by Mike Dorrell
Barton pointed to the angle at the top of the fence. ‘Not with that overhang,’ he said flatly.
And so, still at a crouch, they moved on. After, a while, it was Snowey’s acute observation that provided them with a possible way in.
‘Look,’ he said.
Barton saw a slight depression in the ground, one which had possibly been caused by subsidence. There was a gap of approximately twelve inches between the lowest strand of wire and the earth.
‘It’s worth a try,’ Dick Barton announced. ‘Keep an eye open for the hounds of the Baskervilles.’
And with that, he began to wriggle under the gap in the fence while Snowey held the bottom up for him. As he gripped the barbed wire, ex-sergeant White looked keenly this way and that along the fence.
‘How the humble grass snake gets around has always been a mystery to me,’ Barton said, as lying on his belly, he worked his way through. Then he paused. ‘Unhook the Harris tweed there, Snowey, will you?’
Carefully, Snowey did as he was asked. ‘There you go, sir. All clear now.’
‘Good man.’ Dick Barton then continued to work his way along the ground, and, eventually, he cleared the fence.
‘Now your turn, Snowey-me-lad,’ he said when he was through.
Snowey was still on the other side of the barbed wire. ‘I was afraid of that,’ he commented as he looked down at the narrow gap. Then, with Dick Barton holding up the bottom strand for him, Snowey started his crawl.
‘I think you’ve put on a bit of weight, Snowey, since your demob,’ Barton said when Snowey appeared to be having some difficulty.
‘You may have something there, sir,’ came the reply. ‘But it ain’t from easy living.’
Soon, Snowey joined Barton on the inside of the fence. They crouched down together.
‘Now the fun really starts. Come on, Snowey,’ Barton said as he began to crawl forward towards the edge of the quarry. Snowey followed him.
‘Cor lumme, guvnor.’
Dick Barton agreed with Snowey’s expression of amazement, even if he would have put it with more aplomb. They were staring down into the quarry, after having made sure that they could not be seen. And what they could see was extremely sinister.
In the foreground stood another Oriental man. He was not the guard they had escaped from earlier, but was obviously of higher rank – possibly an officer. His uniform was covered with insignia, and his bearing indicated that he was used to authority. He was calling out an order in a foreign language. Dick Barton was too far away to catch the exact phraseology.
Behind the officer, a body of men were drawn up for inspection. Barton reckoned that there must be at least twenty of them. All were carrying arms and wore the same distinctive uniform, as if they had been stamped with approval by the renegade Hetherington and the arch criminal Melganik.
The officer walked up and down inspecting the men, making comments here and there. There was no lack of discipline, even if the intention behind their concealment in a disused quarry in North Wales was not exactly democratic.
In the background, behind the rows of armed Orientals, Dick Barton noticed several army lorries drawn up in a neat row. He turned to Snowey White and raised an eyebrow.
‘Regular private army, if you ask me, sir,’ Snowey commented.
‘As well as being extremely sinister and strictly illegal under the Street Assemblies Act,’ Dick Barton replied.
There was a pause before Snowey spoke again. ‘You reckon this is where they brought that Mr Marley the crooner, sir?’
‘That’s exactly what we have to find out, Snowey,’ Dick Barton said. ‘First objective – get inside.’
Snowey glanced down at the activity taking place on the floor of the quarry. The formation of men lined up in front of the officer was beginning to break up. ‘Easier said than done,’ he remarked.
‘I don’t know about that,’ Dick Barton answered. ‘Look.’ He pointed down to the quarry floor where Snowey had just been watching.
Some of the guards were taking up positions at the entrance to the quarry. But what was more interesting to Dick Barton was that another group of men were moving towards a vast iron door set in a fissure in the rock wall. It was on this door that he concentrated his attention.
‘There’s obviously something going on underground here, Snowey,’ Barton said after a while. ‘And that’s the main entrance to wherever it takes place.’
Snowey was still dubious: ‘No chance of getting in there, sir. Look at them blooming Chink guards.’
But Barton had already taken into account the armed Orientals on each side of the vast door. He was thinking of other possibilities. ‘There must be another entrance, Snowey, however unorthodox.’
They both began to look around the immediate area. Snowey hoped that the governor was right. If he was, then it wouldn’t be the first time.
Some distance back over the bleak hills, Jock Anderson sat at the wheel of the Riley Monaco, nervously drumming his fingers against the leather cover. Virginia Marley sat in the passenger seat beside him. There was a silence between them.
‘What’s the time, miss?’ Jock asked after a while.
Virginia looked at her wrist watch. ‘Five o’clock,’ she replied.
Jock looked into the distance to see if there was any sign of Barton and Snowey. There was nothing, only a looming Welsh mist, and somewhere behind it, the sun was beginning to sink in the evening sky. ‘They’ve been gone an hour now,’ Jock muttered.
Virginia’s anxiety showed more plainly: ‘I do hope they’re all right,’ she said.
Jock turned in the driving seat so that he was facing Virginia. ‘Mr Barton looks like a gentleman who can look after himself all right.’
‘Oh yes!’ Virginia agreed quickly. Then she paused before she spoke again. ‘But it’s got so much more complicated than it seemed at first. And dangerous.’
Once more, Jock Anderson peered out across the surrounding hills.
Dick Barton had found what he was looking for. His close scrutiny of the ground where he and Snowey were watching the activity in the quarry below had paid dividends.
‘And this looks like it, Snowey my boy,’ he announced.
Snowey didn’t know what his ex-captain was talking about. ‘What looks like which, sir?’
‘Our unorthodox means of entry,’ Dick Barton explained as he pointed to where, a few yards away, a concrete ring of about a foot high and a little wider in diameter was set into the ground. ‘Man cannot live by bread alone,’ the special agent continued. ‘Not even Mr Charles Hetherington. He also needs oxygen.’
Snowey looked at the shaft. He reckoned it was about two feet wide. He wondered about it. Then, he looked up at Dick Barton. ‘You think it’s a ventilation-shaft like, sir?’
‘Very like,’ Barton replied. ‘Come on.’
They began to approach the shaft. Leaning over the edge, Dick Barton peered down. He could hear a faint noise through the silence. ‘Yes,’ he said to Snowey ‘Listen.’
Then it was Snowey’s turn to lean over the edge. Somewhere, very far away, there came the sound of something like machinery. ‘Sort of humming noise,’ he commented.
‘Right,’ Dick Barton agreed. ‘An exterior fan unless I’m very much mistaken.’ He pointed towards the shaft. ‘How’s your claustrophobia, Snowey?’
‘Coming along nicely, thank you, sir.’
‘Good,’ came the reply. ‘Come on then.’ Dick Barton looked quickly around and began to lower himself into the shaft. It looked like being a tight fit.
Then, as Barton squeezed himself further into the shaft, he heard Snowey’s voice from above: ‘If you wouldn’t mind just passing along the bus there, sir.’
‘What’s up?’
Snowey glanced once more over his shoulder, and he didn’t like what he saw. The Oriental guard with the two Alsatians straining at the leash was about one hundred yards away. He didn’t appear to have seen them – yet.
‘Our chum wi
th the dear little doggies is on his way round again,’ Snowey answered.
Barton looked up quickly. ‘I see what you mean, Snowey,’ he said as his head disappeared. ‘Come on in – the water’s fine.’
Snowey misunderstood the quip. ‘Water – too?’ he began to complain. ‘Oh well – nor more nor what I’d expect.’
Then, as the guard drew closer, Snowey also disappeared into the shaft.
Their progress was painful. Twice, Snowey barked his shins badly, and the rough concrete sides of the shaft weren’t exactly easy on his hands, either. Still, Dick Barton was making his way ahead without complaining, as Snowey followed gamely on.
‘We’re in luck, Snowey,’ Dick Barton announced from the darkness.
‘You could have fooled me, sir.’
There was a pause. Then Barton’s voice came again through the blackness; ‘The shaft bends here and seems to go diagonally.’
Snowey wasn’t beyond irony, even in the dark. ‘Oh good,’ he commented. ‘Join the army and see the world; get demobbed and see the inside of a ventilation shaft under a ruddy quarry in the middle of nowhere.’
‘Sshh!’ Dick Barton’s warning came through the darkness in the confined space.
Snowey glanced upward and saw the silhouette of the guard peering down the shaft. The Alsatian dogs were whining and growling somewhere up ahead.
Snowey squeezed himself around the bend and held his breath. After a while, he heard the sound of the dogs gradually fade into the distance. He let out a sigh of relief.
‘I thought we were going to be a dog’s breakfast for a minute,’ he said to Dick Barton after the danger had passed.
‘Not a pleasant thought, eh?’ came the reply from up ahead. -Let’s get going.’
Once more, they resumed their painful progress along the shaft.
From the passenger seat of the Riley Monaco, Virginia Marley glanced out over the surrounding hills. There was no sign of Dick Barton or Snowey. The immediate landscape looked forbidding. There was no shelter or signs of civilisation anywhere on the hills. For a moment, she wished that she was back in the comfort of her father’s London home.
She looked at her watch. ‘They’ve been gone an hour and a half now Jock,’ she said to the mechanic, who was still sitting by her side.
‘Aye,’ Jock replied thoughtfully. ‘Will I go up yon rise and have a wee look?’
‘No – don’t leave me,’ Virginia said. She was surprised by the intensity in her own voice. ‘This place is beginning to give me the creeps.’
A glimmer of light attracted Dick Barton’s attention. He stopped going forward along the shaft. He could hear Snowey still scraping his way along behind.
‘Hold it, Snowey,’ he said. ‘We seem to have arrived somewhere.’
The noise of Snowey moving stopped. Dick Barton could feel his presence close behind. He now looked in the direction of the light. It came in squared patterns through the metal chequerboard of a ventilation grille set into the side of the shaft. He moved closer. The shaft itself continued on around a bend, but the grille looked out on to a corridor hewn from the living rock. The corridor itself curved sharply so that he could not see very far.
Even so, Dick Barton could make out a couple of metal doors set in the walls. For the moment, there was no one around. The corridor was deserted and silent except for the faint but pervasive hum of the ventilation system.
As he grasped the grille with both hands, Dick Barton said: ‘If we can just shift this thing it may be our way in.’
From behind the ex-captain, Snowey could make out nothing at all. Dick Barton’s shape blotted out the light. ‘Pardon me for being so inquisitive, sir,’ he said. ‘But what thing?’
Barton shifted slightly to allow Snowey a glimpse of the object that he was talking about. ‘Sorry, old son,’ he replied. ‘Forgot your view was somewhat restricted. There’s a grille here leads into some sort of corridor.’ A silence followed as he grabbed hold of the grille again. It began to shift slightly in its mounting. ‘Ah ...’
Dick Barton pulled at the grille once more. ‘I think we’re going to be in luck,’ he told Snowey. Then the grille came away in his hands.
Darkness was beginning to come down over the Welsh mountains. Jock Anderson stood by the side of Dick Barton’s car, looking anxiously in the direction of the Llanechbrantiog quarry, the hideout of master criminal Melganik, and the renegade Hetherington. There was no sign of Barton and Snowey.
Virginia Marley got out of the car and came over to stand beside Jock. Together, they walked over to the brow of a knoll from where they could get a better view of the quarry. No one came towards them. Virginia looked at her watch. She saw Jock look down towards her. They didn’t speak.
The grey rock walls of the bare corridor stretched away, on either side. There was a bare concrete floor, and nothing that indicated any activity – for the moment. Dick Barton watched alertly as Snowey White climbed down towards him. They took care to leave the metal grille in place. It was not their intention to inform anyone of their whereabouts.
‘Well,’ Dick Barton said as he glanced around the corridor. ‘You pays your money and you takes your choice.’
‘I’d say this way, sir,’ Snowey replied as he pointed to the left. ‘So far as I can get my bearings that seems to be the direction of those big doors in the quarry.’
‘You may be right, Snowey,’ Dick Barton said thoughtfully. Then, he held up a hand for silence.
Snowey listened carefully. From some distance away, he heard the sound of marching feet. The sound was coming towards them. He looked to where Dick Barton was standing.
‘Our choices have become somewhat more limited than we’d imagined,’ the special agent declared. He pointed towards one of the steel doors set in the wall. ‘In here – quick!’
Dick Barton quickly grasped the handle of the metal door nearest to him. But it was of no use. The door was firmly locked. ‘Try the other,’ he said to Snowey.
Snowey did as Barton ordered. The door opened slowly. The room inside was dark, but there was no time to hesitate. They dived inside, and Dick Barton left the door open slightly so that he could see who was approaching.
The tramp of feet came nearer. And nearer. From his position, Barton could make out about a dozen Oriental soldiers in a double file. They passed so close that he could almost feel their breath. They were totally inscrutable, their faces expressionless. Each one wore the uniform with the ideogram on the armband. And each carried a sten gun.
With relief, Dick Barton watched the soldiers file slowly past. He turned to Snowey and spoke softly: ‘Well, our oriental friends seem to have gone on their way.’
‘Just as well, sir,’ Snowey replied. ‘Nasty blighters, if you ask me. Don’t have the respect for human life like we do. Something to do with their religion, I daresay.’
Dick Barton agreed with the views expressed by his ex-sergeant. ‘That and there being so many of them,’ he said. Then, he paused and looked around in the dark. ‘While we’re here we may as well have a dekko. Seen anything of a light switch?’
Snowey’s reply came out of the blackness. ‘I ain’t seen anything except the end of my nose for the last five minutes, sir. And even that’s a bit dim.’
‘Must be a switch somewhere,’ Dick Barton declared. ‘Feel around the door.’
And then, with startling suddenness, another voice cut through the darkness.
‘Perhaps I can be of some assistance, Mr Barton?’
A blaze of light illuminated the room. For a moment, neither Barton or Snowey could make out anything at all. Gradually, they became accustomed to the new conditions. And found that they were formidable.
The room was a vast cavern hewn out of the rock. It would have been intimidating enough in its size alone. But, at the far end of the room were several occupants that made it even more so. The first of these was Hetherington, he was sitting on a chair on a raised dais. Behind him was a gigantic map of the British Isles that alm
ost covered the wall. To his side were two guards with sten guns. The guns were pointed at Dick Barton and Snowey.
Glancing around the room, Dick Barton saw that there were other guards with guns. The direction in which they trained their stens was the same.
‘Well, well, well,’ Dick Barton said casually. ‘We meet at last, Mr Hetherington.’
Hetherington rapped out an order to the guards in reply: ‘Take them!’
Half a dozen guards began to advance on the special agent and his friend.
‘Action stations, I think, Snowey, don’t you?’ Dick Barton said.
‘Looks like it, sir,’ came the reply. ‘There’s only half a dozen of them.’
The guards continued to advance.
Is this the end for Barton and Snowey? How can they escape from traitor Hetherington’s underground lair?
Read the next chapter of Dick Barton – Special Agent.
Chapter Eight
Dick Barton and Snowey White, in their efforts to free Rex Marley, the drug-addict crooner, from the clutches of Dmitri Melganik, have penetrated the very heart of his sinister organisation – an underground complex in Wales at which the renegade M.P. Charles Hetherington trains his private army. Hetherington and his oriental guards are waiting for them ...
Now read on...
‘Right!’
Fists up in the classic Marquis of Queensberry manner, Dick Barton and Snowey stepped out to meet the first two of the advancing Oriental guards.
Dick Barton delivered a straight right to the jaw to the guard nearest him. Snowey, who was proving to be slightly more adept in this combat, inflicted a right to an oriental solar plexus, and then floored his opponent with a left hook.
Hetherington, who had been watching the struggle with a slightly amused expression on his face, now became more serious. He frowned as the other guards began to unsling their sten guns. ‘No! I want them alive,’ he ordered. Then, he turned to the two guards standing on either side of him. ‘Heng, T’sien.’
These two leapt down from the dais, discarding their guns as they did so. The other guards fell back, smiling smugly as they retreated.