Black August

by Dennis Wheatley

  Ann screamed again and, forgetful of her weariness, ran and ran until she was clear of the hedgerows and out once more upon the open heath. There she collapsed and fell into a ditch, lying sobbing for several moments.

  Rocking from side to side, moaning a little from acute bodily distress and terrified that she might fall asleep, she began to massage the aching muscles in her legs, then recognising a cottage opposite suddenly realised that she could now be no more than three miles from her goal.

  As she got on her feet something rustled in the bushes at her rear, only a stoat or rabbit perhaps but, terrified by her recent experience, she dashed off down the road.

  She was drunk now, drunk with terror and fatigue, but somehow she staggered on, every thought blotted out from her exhausted brain but that they meant to burn Kenyon unless she could reach Ipswich in time.

  Suddenly she realised that she was no longer walking through open country. Houses were upon either side. Her mind cleared for a space, and she shook her head violently from side to side. Then as she looked round she knew that she could not be dreaming. The electric tramwires were overhead.

  This was Ipswich, but the suburbs seemed interminable and her feet like leaden weights as she dragged them one after the other. There were lights ahead and she groped on towards them but, when she was only a few yards from the barrier which they illuminated, all strength seemed to leave her and, pitching forward on her face, she lay gently moaning in the gutter.

  A man came forward and, stooping, gripped her by the arm. He shook her roughly and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ he said sharply, ‘you must go back where you came from unless you live in the town.’

  ‘Communists,’ muttered Ann, ‘they’re going to burn them.’

  ‘Eh! what’s that?’ he questioned with a quick glance. ‘Where have you come from?’

  ‘Shingle Street,’ she flung at him with a desperate effort. ‘They’ll be burnt alive unless you take me to the Town Hall.’

  ‘All right, pull yourself together, it isn’t far.’

  Ann remembered nothing of the last part of her journey. Her mind was blank until she stood, supported by the man who had found her and another, before a bald man at a desk in a bare, ill-lighted room.

  He pressed her for her story, but her memory and even her power of speech had almost gone. ‘Communists, Mutineers, they’ll burn them alive if you don’t send help, Shingle Street’ Shingle Street,’ was all that she would mutter over and over again.

  Limp and utterly exhausted she sagged upon the arms of the two men until at a gesture from their superior they led her to a chair, where she flopped inert, her head lolling forward on her chest.

  ‘Send for the Colonel,’ said the bald man, and with infinite overwhelming relief Ann knew that her task was accomplished. She dozed for a moment, but just as she was going off again the thought of time flashed into her mind once more. How long had she been, and could the rescuing force reach Shingle Street before dawn.

  Jerking up her head, she gazed round the room, and through dull eyes saw the face of a big white clock. Yes, she had done it, the black hands stood at a quarter to four. She had taken only three hours and a quarter to do that terrible journey.

  She smiled then, wanly but happily; with horses or bicycles they would easily get to Shingle Street before six.

  Next moment the door opposite to her opened, the bald man stood up deferentially at his desk, the others came to attention and a khaki figure entered. He stood there staring into her face for a second and then he stepped forward.

  ‘Well I never! if it ain’t little big eyes turned up again!’ and she found herself staring into the blotched unhealthy face of Private—now Communist Colonel—Brisket.

  24

  The New Justice

  For the moment Ann’s state of collapse saved her. Utterly overwhelmed by the appearance of Brisket and all that his new authority portended, after the continual stresses which she had sustained in the last thirty hours—she fainted.

  Despite her forlorn and bedraggled appearance he still regarded her with a lecherous stare from one small hot eye; the other, which she had injured three weeks before, remained hidden under a black shade.

  Take ’er away,’ he said suddenly, ‘over to the ’otel opposite an’ give ’er a bed in one of the guarded rooms. She’s an old frien’ of mine, is big eyes, an’ I’ll enjoy a little talk with ’er ter-morrer—’op to it.’

  The other men jumped to obey his order and Ann was carried out, across the square and up the stairs of a small commercial hotel which had been taken over by the Ipswich Soviet. They pushed open the door of a small bedroom, flung her on the bed, and left her, locking the door behind them.

  She moaned a little and came out of her faint, but hardly regained consciousness; the room was dark, her muscles at last relaxed and almost instantly she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

  ‘Wake up,’ shouted a voice, ‘wake up, will you,’ and feeling her shoulder violently shaken she groaned, then opened her eyes to stare round the strange room lit by the afternoon sunshine.

  Momentarily she remained dazed, then the details of her desperate but useless venture came back to her.

  ‘You’re wanted,’ said the man who had woken her, ‘come on now.’

  With an effort she slid off the bed. Every bone in her body seemed to be racked with shooting pains, her throat was dry and parched, her head splitting. As she caught sight of herself in the mirror of the cheap dressing-table, she gave a little gasp. Her clothes were torn and mud-stained, her hair a matted tangle, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. Picking up a towel from the washstand she dipped it in the water jug and began to dab her face but the man pulled it away from her.

  ‘No time for that, Colonel wants to see you,’ he said sourly. Then he pushed her before him from the room, down the narrow stairs and out into the square.

  The streets were nearly empty but over at the Town Hall there was considerable activity. Thirty or forty men, some in khaki, but mostly in civilian clothes, and all with a bright red sash crossing their bodies from shoulder to hip, stood leaning on their rifles or passing to and fro. Evidently a selected guard ready to deal with any emergency which might threaten the new local Government. A small group of them, obviously a detachment of cavalry, stood by a dozen horses, and as Ann was led over to the building she noticed that a line of despatch-riders stood ready by their bicycles while one or two others were arriving and departing in apparent urgency.

  Inside the Town Hall was swarming with people. Messengers were constantly coming and going, men with set important faces carrying bundles of papers hurried from room to room, and a motley throng, who seemed to have no particular business but whom Ann supposed to be adherents of the new movement, blocked the hallway, stairs, and passages.

  Her captor forced a way through them, up the staircase and along a corridor, then he poked his head into a room, muttered something, and drawing back thrust Ann inside and slammed the door behind him.

  With sick apprehension she saw that Brisket, seated with his legs crossed in a big arm-chair, was the sole occupant of the room. A slow smile lit his heavy face as she appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Well, big eyes,’ he greeted her, ‘feelin’ better for yer nap?’

  Youth, a healthy body, and eleven hours of complete oblivion had certainly restored Ann’s bodily well-being to a considerable extent, yet having slept in her clothes and been allowed no opportunity to bath or wash, she was feeling incredibly stale, stiff after her supreme effort, and weighed down to an unutterable degree of sadness by the fate which she had been unable to avert from Kenyon and her friends.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she answered dully, ‘although I think I could have gone on sleeping for a week.’

  He nodded. ‘You’ll soon pick up agin, don’t you fret. An’ I tike my ’at off to yer fer that sportin’ effort of yours to sive yer pals. ‘Ave a pew?’ He pushed a chair towards her with his foot.<
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  She sank down in it and passed her hand across her eyes.

  ‘It wasn’t much use, was it?’ she said wearily.

  ‘Wot’s the odds,’ he said, trying in an uncouth way to comfort her. ‘They were for it any’ow. Only a question of time ‘fore we mopped ’em up.’

  Her long lashes trembled towards the dark hollows beneath her eyes. It was only now coming home to her that she had failed completely. Kenyon, dear Kenyon, to whom she had so stupidly denied a declaration of her love, was dead; and Uncle Timothy, and Agatha, and Gregory, and Rudd, and that funny good-humoured American, and the generous-hearted Veronica too perhaps. It seemed that she had not a single person left to care for in the world. The tragedy was so complete that she hardly thought of her own position, once more at the mercy of this loathsome soldier whom she hated and despised.

  ‘You’ll go up before the beak as a reactionary o’ course,’ he broke in on her sombre thoughts, ‘but don’tcher worry abart that, I’m not ther commander ’ere worse luck, though if I plays me cards right I soon may be, but I got influence all right, an’ plenty of it. They got to consider Colonel Brisket in their little game, so you leave it to yours truly; ’cause I’ll tell yer, even if you did biff me one, I got a bit of a pash fer you, big eyes.’

  Slowly the full significance of her appalling plight filtered into her mind but it was too numbed to respond by flaming anger to his covert offer, only a sullen determination to kill herself rather than satisfy his cravings caused her to mutter: ‘You can’t blackmail me, or force me to do anything I don’t want to.’

  ‘I know that,’ his single eye narrowed with sudden cunning. ‘I want yer willin’, understand? I’ve tried aht the other girne these lars’ three weeks an’ it ain’t worth the candle, so I’m aht to treat you right from the beginnin’, see?’

  ‘Whatever you do it will make no difference,’ she cried with sudden spirit.

  ‘But I got influence,’ he argued. ‘I’ll be the King pin in this ahifit ’fore I’m much older, an’ you can be the Queen bee if you be’ave decent, strite, I’m tellin’ yer.’

  ‘I don’t care what you’ve got,’ she responded doggedly.

  ‘Don’t cher?’ He leaned forward quickly, determination in every line of his strong coarse face. Then what abaht that red’eaded feller you was sweet on, I saw yer googling at ’im when ’e wasn’t looking that afternoon we was ’anging orf the Margate coast. If you’d be matey I could get ’im off as well as you.’

  ‘Kenyon!’ she swung round on him, ’is he still alive?’

  ‘Yes o’ course, if that’s ’is nime! Shark’s orders was ter land a party fer drivin’ the cattle in, an’ ter bring the orficers back fer trial and execution. She made the Orwell rhand abart midday an’ sent the prisoners off in boats.’

  ‘But, but,’ she stammered, ‘do you mean that the destroyer was sent from Ipswich?’

  Yus, we cruised around for a bit makin’ the villages on the coast corf up enough fish fer us ter live on, but we was runnin’ out of fuel so we brought ’er up the river far as we could an’ threw in our lot wiv this new Soviet. I ’ate ships meself so they give me a job on the Committee but, knowin’ abart all the cattle wot the General pinched orf the locals, they filled the Shark up wiv oil an’ sent ’er rand ter tike it orf ’is Mightiness.’

  The door was flung open and a grey-haired man pushed his head inside. Court’s sitting, Colonel, and they’ll want that woman directly—will you send her down?’

  ‘I will.’ Brisket rose slowly to his feet as the door closed again and thrust his chin forward peering into Ann’s strained face. ‘Na! wot abart it?’

  A hundred new thoughts and emotions were coursing wildly through her brain. They were not dead, but here in Ipswich, and this man had it in his power to save them. How could she let them die?

  She closed her eyes to shut out the eager watchful stare with which he was regarding her.

  ‘All of them?’ she said after a moment. ‘All of them?’

  ‘No, the Court ‘ud kick at that.’

  ‘All of them,’ she repeated thickly, ‘or I won’t do it.’

  He was silent for a minute then he nodded. ‘All right, there’ll be a rumpus I expect but I’ll fix it some’ow, though only postponement of the sentence mind, I’ll keep ’em on the string as guarantee you treat me fair.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she wailed suddenly springing to her feet. ‘I can’t. How can you ask me to knowing that I detest you?’

  ‘You’ll get over that,’ he laid a heavy hand on her shoulder, ‘but you’re going through it anyway, see? Just think it over when you get dahnstairs. I’ll tell the orderly to wite in Court so as you can send ’im up ter me if you’re prepared to tike it cheerful fer the sike of gettin’ off yer pals. But ter-night’s the night, mind, any old ‘ow—fer you an’ me.’

  He struck a hand bell and placed her in charge of the orderly, who marshalled her through the press of people down the stairs and into a lofty chamber on the right of the entrance hall.

  It was the Court-room, empty now of the public and the Press. Only one man sat at the long lawyers’ table, and on the magistrate’s bench were two men and one woman, seated beneath the red flag which had replaced the royal arms of England.

  In the dock stood Gregory, still in the uniform, now ragged and torn, of a brigadier, his face unusually pale, his head bandaged. Silas stood next him, his enormous bulk seeming to dominate the group, then Veronica, her eyes half-closed, her hand on Silas’s arm. Beyond her Rudd, in a slouching attitude picking his uneven teeth with a scrap of paper, and lastly Kenyon, stooping slightly, his left arm still in a sling. About them stood the only other occupants of the court, a little group of soldiers.

  Ann gave a half-articulate cry and ran towards them as they greeted her appearance with amazed ejaculations, but the orderly caught her shoulder and jerked her back: ‘Steady you,’ he growled.

  The voice of the man who occupied the centre chair on the bench came, smooth, cold, and passionless: ‘Is this the woman who came from Shingle Street early this morning?’

  ‘Yes; this is her,’ the orderly nodded.

  ‘Put her with the others in the dock.’

  Two men with rifles held slackly in their hands stepped aside and Ann was pushed past them next to Gregory. One of those rare bewitching smiles lit his bloodless face. ‘Hello, Ann.’

  Hello, Gregory,’ she murmured, but the greetings of the others were cut short by the President of the Tribunal.

  ‘You will please be silent,’ he said sharply.

  As in some awful nightmare Ann stared at him. He was frail, elderly, grey-haired, clad neatly in a worn dark suit. A straggly beard covered an undeveloped jaw but his forehead was broad and lofty, his eyes large, pale and almost hypnotic in their power of penetration. He leaned forward and addressed them.

  ‘All of you, including this woman who has just been admitted to the Court, are proved enemies of the New Order. You have without warrant robbed defenceless people of their only means of sustaining life, and on many occasions committed acts of banditry. The Government is now the people, and all property theirs to distribute in the most equitable manner; but when called upon to surrender your stolen supplies to the people’s representatives, you were guilty of armed resistance which caused loss of life: you men are therefore enemies of the State and the women have aided and abetted in your crimes. It is my duty to order your execution. Have any of you any reason to state why the sentence should not be carried out?’

  ‘You are neither magistrate nor judge,’ Gregory cried quickly. ‘What right have you to sentence us?’

  ‘I have been appointed by the Committee to dispense the New Justice in this area with full powers of life and death,’ the bearded man answered slowly. ‘I fear that is the only answer which I can give you.’

  ‘We haven’t even had a trial,’ Gregory broke out. ‘You’ll swing for this before you’re done.’

  The Chief of the Tribunal shrugged. �
�Such men as you are dangerous to the New Order. Your rank of General alone would justify me in condemning you.’

  ‘New Order be damned!’ The white scar which lifted Gregory’s eyebrow stood out angrily. ‘We’ve been trying to keep the peace, not break it; and what authority have your Committee got to order killings?’

  Quiet, restrained, sad almost, the Soviet judge answered patiently: ‘Their authority is derived from the Central Committee in London. From the beginning it was recognised by all sane men that the old Government had failed in carrying out their first duty to the people—the protection of their lives and livelihood. Five days ago the New Provisional Government was recognised.’

  ‘By whom?’ snapped Gregory.

  ‘By the People, the final authority upon which any Government must base its power if it is to survive. By the will of the People the Glorious Revolution has been accomplished, and now their only hope is to abide absolutely by the decrees of the Central Committee. For the safety of the nation and to avoid further bloodshed, all declared reactionaries must suffer the extreme penalty—therefore I condemn you.’

  It was so obviously useless to protest further against the decision of this cold fanatic that Gregory gave a little shrug and with a twisted grin, directed at Silas, fell silent.

  ‘You fools!’ cried Veronica suddenly. ‘We are for law and order every bit as much as you; surely you see that.’

  The woman on the bench, grey, fifty, lean-faced but fine-featured, stared at her with hard, cold eyes. ‘Is one of these men your husband?’ she asked silkily.

  ‘No; I have not got a husband.’

  ‘But you have lived with one of them perhaps?’

  ‘What is that to do with you; my body is my own to do as I like with.’ Veronica’s nostrils were quivering with furious anger.

  ‘True, and the freedom of women to choose their own path of life without disgrace is one of the first things which the New Order will establish, but as a doctor of psychology, I can speak as to the results of such associations. The laws of nature are unalterable and a woman’s thoughts are always coloured by those of her male partner for the time being. Your refusal to answer my question implies an admission, so you are doubtless contaminated by their theories and must pay the price.’