat down opposite me, but we said very little till Compton had finished his meal. I sat drowsing in front of the fire, whisky in hand, and tried to think what was the best line to take if he insisted on staying in England. I wanted to help him. It wasn’t only that he had saved my life; I knew as I sat there in the warm darkness that I should have helped him anyway. I looked round the room in the red light of the stove; it was a comfortable, decently furnished place. I could imagine from the room something of the nature of the owner of the house, the girl’s father. He was a collector of mezzotints; they stared down from all the walls, some beautiful, more grotesque, all very old. He liked old blue china, did the owner of the house; he liked books more for their old calf and vellum bindings than to read. There were soldiers among his ancestors, for the walls were scattered here and there with swords and cases of medals, and over my head there was a framed scroll of honour.
I glanced again at the man at the table, and realised suddenly why it was that I should have helped him in any case. It was because he was so like myself; he was just such a man as I might have been if things had gone a little differently. I might have gone to Oxford too. My father was a naval officer, my mother was a lady of the chorus in a Portsmouth music-hall. It didn’t last long. Soon after I was born there was trouble. I never learned what happened to my mother, but whatever it was my father died of it—of that and of malaria on the China Station. I was brought up all anyhow. That’s what I mean when I say that I would have helped him in any case. It might have been me; it would have been me if I had been the son of Mary instead of the son of Martha. I was Martha all over; I laughed quietly to myself as I thought of the only poet I had ever read:
‘It is their care in all the ages to take the buffet and cushion the shock,
It is their care that the gear engages, it is their care that the switches lock.’
Yes, I was certainly Martha. I had thought that I was coming into this thing in a purely advisory capacity. I was wrong.
I finished my whisky in one gulp and sat up briskly, most frightfully bucked with life. I knew what we were going to do.
The girl noticed the movement, and asked me what was the matter.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘But I believe we can work this.’
Compton finished his meal and got up from the table. He turned to the girl. ‘I’m sorry to have come here like this, Joan,’ he said. ‘It’s a pretty rotten thing to have done, but I didn’t dare to go anywhere where they’d look for me. I don’t know if you believe I had that money or not. That isn’t the point, though. I’m sorry to have come here like this.’
‘I don’t believe you took a penny of it,’ she said. ‘I never did.’
He smiled queerly. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I did. I took five pounds to tide me over the week-end because I’d forgotten to cash a cheque. I left the account open—I had to, you see, or I wouldn’t have been able to put it back. I was away till the Thursday over that motor accident—as you know. But I never knew anything about the other three thousand; that went into the account on Monday and out again on Tuesday. I couldn’t have laid myself more open to it. At the same time, he was a clever fellow.’
I gathered that he had been secretary to some sort of charitable association. Charity, it was evident, had not begun at home.
I heaved myself up out of my chair, crossed to the table, and took another whisky. ‘We’ve not got too much time,’ I said. ‘Now look here. Is it quite definite that you’ve got to stay in England?’
He nodded. ‘I can’t leave England for the present,’ he said. ‘I’ve got one or two things that I must see to before I go.’
His manner of putting it made me smile; he might have been speaking of a business appointment. I think it must have been then that I began to realise that he really cared very little what happened to him. I think it was this very casualness that probably carried him through.
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Now there’s just one thing we have to think about, and that’s this. If you get caught it means trouble for all of us. You’ve simply not got to get caught. How long will it be before you can leave the country?’
He thought for a minute. ‘This is the 6th of June,’ he said. ‘The 15th.… I could leave England on the 18th. That’s in twelve days’ time, or Monday week.’
‘Do you think they’ve tracked you to this part of the country?’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘It’s very difficult to say,’ he said. ‘But I had the most extraordinary luck. I came here by road. I wasn’t out an hour before I got into the back of a motor-lorry that was coming from the prison; I stayed there for about two hours, till it was dark. I don’t think they saw me there. Then we stopped outside a pub; I waited till the coast was clear and got into a field. The pub was on the London road, I think, because presently a motor furniture van stopped for a drink and I heard them talking about London. They were driving all night. I got on top of that and stayed there till daylight; we weren’t far away from here then, on the Henley road. I followed along across country till I got to earth in those woods this morning at about six o’clock. I don’t think anyone saw me.’
I thought of the Stokenchurch constable and realised that if the country had been up in arms over an escaped convict in the neighbourhood I must surely have heard of it.
I drained my tumbler and slammed it down on to the mantelpiece with a sharp rap.
‘Now look here,’ I said curtly. ‘You’ve not got a dog’s chance, acting on your own. If you cut off now they’ll have you back in prison again within two days. There’s just one thing we can do for you that will give you a sporting chance. We’ve got to get the attention of the police off you and on to something else. We’ve got to lay a few red herrings. I think I’d better cut off to-night and start laying them.’
I don’t know to this day what made me say that. It may have been a sudden flash from the whisky; I know that the moment I had said it I wished I hadn’t. I wasn’t fit; I was still feeling rotten from the crash and I was most frightfully tired. But even so I was glad at the way the girl took me up.
She looked me straight in the face in that embarrassing way of hers. ‘What do you mean?’ she said.
I laughed, not very merrily. ‘Why, safety first. If he gets caught it’s all up with us—all the lot of us. We’re all in the same boat now. I don’t know if it would mean quod, but there’d be the hell of a scandal. Now I’m pretty much the same build as Compton. Look at me. Think if I had my hair cut and walked with a limp and wore clothes that didn’t fit me … I don’t say that anyone who had the photograph of Compton in his hand would mistake us for a minute. But for the others … I could lay a pretty hot scent.’
‘Oh …’ she said. ‘You can’t do that. It’s not safe.’
I took my glass and went and helped myself to another whisky.
‘It’s not safe to sit here doing nothing,’ I said shortly. ‘I could work out that scheme all right. If anyone’s got a better one, let’s have it.’
‘That might work all right for a day or two,’ said Compton slowly. ‘It doesn’t appeal to me much. But you couldn’t possibly keep it up; if you laid a strong enough trail to direct their attention to you they’d get you long before the 18th.’
I shot the whisky down and felt better. ‘I can fix that all right,’ I said. ‘And incidentally, I’ll get you over to France at the end of that time if you want to go.’
He eyed me steadily. ‘How would you do that?’
I set down my glass, feeling more myself than I had since the crash. ‘What I think of doing is this,’ I said slowly. ‘I start off from here and lay a trail to the coast—to Devonshire. I take two days getting down there, perhaps three. I can do that. I can fix it so that they’re damn certain they’re tracing you, and I can do it without being caught myself. In Devonshire I pick up a seven-ton yacht, the Irene, belonging to a pal of mine, and get away to sea on her.’
‘Oh …’ said Compton.
I thought for a little. ‘That would be about the 9th,’ I said. ‘I’d have to leave a pretty clear trail to show which way I’d gone, and get away to sea. Then I’d simply have to keep at sea till the 18th; it’s a long time to be single-handed in a small vessel, but I can do it all right. On the evening of the 18th I stand inshore, pick you up, and trot you over to France. Then I think I should cruise on up Channel for a bit to throw off the scent, and come back a week or so later.’
‘It’s possible,’ said Compton. ‘Where would you pick me up?’
‘The best place would be the Helford River,’ I said. ‘That’s near Falmouth, you know.’
We discussed the details of the business for half an hour or so. At last I got fed up.
‘Well, there it is,’ I said. ‘It’s a perfectly sound scheme and it’ll get you out of the country as soon as you’ve finished whatever it is you want to do.’ I looked at my watch; it was a quarter to one. ‘If I’m going to start off on this I must be well away from here by dawn,’ I said. ‘Now, what is it to be?’
Nobody spoke for a bit, and then Joan Stevenson said: ‘I can’t see why you should do all this for us, Mr. Stenning.’
‘Better to be doing this than to be dead,’ I said. I turned to the telephone. ‘That’s settled then. Now, I’ve got one or two things to fix up before I go. May I use your phone?’
We tied a table napkin round the bell to prevent it from ringing and then I got down to it. First I rang up Dorman, the owner of the Irene. He lives in a residential club near Marble Arch; they told me on the phone that he was out dancing and wasn’t back yet. I left a message for him to ring me up, and impressed its urgency on the porter.
Then I rang up Morris. It was no use trying the aerodrome at that time of night, of course, so I rang him at his home. The exchange said they couldn’t get any answer, but I kept them at it and got him in the end. He sounded pretty sleepy.
‘Hullo, Morris,’ I said, ‘having a good night? This is Stenning speaking—Stenning. Look here, I’m not coming back to work for a bit—I’m taking three weeks’ holiday. What? No, I’m not coming back to London at all. I’m tired to death. I can’t go on flying like this. I don’t care a damn about that. I’m sending you a report of the crash that you can send on to the Ministry. If you think
I’m coming up to Town simply to fill in one of your pink leave forms you’re ruddy well mistaken. I’m taking this leave on medical grounds. I’m not fit to fly for a bit. I told you I wasn’t fit. Now I’m going off for three weeks, as soon as I’ve sent you my report. No, I’m damned if I will.’
He asked where I was speaking from.
‘Giggleswick,’ I said at random, and rang off.
I turned to the girl. ‘May I have some paper and a pen, please?’ I said. ‘To write that report.’ I crossed to the table and took another whisky. ‘Then I shall want you to cut my hair for me, if you will.’
She brought me the paper from another room and I settled down at the table to write my report, the glass at my elbow. Compton and the girl sat by the fire close together, talking earnestly in a low tone. I didn’t pay much attention to them, but concentrated my attention on putting my report into official language for the benefit of the Ministry. Their conversation put me off; I never was very good at letter writing, and I don’t suppose I was at my best that evening. I didn’t try to follow what they were saying, but the name Mattani came up over and over again; it had a staccato ring that stood out clearly in their low murmurs. I finished my report at last, read it through, and was annoyed to find that I had said that the engine failed completely at a point about three miles south of Marazan. For a moment I stared at it blankly, wondering if Marazan was a place or a person. Then I struck it out, and wrote in Stokenchurch.
I put the report in an envelope, addressed it to Morris, and gave it to Joan Stevenson to post in the morning. Then I sat down in a chair and she cut my hair; for a first attempt she made a pretty good job of it. When she had finished I went and looked at myself in the glass.
‘I believe this is going to work all right,’ I said.
Then she got some warm water and bathed the cut over my eyebrow for me. It was a pretty deep cut, one that would serve to identify me for the remainder of my life, but it wasn’t bleeding and it looked healthy enough. She washed it in something that stung me up all right; then she put a bit of clean lint on it and stuck it up with plaster again. Then I changed clothes with Compton. When that was done I went and had another look at myself in the glass.