“On we go,” I said, “and from now on — extra carefully. We must not, repeat not, be seen.”
“Check,” Jagger said.
We began to close that tractor. I think they were having trouble with the cargo, for every now and again it appeared that they had stopped. When they neared Loch Cuillart they headed around to the left of the water, towards a tree-covered hill which sloped right down to the lochside. They passed behind this hill with Jagger and me about a quarter of a mile in rear of them. When we had made it round the hill, the whole lot had disappeared.
I put out a hand to Jagger and we stopped. I pulled him into the cover of the trees and we stayed dead still and quiet. We looked and saw nothing, we listened and heard nothing. It was eerie, uncanny. Only minutes before, there had been a tractor and live men and a giant-size sheep. I decided we could risk climbing through the trees to the top of the hill, where we might get a more rewarding view of something or other. This we did. We didn’t get a view of anything at all apart from the trees and the loch, and a medium-size house on the loch’s far side — standing out under the moon, which had now, rather unkindly, come out from the cloud. I had seen that house before, on my Fesse-searching expeditions during the last couple of days. It had obviously been a farmhouse, or perhaps they would have called it a croft, but I’d had the impression it was now a gentleman’s residence because there had been no farm machinery around and the place had a tidied-up look about it. Since the sheep and the tractor had led us to the lochside, and that house appeared to be the only one for miles around, l supposed it could be Fesse’s pied-à-terre in Scotland. But this seemed somewhat unlikely, since, if it had been, his address would have been unlikely to have remained a secret from poor Morag in the Balnachan hotel, let alone her uncle the Croughan policeman. I would have thought that in these parts everybody knew everybody else’s business, but I could have been dead wrong. Dourness could hide many secrets. But Fesse wasn’t a Scot and in a land where even the poor wretched Sassenach is a foreigner of the deepest dirty dye …
“We’re wasting time,” Jagger hissed in my ear, making me jump.
“What else do you suggest?”
“A search, down below there. The thing can’t just have vanished.”
I said, “We have to think this out before rushing in. What could have happened to it, d’you think?”
I saw the pale shine on Jagger’s face as moonbeams came through the firs. He said, “How should I know, sailor? A pit, a tunnel in the side of the hill, or just cover behind some thick trees.”
“The last is the most feasible, I suppose, but where do they go from there? Fesse can’t operate from behind a tree, presumably.”
Jagger gave a sigh and said, “All this could be a red herring. Just a dumping ground for that murdered sheep. Fesse could be miles away.”
I nodded. “Perfectly true. But remember the sheep came from this direction initially. So did the gunmen. Even if we haven’t reached journey’s end, I feel we must be on the right track, Jagger. If we —”
“Shut up!” Jagger hissed suddenly. “Listen!” A moment later he got down and lay flat on the ground. Puzzled, I did likewise. When I’d done it I felt the hairs rising and a prickle running along my spine. There was a distinct tremor running through the ground beneath me, through the hilltop, and a vague sound that I couldn’t possibly identify came faintly to my ears. After a couple of minutes the tremor ceased, and so, half a minute after, did the sound. I stood up. “Jagger,” I said, “that’s it. I don’t know what’s going on beneath, but we’ve come to the right place without a doubt.”
“The tractor’s gone under the hill, d’you think?”
“Yes. We’ll give it a little longer, then we’ll go down and take a good close look. In the meantime — no talking and no movement.”
I gave it a full hour, determined to make things as safe and certain as possible. I watched that wicked moon move along the sky, passing from time to time behind heavy cloud and then emerging again, cockily, seeming to grin down upon us as though we could never steal a march upon its scheming. As the minutes passed, so slowly, I developed a hatred for the moon, so remote, so unassailable, so unfeeling for what it had done and was continuing to do to Britain. But perhaps it served the earth right, for mucking around in alien spheres and bringing back things which we were incapable of taking in our stride. If men had lived upon the moon, and had reached our own advanced stage of technological progress, and had ever come down here, and had then taken back something like flu or measles, it might have had a devastating effect upon their populations. Whatever this moon-borne disease was, its antidote was very likely up there on that shining surface, sailing in majesty through the space-night. It might be easily coped with — up there.
I planned what we should do when we found the entry to the hill, or rather I ran through the possibilities, for the actual execution must depend on what we might find. We might find nothing. Fesse would naturally take pains to hide his activities and his animal corpses and there would be nothing with Welcome on the mat. If we failed to find any openings, at least we knew the location. Knowing that, the best bet might be to beat it back for the car and Balnachan and get a call through to Focal House or the Home Office. An airborne regiment could be dropped within hours — provided the wheels of Government could be made to turn fast — complete with armour and guns and rockets. They could have this hill laid bare in no time at all, and the whole of the loch ringed. When Fesse saw the game was up and his base in military hands, he might well talk about antidotes. Besides, I would still be around myself, and I wouldn’t let the army take over the questioning. I knew a thing or two about making men talk, but my methods were not the army’s. I preferred mine; they were much more effective. They would be even more effective since I had seen old Tam die, and because I remembered Claire and Morag.
Somewhere in the trees, a night-bird squawked and Jagger gave a gasp of fright. Shakily he said, “Sailor. I’m getting cramp. Can’t we make a move now?”
I looked again at my watch: it was in fact just on the hour since the sounds had stopped. I said, “All right. Take it slow. No noise, not even cracking twigs if you can help it.” We moved down, very carefully, inch by inch. We made scarcely a sound to disturb the night. The moon was having one of its periods of visibility, which helped a lot, but when we had reached the bottom it withdrew its assistance behind yet another huge cloud and we groped in total dark. However, we moved on through the trees, came into the clearing that the tractor must have used for its passage with the sheep, followed this clearing round in a bend, and came to the blank side of the hill. Somewhere, there had to be tracks. I put my mouth against Jagger’s ear and whispered. “I’m going to risk a spot of light,” and then I switched on my torch, holding it close to the ground so that it gave no more than a small pool of yellow.
If there were any tracks. I couldn’t find them. I took another chance and shone the torch along the face of the hill. It was scrub-covered and apparently intact, no openings anywhere. Clever, but nothing is so clever, so foolproof, that it can’t be bust by diligence and wily thought. We crept along, looking, feeling, being diligent and thoughtful. But not wily enough. As I took a step along below the side of the hill something moved with vicious snapping suddenness beneath my foot and the most excruciating agony shot through my leg. I yelped and fell. Jagger gave a hoot of near panic and jumped a mile.
“It’s a bloody man-trap,” I said between my teeth. I felt for my leg. Blood was streaming down into my shoe. Steel jaws bit right into the bone. Jagger said, “Oh, God … I’ll see if I can pull it out.” He scrabbled around in the earth and contacted the jaws, but it would have taken a blacksmith to open that thing without the key. I was starting to feel sick and faint. I heard Jagger panting as he ran a hand along the securing chain, trying to find where the thing was anchored into the ground. After a moment he said, “It’s no good, it’s set in a block of concrete.” Then, from inside that hill, I heard the ringing
of a bell.
I said, “That’s the alarm. Beat it, Jagger — fast as you can.”
He tried to be a hero, bless him. “I can’t possibly leave you,” he said in a high voice.
“Jagger,” I said harshly, as waves of pain hit me. “do as you’re bloody-well told. Beat it. Get back to the car. Ring Max for me. Bring the troops in. Get the hell out.”
He went. I lay there in pain and a muck-sweat, waiting. Praying that Jagger would make it.
*
I didn’t pass out, as I had felt I was about to. They came for me without much delay. Jagger had only been gone about a couple of minutes when something curious happened to the ground half-a-dozen yards away from me. A portion of it rose into the air on the end of a thick stalk. When it was around six feet up in the air, there was a clunking sound and it stopped. I heard booted feet on metal and from a black hole a man climbed out with a gun, and another came out behind him, then another. They stood looking down at me, in silence at first, just holding the guns on me in the light of a torch. I couldn’t see their faces. Then one of them asked, in a Scots accent, who I was and what I was doing.
I said, “The name’s Jones and I’m picking flowers.”
“Aye. An’ I’m Mac Aspirin, come for a pee in the loch.”
“Same thing,” I said. “Where were you educated?”
They moved in then. The man who had spoken before said, “You’ve fallen into bad trouble, friend. I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but the fact is, you’re staying a while.”
“Till when?” I asked.
“No more questions.” The man bent, while the other two kept me covered. The first man searched me thoroughly and removed my gun. As he did so I saw his face in the torch-light. It was bearded, and tanned where it wasn’t bearded, and seamed with tiny broken veins. He wore a deer-stalker. He looked like a farmer — or should I say crofter. I smelt damp Harris tweed. He brought something out of a capacious poacher’s pocket and there was a click when he inserted this something into a part of the trap. There was a sickening sensation as the jaws opened and the teeth moved out of my bone and flesh. I felt more blood run down and another wave of nausea passed through me. I retched.
“Hold it!” the Scotsman said angrily. He dodged back, but I wasn’t sick. He reached out and helped me to my feet. I staggered; I couldn’t put too much weight on the bad leg, which was the right one. Then something seemed to strike the man, because he asked, “Were you alone?”
“Yes. Quite alone.”
“You’re telling the truth?”
“Yes.”
He moved away from me a little, then suddenly turned and lashed out viciously with his boot. It took me right where the trap had bitten and I went down and, this time, out for a spell. When I came round the Scot was looking into my eyes. “Are you still telling the truth?” he asked.
I said, “Yes.”
“You’d better be, but I’ll not chance it.” He moved to the hole in the ground and called down it. Four more men came up, all armed to the teeth. The bearded man said, “Wide spread, pronto. All the way to the road, and then along it both ways. And don’t forget the Balnachan road from the intersection.”
They moved off fast, into the night with their guns. I prayed again that Jagger would make it. I felt he had a real chance, because he was built for swiftness and was unencumbered. And he had a start and he had the Maxi once he got that far. When the hunters had gone, the others man-handled me towards the hole, where the stalk was still in the up position, and helped my good foot onto the metal treads of a vertical ladder. From below, more hands guided me. This place, whatever it was, was well manned. I went down into darkness and the others followed and when we were all down the machinery started up and the stalk descended. The faint loom of outside light from the moon vanished as the circle of earth slotted back into place with a repeat of the clunking noise and then an electric light was flicked on. I looked around. I was in a kind of entry chamber, rather like the escape hatch of a submarine, though on this occasion escape wasn’t the right word and this compartment was much bigger. Anyway, it was circular and it was steel lined and there was a hatch set into the side. One of the men opened up this hatch and I was ordered through ahead of the guns. With assistance, I did as I’d been told, though it wasn’t easy. I banged my leg going through and more pain followed. I found I was in a long tunnel, tube-shaped, but not this time lined with metal. Here they had used concrete and the tunnel had the look of something that had been there a long time. It was damp and covered with a sort of green mould and it smelt terrible. The air was really foetid. It was a fitting breeding-ground for the disease, all right. A little way along the tunnel a flight of concrete steps ran upwards, but I couldn’t see where to; evidently there was another chamber up top, probably the one in the hill itself from where Jagger and I had heard the sounds earlier. No doubt there was a concealed entry in the hillside that had been used for the ingress of the tractor and its cargo; but I wasn’t going to ask any questions just yet, however curious I was — and of course I was, very. I hadn’t yet reached the end of the line and I wasn’t going to admit too soon to having seen any tractors or king-size sheep corpses. Fesse just might have gone back to Cambridge, and in his absence I just might be able to persuade his gunmen into a belief in my basic innocence. I doubted it very strongly, but there was always the hope.
I asked, “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
As I limped bloodily on and on, the tunnel took a slight dip and seemed to grow damper. I guessed we were passing beneath the loch. Heavy insulated cables ran along the tunnel, three of them in a group, and at intervals along the way there were overhead lights behind metal guards. In the part beneath the loch several doors opened off, but they were all currently tight shut and, again, I was determined not to show any curiosity. But I did start to show a little remonstrance, as an innocent man would as soon as pain permitted him to think straight. I blustered and threatened them with the police, apologized for any inadvertent trespass, said I would willingly make good any damage or financial loss consequent upon any such trespass.
They just laughed, because in their book innocent men didn’t carry armaments, and I got a biff in the back from a gun-barrel.
I reckon that tunnel was all of three miles long. When we came to a solid door at the end, I was in a pretty bad way. My leg was agony and I’d lost quite an appreciable amount of blood. I found it needed an effort of will to go up the steps that were revealed when the door swung open, but of course I made it. I had to. Once again we came into a sort of entry chamber, but I didn’t go up any higher. A side hatch was opened and I was told to go through I did, and the hatch door was clipped shut behind me. I heard the men going up the metal ladder as the stalk rose, then I heard a clunk similar to the one at the other end. There was barely room to move in my compartment, let alone lie down. There was no light either. I adopted a half sitting, half crouching posture, and, once again, I waited.
*
They left me in that damned hole for a long while — till my watch showed 1000 hours next day, in fact. The result was that I couldn’t get out because of cramp. They had to pull and roll me out and when I finally came clear I found I was in an undignified huddle at Fesse’s feet.
Fesse jeered. “You are a man, or a mole?”
I said, “Get stuffed.”
He laughed, still jeering. “That will not help you.”
“What will, Fesse?”
“We shall see.”
“We will, won’t we.” I thought of telephones ringing in Focal House, in the Cabinet room, in the Ministry of Defence, in Northern Command headquarters, in battalion offices. Quite a lot of telephones, for the chain of command was a long one. So was the chain of decision. I could only hope it wasn’t too long and that the thing would swing into operation before I died, for death was quite obviously written into Fesse’s mind. I thought with intense pleasure of the arrival of the Queen’s soldiers an
d I thought, retrospectively as it were, God save the Argylls. They would enjoy dealing with this lot. Of course, it all depended on Jagger, but I tried not to think too much about that. As it happened, though, I was forced to. Fesse was about to say something further in response to my last remark when the door from the long tunnel opened and Jagger was thrust through.
He looked dead-beat.
Fesse said, “This, you did not expect, my dear Shaw.”
I said no, I didn’t. I asked, “What happened, Jagger?”
Dismally Jagger said, “I got lost. I’m terribly sorry. I wandered around all bloody night and then I was picked up.”
I felt unkind. I snapped, “In that case, you’d have been a fat lot of good if you had got away. You’d have got the army lost as well.”
Jagger flushed, and I felt sorry right away. He’d done his best; so had I, but we’d both come unstuck. We were quits, really. I apologized, and then looked at Fesse, and managed to stagger upright. Holding onto the central stalk — it rose right through the floor — I asked, “What do you mean to do with us?”
Fesse’s thick body exuded power. He said, “Put you to good use. You will fit into my plans quite well.”
“The plans in regard to the disease? You’re responsible for that, aren’t you, Fesse?”
He nodded. “Yes, I admit it.”
“But why, Fesse? Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“It is a long story.”
“That doesn’t bother me.”
Fesse smiled understandingly and said, “Have patience. I shall explain as we go along.”
“As we go along what?”
“As the experiments proceed. You have come here at a convenient time, Shaw. Convenient for me, that is. You see — if I may explain a little — there is a noticeably different reaction which I cannot yet explain, in the disease as planted in animals and as planted in humans. That we are all animals is of course a fact, so what I say may sound contradictory — in terms of this earth, that is. Remember the disease comes from the moon, so we must think of it in moon, and not earth, terms. I think you will follow. I say again, there is so much that is still unknown.”
Hartinger's Mouse (Commander Shaw Book 12) Page 11