by John Creasey
‘The line’s cut,’ Loftus said shortly.
‘Can be mended. Can be tapped. I’ll be seeing you,’ said Martin, and went quickly down the stairs.
Loftus knew that he was going to take a risk which would probably be fatal, but let him go. Had Craigie been with them then he would have accompanied Best, but with Craigie out of action he had to restrain his natural inclination to keep in the front of the fray. His objective was Lakka; if it were humanly possible to get to the island he had to get there.
But he felt a nagging anxiety as Best disappeared from sight. The attacks, repulsed though they had been, had nevertheless shown the ruthless determination of the attackers.
• • • • •
The small bag which Best carried, tied to his back like a haversack, did not hamper his movements. Alone, because he thought that it would help the success of his effort, he slipped through the kitchen door, while the windows were guarded by Mold and Simpson.
The stretch of lawn beyond the kitchen ended in a two-feet hedge of privet which marked the boundary of the kitchen garden. There was a small lean-to shed which enabled Best to leave the room unseen. But once he was past it he would be in full view of the besiegers.
The moment he broke cover, the shooting started.
Three flashes of flame came almost on top of each other, which meant that three men were watching the kitchen door. No one was in sight, but bullets pecked the ground at Best’s feet as he ran forward.
From the window a covering fire came, sharp and fast. The air was filled with the echoing of the shots, and for a few seconds the attackers’ fire lessened. In those seconds Best made forty of the fifty yards towards the hedge.
He jumped, cleared the privet by a foot, and landed on loose, freshly dug soil. It slowed him down, but in a few moments lines of apple trees were between him and the gunmen, and he was no longer an easy target.
The shooting was becoming faster and he saw men weaving among the trees. He did not shoot back, his one concern to get into the meadow beyond. Lois had told him of the point, half-a-mile from the house, where the telephone wires had been cut.
If he could reach this point he had a chance to get help.
A rise of land ahead was a clear mark for him, and soon he arrived at the far end of the orchard. Then he crashed through a small thicket and into the meadow.
Perhaps three hundred yards across it he saw the line of telegraph poles, the wires hanging down where they had been cut.
Three hundred yards...!
Holding his breath he ran towards them, and in twelve seconds he had covered a third of the way.
A sharp report came from behind him, and he flung himself flat on his stomach, peering backwards through the crook of his left arm.
A solitary man left the cover of the thicket, gun still smoking, and Best fired through the crook of his arm twice in quick succession. The gunman staggered, even at that distance his expression of startled surprise was visible. Then, the gun flying from his hand, he slumped to the ground.
Best jumped up. Blood was seeping from a wound in his left forearm, but he felt no pain.
The hanging telephone wires touched the ground, and were easy to handle. There was no sound of approach as he knelt down, slung the bag from his shoulders, and took out a bell-set hand microphone and a battery.
There was sweat on his forehead as he started to work. But his fingers did not tremble. He had forgotten the chance of further pursuit, forgotten everything but this one job.
The seconds ticked by.
• • • • •
For the moment at least the attack on Three Gables had stopped. What the cessation of hostilities meant none of the occupants of the house knew, but they were all worried by the use Cunningham might make of the aeroplane.
None of them were optimistic about Best’s chances. They had heard the outbreak of firing, and its continuation after Best had been lost from sight. Loftus, sitting in the drawing-room and drinking beer, showed no outward signs of nerves. Lois and Kerr sat opposite him, while Mold guarded the window.
‘Anyone been to see our prisoners lately, Bob?’
‘I went up five minutes ago. They’re all pretty scared. Nothing to worry about from them. Why do you ask?’
‘I wondered if this fracas would make them talk. They must be mighty important to Cunningham, but the trouble is knowing which one might crack. Not Pinari or Bunce, I fancy, or Cunningham would have attacked before now.’
‘Cunningham hadn’t located us until today.’
‘A point. But it might mean they didn’t try too hard. My bet is Doom or de Casila. My real choice is Doom. He...’
And then the voice came, thick, a little distorted by a megaphone, from the edge of the lawns facing the drawing-room.
‘Loft-us!’
Loftus jumped up. There was a moment’s pause, and the summons came again.
‘Loft-us!’
‘That,’ he said quietly, ‘sounds like Hugo.’ He stood up and, although Lois looked as though she wanted to stop him, he stepped to the window.
‘Here!’ he called. And when the megaphone voice came again there was no doubting the presence of Hugo Cunningham.
‘You haven’t a chance,’ Cunningham called. ‘If you haven’t allowed us in within five minutes, I shall have to blow you to pieces.’
‘Interesting,’ shouted Loftus in reply. ‘How?’
‘From the air!’ roared Cunningham.
Loftus stood very still. Lois and Kerr looked at him, and then towards the trees which hid Cunningham. None of them seriously doubted that the threat would be carried out.
Loftus called: ‘And if we let you in?’
‘We can discuss that afterwards.’ Even the megaphone could not disguise the suavity in Cunningham’s voice.
‘Think so?’ answered Loftus, his decision made in that moment. ‘Well, I’ll go into conference and advise you.’
He drew back, his head cocked on one side as he looked at Kerr and his wife. Lois shook her head.
Kerr said:
‘Don’t trust the swine.’
‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Loftus.
They waited for five minutes, and then the silence was broken by the roar of the aeroplane engine as it was started up. Loftus looked at his watch. It was just fourteen minutes after Best had left the house.
‘Get everyone into the cellars,’ he said, and as Lois hurried from the room, Kerr pressed a bell for Mold,
In two minutes he, Mold and Loftus were in the attic room where Pinari, Doom, de Casila and the still fiery Bunce were held—all tied so that they could not move.
‘We’re going to take a walk,’ Loftus said.
There was sweat on de Casila’s forehead.
‘Loftus—I tell you I don’t know a t’ing more, not one t’ing!’
‘You’ll probably learn,’ said Loftus drily.
Doom glared malevolently as Mold picked him up and carried him out of the room. Simpson took Bunce, who would have struggled but for Pinari’s order for him to keep quiet. Pinari’s behaviour during his captivity had been beyond reproach.
‘You can walk,’ Kerr told him and they made their way downstairs to the cellars, where the two frightened maids—pacified as much as possible by Lois—and the menservants joined them. Then Loftus and Kerr returned to the drawing-room, and Trale, who had been watching from the landing window, came hurrying downstairs.
‘The plane’s air-borne’ he said. ‘How long, I wonder?’
‘It’s flying away from us,’ said Loftus.
‘Got to make height, or it would be caught in the blast from the explosion if they’re carrying high explosive bombs,’ said Kerr, the quietness of his manner showing his cool nerve. ‘The chances of making a direct hit are about five to one against, I’d say, if he flies at a safe height.’
‘That depends on how many bombs he’s carrying,’ grunted Loftus. He could think of nothing which would avert complete destruction.
&nb
sp; ‘Its turning,’ said Kerr, watching the machine with narrowed eyes. ‘Time we joined the others in the cellar.’
‘Got anything to eat down there?’ asked Loftus.
‘Plenty.’
‘It’s the drink that matters,’ chuckled Trale. ‘I should hate to die thirsty!’
They hurried along the kitchen passage, and Kerr was just closing the cellar door behind them, when the first explosion came. There was no noise of falling debris, but Kerr knew the bomb had fallen somewhere in the grounds.
‘Take it easy, everybody,’ said Loftus, but on his words a second explosion, and even more terrifying, boomed in their ears. A long rumbling noise followed, as though part of the house was collapsing.
De Casila widened his eyes in terror, trying to shout but unable to speak. One of the maids was sobbing. Simpson was standing between the door and Loftus, his eyes narrowed, his lips open a little. Loftus didn’t like his expression.
Boom!
The third explosion sounded even nearer, and this time the cellar walls vibrated. Simpson’s nerve deserted him completely, and he ran blindly to the door.
Loftus hit him, catching him as he fell, and lowering him gently to the ground.
Boom!
The fourth explosion was almost directly above them.
With the thunder of the report came a loud crack, and one of the cellar walls split, gaping fully an inch at the top, a quarter of an inch at the bottom. After a few seconds, while no one spoke but stared fearfully at the gap, they saw a wisp of smoke come through.
Loftus startled them all: ‘Better try the door.’
‘Yes. They’ll probably think we’ve had enough,’ Kerr said. ‘And the damage might have been worse.’
But there was fear in his heart as he and Loftus stepped to the stairs and mounted them.
Loftus reached the door first, and tried the handle. He was afraid of what he would find when he saw one of the panels all but split, the other bulging inwards. And a moment later he knew. The door was blocked with tumbled bricks and mortar. When he put his shoulder to it there was an ominous rumbling on the other side.
‘That’s it,’ he said, grimly.
‘We’re going to have trouble with the girls—and with Simpson when he comes round.’ Kerr said, with equal grimness.
And they went back to the cellar to break the news that they were buried alive.
17
Buried—Dead or Alive?
It had often been said that Craigie’s men took unnecessary risks and were apt to display heroics where none were needed. The fact that no one but those intimately associated with the Department would ever know of their actions, heroic or not, should have been the one effective argument against the contention, and Martin Best, watching the bombs dropping from the plane flying over Three Gables, supplied another.
He was hidden from the view of the men near the house by the thick hedge of the road. Just over a quarter of an hour before, he had talked with a startled and at first incredulous but finally convinced Major-General, who had promised to ‘see what he could do’.
‘Use one millimetre of red tape, Nebs,’ Best had said in a voice his uncle, Sir William Nebb-Taylor, had hardly recognised, ‘and I’ll rub your nose in the dust. This job’s vital.’
Back in the shelter of the thicket, Best had realised that it would be folly to try to return to the house. Even if he succeeded, there was little or nothing he could do to help. So he had gone back to the telephone wires, in case another S.O.S. might prove necessary.
Now the fifth bomb was falling...
He could see the tops of the chimneys at Three Gables, and the explosion blotted out a group of three of them. The next moment, adding to a cloud of smoke and dust that had risen from the first explosion, came a vivid flash of yellowish red flame, and billowing clouds of smoke. As it cleared, Best looked anxiously at the house. The group of chimneys had disappeared.
The rumbling of falling masonry came to his ears like distant thunder. He knew that it had been a direct hit, and felt a growing fear about the fate of his friends. His impotence infuriated him. His right hand clutched the butt of his automatic, and he actually took a few steps towards the house.
Then he heard the fast-approaching roar, not of one aeroplane but of several. From the Farnham direction, to which he had been staring with impatience from time to time, came a squadron of R.A.F. machines.
They were flying low, and before he had time to think they had reached a spot above The Gables, and had broken into separate units. Whoever was commanding the squadron had no use for red tape, for the spatter of bullets started to come from the machine-guns mounted on the planes. The tap-tap-tap was like music in Best’s ears as he began to run towards the house.
He broke through a gap in the hedge, and then stopped short.
In front of him were the three cars, beyond them the house, half of which was in ruins, from which the smoke and dust were still rising. But the scene between the house and the cars was like a crowd-shot in a war film.
Men were rushing from all directions towards the cars. Three or four had reached them, and were struggling to get inside, their faces distorted by fear, and with one thought only: to escape.
Coming along the lane alongside the meadow was a fourth car with one man at the wheel and one passenger. It was travelling fast, but as it slowed to negotiate a bend in the lane, Best had a clear view of the driver. He started. He had never seen Cunningham, but Loftus had given him a vivid description.
The pale, sardonic face was unmistakable.
‘Well, well!’ exclaimed Best. He raised his gun, while dropping back against the hedge, and fired. Both front tyres were punctured and the steering-wheel was wrenched from Cunningham’s grasp.
With a grinding smash the car went into the bank at the side of the road, the door swung open; and Cunningham was flung clear. Best reached him before he could get to his feet.
‘Going places?’ he asked.
The expression on his face would have frightened most men but not Hugo Cunningham.
‘I was, yes,’ he drawled. He straightened up. ‘Who are you?’
‘A friend of Loftus,’ answered Best.
Cunningham’s eyes narrowed, but it was his only change of expression.
‘I see. You brought the planes?’
‘I did.’
‘A little too late,’ said Cunningham.
‘You think so?’ said Best. It was all he could do to keep his hands off the suave, smiling man in front of him.
‘I’m sure,’ murmured Cunningham. ‘My men got in first, and there’ll be as little left of Loftus as there is of the house. Do you have to keep holding that gun?’
‘I’m thinking of using it,’ said Best grimly.
For the first time Cunningham looked alarmed. But apprehension showed in his eyes only for a moment, and he shrugged his shoulders. He looked as well-groomed and immaculate as he had at 18, Rue de Mallet.
‘It would serve no purpose,’ he said. ‘I...’
His pause gave Best a fraction of a second’s warning, but it was not enough. He did not see, nor hear, the man who had stepped from a hedge behind him, but as he half-turned he caught a glimpse of the automatic, the butt showing first, descending towards his head. He dodged. The butt crashed to his shoulder, and as he lunged at Cunningham the man kicked savagely at his knees.
Best gasped with agony, and went sprawling. A second kick caught him in the head. His ears were filled with a roar like thunder.
‘Come on!’ Cunningham rasped.
The man who had rescued him grunted, and they turned away from Best and the wrecked car, broke through the hedge, and made their way quickly across the meadow. As they went up the gradual slope they saw what they had expected—another small car, drawn into the far side of the meadow, near another by-road. Cunningham had foreseen the possibility of a quick retreat, and placed cars at several vantage points.
The shouting from Cunningham’s men who had made the a
ttack on Three Gables went on as the last of the R.A.F. planes landed—except one which went chasing after the bombing-plane towards the coast and radioing an alarm to make sure it was prevented from escaping.
In the cellar at Three Gables the air was getting fuggier, and breathing more difficult. But de Casila, Pinari, Kerr, Trale, Loftus and Lois were still conscious. De Casila had forgotten his fear, either because his senses were numbed, or because he realised the uselessness of wasting his breath in swearing.
Every now and again they heard an ominous rumble from above them; and with each rumble the crack in the wall grew larger.
• • • • •
Sir William Nebb-Taylor had made use of telephone and radio after his nephew’s call. He had arranged for a squadron of Royal Air Force planes to start out, and phoned Craigie’s office, where Miller had told him to talk with the Prime Minister, assuring him that Craigie’s name would be an open sesame. The Prime Minister had given Nebb-Taylor a free hand, and instructions to prevent the escape of any of the attackers. Nebb-Taylor had radioed the Air Force with those instructions, while Miller had told Sir William Fellowes what was happening. As a result, Fellowes, with a Superintendent and three men, had started for Surrey.
The Guildford and Farnham police had also been alerted when the squadron-leader in charge of the attack had seen the wreckage of Three Gables from the air. He had radioed for equipment for a rescue attempt, and it was a police car, preceding a fire-engine only by a few minutes, which almost ran over Martin Best.
An Inspector jumped out, helped him into the car, and proceeded to Three Gables, where firemen, police and R.A.F. men, together with villagers who had come rushing towards the scene, were working in relays to clear the wreckage.
The steps leading to the cellar had been located, and four men were working cautiously with shovels and pick-axes to clear a way. The west wing of Three Gables was still standing, but the kitchen quarters, and the east wing, had been razed to the ground. The only thing that could have made the situation worse was fire: luckily, thought Best, there was no sign of it.