Bitter Water

by Ferris, Gordon

  I pressed my face against the slats in the door and saw Maxwell kick and bar the outside door. Then he took up a kneeling position at one window, Curly at another. Moira moved back into the room away from the door. With the three other men at the far end of the stables, nearest the road, and with Curly and Maxwell by these windows, they had a killing arc of fire covering the front of the castle.

  The sound of the approaching truck grew loud. Against all my predictions, Drummond had hoped for surprise and speed to be his best allies. He had no idea that he’d lost all advantage with one phone call from the lodge at the turn-off to the castle. And speed was no answer to a well-set ambush. Through the window I caught a glimpse of a lorry racing past. It had a cabin, and side panels that could be dropped down. There were figures in the cabin and in the back of the truck. It swept past and I heard it grinding to a halt. There were shouted voices and then the sound of men running on gravel.

  Maxwell’s voice rang out. ‘Fire! Fire!’ His own shotgun jerked against his shoulder. Curly’s did too. They used both barrels, pausing to reload fast. All that training in the butts against unarmed grouse was paying off. But the noise that shocked me came from further away, from the far end of the building. I’d recognise the British Sten gun anywhere. Two of them. Each with a magazine of 32 rounds firing 9-mm cartridges. The last time I’d heard that metallic clatter was in a charge I’d led on a German dugout on the east bank of the Rhine.

  I thought I could make out return fire coming from the truck. But unless they’d secured new weapons since my visit to their den, all the Marshals had were shotguns and revolvers. They were in an ambush and completely outgunned. Their answering volleys were sporadic as they tried to reload. I could hear the short bark of their handguns. They might as well have used pea-shooters against the well-defended machine gunners in the stables. Soon there was only one gun in action outside. The forlorn crack, crack of a revolver. Meanwhile Curly and Maxwell were steadily ejecting their two spent cartridges, reloading, aiming and blasting away.

  From the other end of the building, there were pauses as the shooters changed magazines, then the withering fire resumed. There seemed to be no response from the lone pistol. Then suddenly a couple of shots were fired in quick succession. I could imagine the lone gunman hiding behind the truck while the pellets and Sten rounds blasted past him. Then he’d reload, pop up and fire off an aimless round or two in the direction of the stables. It was hopeless. Finally and inevitably there came a time when there was no response. The stables were filled with the reek of cordite.

  Through the gloom of the storeroom I looked over at Sam. She understood as well as anyone what had happened. Her hand was at her mouth. She would be thinking what I was thinking: we’d be next. Maxwell and his lover would want no witnesses.

  I watched Maxwell peer out of the window, then motion to Curly to open the door. Curly pulled it wide and stepped outside. My ears were still ringing with the sounds of the gunshots in the closed space.

  ‘It’s clear, boss.’

  Charlie got up and strode to the door. He walked out into the sunshine of the afternoon and I heard gravel crunch as the two men walked forward. There were shouts between Charlie, Curly and his other men. I heard them running and then there was one new shot from a revolver, followed by shouts and expletives. Someone was still alive. I peered out at Moira. She seemed transfixed by what had just happened. She moved tentatively towards the door, fumbled for a cigarette and lit it. I looked at the storeroom hinges round the door. They looked solid enough, but having undone the padlock and the bolt earlier, I knew there were only half a dozen screws holding on the plate.

  We had one shot at this.

  FIFTY-SIX

  I motioned Sam back and to one side. I flexed the shoulder muscles I’d built up at swimming. I walked back as far as I could from the door, and took a run. I smashed the lock side of the door with my shoulder. It burst open in a satisfying crash. I followed through with a rolling dive across the room to the two shotguns lying in the dust beneath the window. Moira yelped and ran out of the door. I grabbed a Dixon and put the gun to my shoulder. I peered out of the window down the sights.

  She was scampering across the gravel towards the chaotic scenes in front of the castle. I tracked her as she ran, fingering my trigger. It would be just like a taking down a tin duck in a fairground shooting gallery. But I couldn’t shoot a woman in the back, even a murderous, faithless bitch like her. Then she was entering the tableau in front of the castle.

  Maxwell and Curly were kneeling halfway between the stables and the truck with their shotguns at their shoulders. To their left, their three cronies – Fitz and the two night-time attackers – were scuttling forward, weapons up. One of them had a bandaged head. The other had his arm in a sling and a Sten gun in his left. Accuracy was never the main requirement of a Sten; spraying bullets around was what it did best, even one-handed. Fitz cradled the second Sten. In front of them the truck was slewed across the drive some twenty yards from the wide set of steps leading up to the massive front door. The truck door nearest us hung open. A man lay tumbled at the side. Two others hung over the wooden sides of the truck. Blood dripped from their languid bodies. Their weapons lay in the darkened dust below them. A fourth man sprawled by the rear wheel, still clutching his pistol. None had red hair.

  Suddenly Fitz’s Sten erupted and a fusillade of bullets sprayed the truck, uselessly whipping the two dangling bodies. There was no answering fire.

  ‘Hold up!’ called Maxwell and raised his arm. Cautiously he got to his feet. The five men moved forward in a slow arc. Moira was about ten yards behind them, turning back to see what I was up to but fearful of breaking the concentration of the men in front of her. I saw a flicker from the far side of the cabin of the truck. An arm came up over its roof, then a red head. Drummond let loose a quick shot from his gun. The man with the bandaged head went down with a groan and lay clutching at his side. His shotgun spilled in the dust. Moira screamed and dropped on to her hands and knees. The rest dived flat and began shooting.

  It was time to even things up.

  In my youth if you’d asked could I ever shoot a man in the back, I’d have vehemently condemned such a notion. It was unthinkable, cowardly. Six years of warfare brings a new perspective. It distils the moral dilemma to the simple matter of kill or be killed. Anyway, the man with the Sten was side on to me. He was also the man who’d come to knife Sam and me in our bed. I took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. It caught him in the right ear and cuffed him over in a spray of blood. His gun stuttered with one last salvo. He dropped like a stone and lay still. That left Maxwell, Curly and Fitz as dangers. The man wounded by Drummond and writhing in the dust had his own priorities.

  I trained my gun on Fitz and fired just as he twisted and rolled on the ground. If I hit him, it wasn’t enough to stop him. He kept rolling and got behind a dead Marshal. I dropped my empty Dixon and grabbed the loaded one. It gave Maxwell enough time to get to his feet and sprint towards the shelter of the castle steps and stone balustrade. Curly too was up and running. For a moment, Moira got in my line of fire and I held back. Old morals die hard. Curly must have sensed my weakness. He grabbed her and held her in front of him as a shield. He hauled her back towards the steps, with frequent backward glances at the cabin of the truck.

  I turned back to Fitz and saw his Sten come up. I ducked just as the bullets blasted through the window. I waited for a second rip but it didn’t come. I scuttled over to the door to get a new angle. Fitz was lying on the ground fumbling with a new clip. I had the brief drop on him. I settled my aim, took a slow breath and squeezed. The shot seemed to fall short. Dust blossomed in front of his head. As the cloud settled I could make out Fitz doubled up, holding his bloody face. He choked and spat and got to his knees. His face was a torn mass of blood. I gave him the second barrel full in the chest. He was lifted backwards and down, and stopped moving.

  For a long moment there was silence, then two heads app
eared over the stone wall. Curly and Maxwell let fly at the stable window and door. Pellets peppered the walls behind me and thudded into the wood of the door. I turned to see Sam crawling towards me, hauling her cartridge bag behind her. She nestled below the window and, with trained fingers, broke open the spent Dixon, ejected the shells and refilled from the plentiful supply in her pack. She held out the gun to me. I dived across and exchanged my empty for it. Quickly, Sam broke open the emptied Dixon and began to slot cartridges into it.

  We sat with our backs to the wall, shoulders touching, and got our breath back. All the time I was listening. Then I heard banging and shouting. I took a peek. One of the men was hammering on the castle door with the butt of his shotgun. He was lying low, shielded by the wall. I stood up to aim higher. I let loose. All I achieved was to pepper the wall and door. The door eased open a fraction and Maxwell, Moira and Curly slipped inside, ducking low. The door was slammed shut and silence fell again. I took a chance.

  ‘Drummond! Drummond! It’s Brodie! We’re in the stables!’

  There was no answer for a few seconds. Then I saw a pair of legs running back from the truck cabin towards the tail. A moment later, Drummond’s red head peered round the back of the truck. It gave him protection from any shots from the castle window. He waved his pistol at me. He stood up and looked round at the carnage. His four men lay dead and bleeding around him. He clambered into the back of the truck and hauled in the two men hanging over the side. He jumped back down and stooped to check the two lying on the ground. When he stood up, his face was a mask of grief. Then it turned to wrath.

  The enemy he’d wounded was still groaning and clutching at his guts. Drummond looked up at the castle windows, then took two swift steps over to the man, gripped his gun in both hands and pointed it downwards. I couldn’t have stopped him, even if I’d wanted to. Slowly and deliberately he pulled the trigger. There was a bang and the man twitched once before his limbs unfolded and settled in death’s repose. The bullet tore a hole through his face. Blood seeped from under his head. Drummond looked towards me and smiled out of his fleshless skull. The Grim Reaper.

  ‘Come out, Brodie! We’ve got work to do!’ Drummond began darting from body to body, collecting discarded weapons.

  I stood up at the window, wary of shots from the castle windows. At my feet, Sam tugged my trousers.

  ‘You’re not going out there, are you?’

  ‘We can’t just skulk here.’

  ‘Oh yes we bloody can!’

  ‘Sam, this needs finishing.’

  ‘I thought you’d had enough killing?’

  ‘I thought you said I’m not the type to sit back and let others fight my battles? What was it you said? If I don’t, who will? If we don’t?’ Not that I was rationalising this. I was in a familiar place; gun in hand and enemy to the fore. My head filled with nothing but the combat layout and the options for attack.

  She looked up at me for a long speculative second, then scrambled to her feet clutching her shotgun.

  ‘Fine. Come on.’ And she headed for the door.

  My jaw dropped. She would have put any man in my company to shame. I ran and got ahead of her just before the door. I filled my one empty chamber and stuffed a handful of cartridges in my pocket. I peered out gingerly, trying to see if Maxwell was waiting for us. The curtains had been partially drawn and the reflection obscured what might be going on behind the big glass window.

  ‘Count of three, then run to the back of the truck alongside me. OK?’

  She nodded.

  ‘One, two, three.’ I sprinted forward, hearing her small feet pattering beside me and making sure I was always between her and the castle windows.

  We slammed against the side and edged our way round to the back of the truck. Drummond was checking his loot. He’d got the tailgate down and had laid out the two Stens, three shotguns and two Enfield revolvers on the bare boards. He was clumsily loading the two handguns from a pile of assorted bullets and cartridges. I’d forgotten about his missing fingers. I could see now the revolvers were Enfield No. 2 Mk 1s, fitted for a .38 lead slug. He held each gun under his right armpit and fed the shells in with his better left hand.

  ‘Help yourself, Brodie.’ A mad grin split his face.

  I hefted the Sten but I’d never liked the damned things. Even barn doors were safe from them. Unless they were kept immaculately clean and serviced they’d jam. One Sten was empty and there was no sign of spare clips. None of the shotguns was a match for my Dixon and I had my own Webley. It fired .455 bullets and had greater stopping power than the Enfields. I took it out from my waistband and checked the chambers. Fully loaded. I slid the cold barrel back down my waistband. Drummond did the same with one Enfield. He picked up the second and squinted down the barrel.

  ‘What’s your plan, Drummond? Or were you going to try a full frontal assault again?’ It was no time for sarcasm but I couldn’t resist.

  ‘I’m just a junior officer, Major Brodie. You went to Staff College. What do you suggest?’

  ‘Does this thing still work?’ I thumped the wood planks of the truck. ‘Do you need to turn a handle?’

  He looked at me. ‘You’re not running away now, are you?’

  ‘No, I’m bloody not. If I got in the cab would I get the engine running or do you need to wind the bugger up?’

  ‘It’s fine. One of the boys is – was – a mechanic. Sweet as a pea.’

  ‘OK, here’s what we do.’

  We lifted Drummond’s men down from the truck and laid them gently on the ground. Sam took up position behind the truck holding a Dixon in white knuckles. I took the other Dixon in my left hand and the Webley in my right. I turned to Drummond. ‘Ready?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Go!’

  Drummond and I – armed to the teeth – darted round both sides of the truck, me to the left, him to the right. Both doors hung open and gave us some cover, but as we dived into the cab, I heard a bang and the windscreen exploded. Pellets smashed into my passenger side door. Then both Drummond and I were lying heaving on the bench seat. Drummond began fiddling with the gears and pedals. He tried the key. The truck gave a rumble and stopped. He pulled out the choke.

  ‘Don’t flood it!’ I hissed.

  He shot me a glance and tried again. It coughed and spluttered and stopped. He waited an endless few seconds. He tried again. The engine fired and coughed, died, then picked up again. Drummond got his foot on the accelerator and the engine roared. The whole cabin shook with the vibrations. We looked at each other from our horizontal positions. Ahead of us were the castle steps, a wide flight of about a dozen broad treads, then a flat terrace up to the huge wood portals. It was a ridiculous double gamble. First that the truck would be able to bounce up the steps without simply smashing into them and breaking its front axle. Second that we’d still have enough momentum to crash through the doors. If they were six inches thick and barred, the three-foot length of truck bonnet would end up in our laps.

  ‘Let’s go!’ I shouted.

  I sat up, pistol in hand and started firing at the broken window. Drummond popped up, flung the truck into gear, revved it up to a scream, eased the clutch out until it was straining, then let the brake off. We shot forward, Drummond wrenching the wheel round to line up straight at the steps. I got three shots off without a return of fire, then we were hitting the first step with a bang. The nose came up and we were pounding and bouncing up the flight. We hit the top and the nose dropped. I heard the chassis grind on the top step and then we were flying at the door.

  ‘You bastaaaards!’ Drummond shrieked as we hit. The long bonnet hit the doors smack in the centre. They sundered in a spray of wood and metal. The big doors were flung back, flailing on their hinges, and we crashed into the hall of the castle. The noise was deafening and I was flung against the dashboard, losing my pistol in the process. Drummond slammed on the brakes and we skidded across the tiled floor, sweeping aside a magnificent wooden table and its fine porcelai
n bowl of autumn flowers.

  We stopped and the engine stalled. For a long moment we sat there as silence settled around us. Then a shotgun blast raked Drummond’s door.

  ‘This side, man. Out this side!’ I shouted. I rummaged at my feet, got my Webley, grabbed my Dixon and flung the door open. As I slid out, Drummond was lurching across the seat. I grabbed his arm – it was like grabbing a piston – and drew him across. His face was running red, whether from the collision with the door or the gunshot. ‘You’re hit!’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He wiped the blood off with his sleeve. His face was lacerated down one side, like a rare steak.

  Keeping the big wheel in front of me I knelt and peered under the truck. Already a pool of oil was forming. I was in time to see figures scampering away through a far door. I jumped up on the running board and got a shot off. Too late. Sam came charging through the doorway and ran over to us. Her face was flushed.

  ‘The housekeeper’s going to be gie upset. Did you run them over?’

  ‘They went that away.’ I pointed at the doorway on the far side of the hall.

  ‘It goes down to the kitchens. There’s a maze of corridors down there.’

  ‘Damn.’ It felt like Caen all over again. An enemy in retreat but fighting dirty and making us pay for every inch. Clearing broken buildings sprinkled with booby traps. Stepping round corners expecting an ambush at every turn. I turned to Drummond. He wasn’t there. Next thing, I saw him running towards the doorway where Maxwell had gone.

  ‘Drummond! Wait!’

  He didn’t.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  The hall was a grand affair. Or had been, until we’d added a new centrepiece. We were parked in front of a great sweep of stairs. Above us ran a balcony. The walls were lined with flags and old claymores and heads of slaughtered stags. Portraits of former Maxwells in flamboyant robes and doubtful tartans frowned down at us for sullying their ancestral hall. We’d made a serious dent in the massive square table that had graced the hall and knocked it on to its side. It now sat across one corner: a nice ambush spot with a good sightline of the gaping front door.