Colonel Butler's Wolf

by Anthony Price

  A small cloud of dust rose from the table as he set the box on it.

  Andrews B. J., Archer C. W., Ashcroft-Jones D. F … . he thumbed quickly towards the back of the file … Pardoe E.B. —a sickly boy, Pardoe, with a sheaf of notes from matron to testify to his ailments—Trowbridge D. T.—he had overshot the mark … Spencer G. I.— Smith N. H.

  Butler smoothed down the pages. Outside he could hear the wind whistle past the window beside his face. It had been still in the garden below, shielded by the tall trees, but up here there would generally be a breath of wind. He could hear the rumble of the traffic on the road outside and somewhere near there was a tree branch rubbing against the house. He fancied he could even distinguish the distant roar of the sea on the pebble beach away over the treetops.

  “Boozy” Smith’s vital and fast developing statistics were all here, anyway, measured and recorded: the puny eight-year-old had been transformed by Eden Hall’s stodgy pies and puddings into a plump thirteen-year-old.

  Measles without complications at nine and mumps when he was still too young for complications at ten … what was needed was some nice distinguishing scar, at the very least an appendix scar. Or a broken bone.

  But scars and breaks there were none. And apparently no dental records either—that was a disappointment. The O positive blood group was something, but not much—if it was a positive identification they wanted he would need something much better than this juvenile information. Sore throats and athlete’s foot just weren’t good enough.

  He pushed the file to one side. It was likely that these would be even Jess, eloquent than the medical material, in which case this whole farce would be unproductive.

  BOYS (Academic)

  He knew better now where to reach Smith N. H.—it was pleasant to discover in passing that Pardoe’s poor health was offset by singular academic brilliance.

  He cocked his head: by some freak of sound he could hear the sea quite distinctly …

  But Smith’s academic record was, as he had feared, undistinguished by special aptitudes. Dingle’s memory was, as usual, exact: better at maths on the whole than English— essays lacking in imagination … . They were never going to identify Smith’s remains by the condition of his youthful imagination.

  BOYS (Sport)

  A useful opening bat (right-handed) …

  Suddenly Butler sat bolt upright: Christ! It was impossible to hear the sea from here—not that steady roar.

  That was not the sea—

  Four strides to the door. Try as he would Butler could not stop the next strides from turning into a panic-stricken gallop as he burst through the second door.

  Smoke!

  The sight of it seeping under the third door hit his brain one second before the smell confirmed his fear. He stared hypnotised by it for another second, cursing the slowness of his reactions. The sea had always been much too far away, too far to be heard.

  This time he had his feet under control. Under direct command they marched him to the door. Under the same orders, his hand grasped the latch and opened the door. And then, under some older and more instinctive direction, the hand instantly slammed the door as the flames reached out towards him from the inferno in the room beyond.

  Butler found himself facing back the way he had come, towards the round window, his shoulders set against the door as though the fire could be held back like a wild animal.

  And that had been exactly what it had been like, or almost exactly: not a wild animal, but something demonic: the Fire Demon in “The Casting of the Runes” reaching out to seize him!

  He shook his head, but the image remained. And yet even Fire Demons were sent by men against men, and all that tinder dry material had not burst into flames spontaneously because of his passing. It had been fired—and fired against him.

  The anger in him drove out the panic, cooling him even as he felt the warmth in the door under his hand—cold anger against himself for being such a fool as to despise a job because it had seemed humble and routine—and so easy that the possibly convalescent Roskill was first choice for it.

  —Jack, Fred wants you to swan down to Tonbridge Wells and see whether Hugh’s on two legs again. If he is, then just give him this envelope.

  —And if he isn’t?

  —Then be a good chap and take it over yourself. It’s just a bit of background digging at a posh prep, school down on the Isle of Thanet—nothing difficult, but there’s a bit of a rush on it …

  Christ! Nothing difficult! There was a rumble and a crash behind him and he felt the door shiver as something fell against it. There was no getting out that way, anyway: even if the way wasn’t physically blocked already he could never run the gauntlet of those flames—they would lick him and take hold of him and bring him down screaming before he was halfway to the stair-head.

  He stared back through the doorways at the round window. Fire was a bad way to go, so that would be the way at the last if there was no help for it: given a choice between frying and jumping people always jumped.

  But was there an alternative? Butler looked round his cage quickly. The pitch of the roof was steep—if he could break through he would only have found a quicker way to hard ground below—a slither, a wild grab for the guttering, a shout of fear and a thud on the paving stones!

  He clenched his teeth, and looked around him again. He had to do something, even if it was only to shout for help.

  That thought drove him suddenly towards the round window. He swung the cane chair from the floor and convulsively jabbed it through the glass. The blast of cold air caught him by surprise; he felt runnels of hitherto unnoticed sweat cooling on his cheeks as he leaned out.

  No sound of distant sirens—his heart sank at the utter unconcern of the world outside and far beneath him, the distant everyday sounds. And the ground below was terrifyingly far away—

  There was a man looking at him out of the shrubbery!

  Instinctively Butler started to shout and to wave, but both sound and movement froze as their eyes met across the unbridgeable hundred feet which separated them : he knew he was eye to eye with the instrument of his death, the master of the Fire Demon which raged behind him.

  The moment passed in a flash and he was looking at the empty shrubbery. It was as though the face had been something out of imagination.

  Rage swelled in Butler’s throat, almost choking him: the swine had been standing out there watching his handiwork— watching the dumb ox that had walked to its own roasting!

  He turned back into the attics. There was noticeably more smoke in the further of them now; before long he would have to retreat behind the last door, and might as well try to hold back the tide with a sandcastle as hide behind that. He had to get out.

  He looked around helplessly, hope oozing from him. The irony of it was that there was no shortage of weapons; there was a whole pile of spears on the dusty floor. But there was nothing to attack with them—

  Or was there?

  Butler stood still for five seconds, collecting his thoughts. He had always prided himself on his calm self-discipline, the Roman virtue of the British infantryman. Others might be cleverer, quicker to charge—and quicker to fly. But he had conditioned himself over the years to do within himself what the redcoats had so often done in tight corners: to form square unhurriedly and without panic.

  Ever since he had seen those flames he had been acting like a child. Now he had to act like a man.

  He walked over to the pile of spears and began to sift them. There were long, light throwing spears; slender fish spears, with cruel serrated edges—the delicate weapons of East Asia and Oceania. He wanted something cruder and stronger than those.

  His fingers closed over the shaft of a short, heavy spear that had a familiar feel to it—the weight of it, the broad blade and the balance (or lack of balance) told their own story : this wasn’t for throwing at all, but for stabbing. This was the deadly assegai, the close-quarters weapon of the Zulu impis.

  An
d this was more like it. He stood up, testing the point and trying to gauge the strength of the steel. It was still surprisingly sharp, not only the point, but the edges too, but the tempered iron was of poor quality native work. What had proved itself against red coats and white skin might not do so well against seasoned oak. But it would have to do nevertheless .. .

  He retired to the end room, closing the last door for the last time but forcing himself to move methodically; for this was no longer a retreat, but a strategic withdrawal to a final line.

  And the documents must come first. He undipped the metal fasteners, abstracted Neil Smith’s records and folded them into his coat pocket. Then he pushed the table to one side and began to examine the floor.

  Two bonuses at once met his eye. The edges of the floorboards were pock-marked with worm holes for an inch or two on each side of the edges and at one point a section of deal had been spliced into a heavily-infested area. That was the point to attack.

  With powerful but controlled strokes he began to demolish the length of spliced wood until he had splintered off enough to give him a handhold.

  As he had expected, the new section came up easily, with hardly a protest. In the cavity below he could see the lath and plaster of the ceiling of the room below. Using the piece of floorboard as a battering ram he smashed a hole through the ceiling, sending the plaster pattering down: it was a lofty room below, perhaps twelve feet high, but that was nothing. It was the way to safety.

  But first, somehow, he had to raise the oak floorboards on each side of the hole—boards which ran the whole length of the attic and would have to be cut in half at this point to give him leverage. And for that he had only the assegai—and the fire at his back.

  He worked with the hot fury of anger, each blow striking the planking a quarter of an inch from its predecessor. And as he worked he felt the salt sweat running down his face into the corners of his mouth—it dripped off his face and made little puddles in the dust-grimed wood, or fell through the hole in the ceiling into the room below among the empty iron bedsteads.

  And then the first floorboard was defeated—he smashed through the last two inches with a tremendous blow of his heel.

  Now to lift it. It was hard to get a proper grip on the splintered end, especially as a huge blister had appeared from nowhere on to his palm. In the end he stripped off his waistcoat and wrapped it round the splinters, straddling the board to get the greatest leverage.

  He took a deep breath and slowly began to exert his strength.

  Easy does it—the nails are big, but they are old and brittle —slow does it—listen to the roar of the fire—steady does it— and don’t forget that swine in the shrubbery—

  The board came up with a crack like a pistol shot, catching Butler a blow in the balls that knocked him sideways against the files. A shower of old medical certificates cascaded over him.

  He rolled away from the shelving, scattering the papers and gasping with pain and triumph. He hadn’t realised that the original old floorboards were far wider than modern boards. With the hole he’d already made there now might be enough room, just enough room, for him to squeeze his way between the joists to safety.

  But he’d have to hurry even so, for the volume of sound beyond the door, the continuous roar of the flames, was loud now: the demon was still reaching for him.

  He staggered to his feet, immediately bending almost double as the injured testicles protested in agony. But in the circumstances he could ignore their protest: self-preservation in the short term outweighed doubts about their future performance.

  He grasped the smaller floorboard and began to enlarge the hole in the lath and plaster. By the grace of God it presented a piece of open floor below, between the beds; a bed might indeed break his fall, but under the force of 196 pounds of plummeting human being it would more likely collapse and injure him further.

  Now the hole was as big as he could make it. He knelt down and threw first his coat and then his waistcoat through it, and then as an afterthought the faithful assegai, before easing himself into it.

  It was a tight squeeze. His hips went through easily, but the oak pinched his chest and his shoulder blades cruelly. He could feel his feet kicking impotently In the air of the room below, like those of a hanged man in defective scaffold. He was stuck!

  In the distance, clear through the broken window of the attic, he heard the siren of a fire engine.

  Christ! To be caught like this would be almost as bad as frying! The siren triggered his own muscles into a paroxysm of effort: he felt his shirt bunch and then rip as he scraped through the gap. For a moment his hands took the strain, and then, as his body straightened, he allowed himself to fall with a crash into the pile of ceiling debris on the floor below.

  There was no time for reflection, only for the few seconds he needed to repair his appearance: torn shirt covered by dirty, crumpled waistcoat; dirty, crumpled waistcoat covered by jacket; grimy sweat wiped hastily from face. As he raced past the adjoining dormitory he saw gobbets of burning material dropping into it from above—the firemen would have to work fast to save Eden Hall for posterity!

  That was their concern—as he crashed out of the changing rooms and through the back door he heard their siren shrill much nearer, to be echoed by another in the distance. His concern was not to be caught on the premises, out of the fire into the frying pan.

  At least the siren told him that they were approaching the hall from the front, so that the way was still clear for him to escape over the wall beside the cypresses. All the same it would be advisable to move cautiously, he thought: there was nothing like a fire engine to draw spectators from all sides. It was a miracle the place wasn’t crawling with them already …

  The awkward point would come when he left the protective shadow of the outbuildings; there was a twenty yard gap between them and the evergreens when he would be clearly visible to anyone standing in the junior playing field. Cautiously he peered round the angle of the last of them, pressing himself against the brickwork.

  Damn! There was someone out there—there was—

  God damn! The fellow wasn’t gawping at the fire: he was striding away quickly towards the wooden doorway set in the wall at the bottom of the field!

  Butler’s reflexes had him out of cover, across the path, over a low hedge of lavender and into the flowerbed beyond before he had properly computed the odds.

  There was no mistaking that short, belted driving-jacket, even though he had only had one brief glimpse of it from the attic window.

  His feet sank ankle-deep into the soft earth of the flowerbed, slowing him, and a rose bush plucked at him. Then he was through the bed and over another path, on to the turf of the playing field, running noiselessly towards the unsuspecting enemy.

  He was reminded insanely of the game he played with his girls every weekend, “Peep the curtain” they called it. Any moment the man would turn round, and if he was caught moving he would have to go back to the beginning again— and any moment the swine must turn round!

  It was as though it was that thought, rather than the sound of his footfalls, that gave him away: the man half glanced over his shoulder, jerked the glance further in sudden panic, and then bounded forward across the last few yards to the doorway, slamming the door behind him.

  Butler was by then only a dozen strides behind him. There was no time to test whether the door was locked or merely on the latch. There wasn’t even time to stop : there was only time to turn his shoulder into the door like a battering ram, with every ounce of his weight and speed behind it.

  The door burst outwards with a crash and Butler hurtled into a muddy lane beyond, his legs skidding from under him. By the time he had gained his balance and his bearings the quarry had won back precious yards and was far down the lane.

  Gritting his teeth, Butler rose from the mud and drove himself down after him. But the undignified sprawl in the mud had taken some of the steam out of him, leaving room for caution.

&
nbsp; He had already left an elephant’s trail of damage behind him, but there was at least a good chance the fire and the firemen between them would obliterate that. At the bottom of this lane, however, must be the side road from which he had approached the Hall: civilisation started again there, and to pursue his man further, assegai still in hand, would be to invite awkward attention. It looked as though he’d announced his escape without catching his man—without even getting a proper look at him.

  As he laboured the last few yards the slam of a car door backed his worst fear, and as he turned the corner an engine fired.

  It was the plain-looking van he’d seen parked in the distance earlier—with a burst of exhaust and a snarl that suggested there was more under the bonnet than had ever left the factory it shot away from the curb, leaving him panting with breathless rage.

  He’d made a right bloody dubber of himself and no mistake—his dad’s favourite phrase rose in his mind. The ache came back to his crutch and to the blistered hand clutching the useless spear.

  The van roared out of sight at the corner. Then, as he stared at the empty road, there was a shriek of brakes, one heart-stopping second of silence, and an explosive crash of metal and glass.

  IV

  “AND YOU THINK he said nothing? Nothing at all?”

  Butler looked from Sir Frederick to Stocker. He had qualified his statement because from the back of the crowd he had not been able to make absolutely sure. But he was satisfied in his own mind that the fire engine had done a thorough job.

  “They had to cut him out and they didn’t bother to give him morphine first. If he was alive when he went into the ambulance it was touch and go.”

  “He was alive,” Stccker said. “But only just—they never admitted him to hospital. The ambulance driver called out the casualty officer to have a look, and then they took him straight to the morgue. I believe it saves a lot of paperwork that way. So I think we can rely on Major Butler’s assessment there.”

  Sir Frederick nodded. “Hmm … And you haven’t got anything on him, Bob ? Is that so ?”