The Judas Pair

by Jonathan Gash

  Bows and arrows are sophisticated engines, not the simple little toys we like to imagine. An arrow from a longbow can pierce armour at short distances, and Lovejoy at any distance you care to mention. But for real unsophisticated piercing power at short range you want that horrid weapon called the arbalest, the crossbow. Often wood, they were as often made of stone, complete with trigger beneath the stock. Their only drawback was comparative slowness of reloading. By now though he’d have it ready for a second go.

  He was a bright lad. No flashes, no noise, no explosions even if they’d been audible to any neighbouring houses. And I was still no nearer guessing where he might be. My, assets were that I was still alive, was armed and had enough food to last out the weekend and more. But I’d need to keep awake whereas he could doze with impunity. I felt like shouting out that he could have the wretched turnkey.

  At that moment I knew I was defeated. He had me trapped. And as far as I was concerned he could move about with impunity, even go home for a bath knowing I would be too scared to make a run for it in case he was still at his post. How the hell had I got into this mess? I questioned myself savagely.

  Half-twelve, maybe something like five hours till daylight. Then what? I still wouldn’t be able to see into the copse. And I would be that much more at risk.

  I sat upright on the divan in the living room. The side window was paler than the rest, showing the moon was shining from that direction. I opened the hall door wide and, keeping my head down, pulled back the kitchen alcove’s curtains as far as they would go. That way I’d be as central as I could possibly be and he’d get the Mortimer first twitch if he tried to break in.

  My spirits were starting to rise when I heard a faint noise. It was practically constant, a shushing sound like a wind in trees, not at all resembling someone moving across a gravel path or wading through tall grass. Maybe, I thought hopefully, a breeze was springing up. If it started to rain he might just go home and leave me alone.

  The noise increased, hooshing like a distant crowd. Perhaps the villagers had somehow become alarmed and were coming in a group to investigate. Even as the idea came I rejected it – people were not that concerned. Worried, I forgot caution and crept towards each of the windows to listen. The sound was as loud at each. I even risked approaching the front door, then the side door, but learned nothing except that the noise was ever so slightly intensifying as moments passed.

  It was several puzzling minutes before I noticed the odd appearance of the side window. Shadows from it seemed to move in an odd way I hadn’t seen before. The other window, illuminated blandly by moonlight diffusing through the curtains, cast stationary shadows within the room. My sense of unknowing returned again to frighten me. I couldn’t even risk trying to glance out with that arbalest outside waiting’ to send another bolt trying for my brain.

  Then I smelled smoke.

  The shushing sound was the pooled noise of a million crackles. My thatched roof had been fired, probably by means of a lighted arrow. A kid could have done it. A hundred ways to have prevented all this rose to mind, all of them now useless. I was stuck in the cottage which was burning. Thatch and wattle-and-daub.

  Madness came over me for a second. I actually ran about yelling, and dashed to the kitchen window. Recklessly, I pulled the curtain aside and fired into the darkness through the broken pane. I shouted derision and abuse. The copse, vaguely lit by a strangely erratic rose-coloured glow, remained silent. I heard the slap of the lead ball on its way among the leaves. Maddened, I tried filling a pan with water and throwing it upwards. It left a patch on the ceiling. Hopeless.

  I had to think. Smoke was beginning to drift in ominous columns vertically downwards. Reflected firelight from each window showed me more of the living room than I’d seen for some time. I was going to choke to death before finally the flames got me. The beams would set alight, the walls would catch fire and the fire would extend downwards until the entire cottage was ablaze. I’d heard glass exploded in fires. There would be a cascade of glass fragments from every possible direction ricocheting about the place. Those, and the flames, but first the asphyxiating smoke, would do for me.

  It would have to be the door. I’d make a dash for it. He’d be there, knowing my plight. He’d let me have it as soon as I opened the door to step outside. And it would have to be the front. Going out of the side door I’d just have further to run to get out of my blind garden. Unless I ran towards the copse – but once in there, assuming I reached it, what then? He knew it intimately. Maybe he would even stay there, confident of his marksmanship and having me silhouetted against the fire. You couldn’t ask for an easier target.

  The smoke intensified. I started to cough. The walls began creaking as if anticipating their engulfment. Above, a beam crackled unpleasantly and a few flakes of ash began to drift downwards. So far I couldn’t see the flames but their din was beginning to shake the cottage. Faint tremors ran through the solid paving beneath my feet. You the from asphyxiation in a fire, I’d heard somewhere, probably in pub talk. Then, dead and at the mercy of the encroaching fire, your body becomes charred and immutably fixed in the terrible ‘boxer’s stance’ of the cindered corpse. I’d seen enough of the sickening war pictures to know. Tears were in my eyes from the smoke.

  ‘You bastard,’ I howled at the side door. ‘Murderer!’

  If I was to dash towards possible safety with all guns blazing, I would need guns to blaze. Spluttering and now hardly able to see as the cottage began to fill with curling belches of smoke, I dragged the carpet aside and lifted the flag of the priest-hole. As I did the idea hit me.

  For certain I was practically as good as dead. No matter which way I jumped he’d kill me. I had enough proof of his intentions to know he was going to leave me dead. There was no escape. So what if I hid in the priest-hole?

  I dashed back for my torch, finding it easily in the flickering window-glow. The shaded light showed the cavity at which I looked anew. Could fire ever penetrate paving stones? Maybe heat could. On the other hand, how long would a cottage like mine burn? And how long would the heat take to cook me alive in there?

  The sink. I raced back, filled two pans full of water at the tap and hurried back. The smoke was making it practically impossible to see. I was coughing constantly. The carpet had to be soaked to keep the flags as cool as possible. If they were damp, though they might eventually burn, they would perhaps act as a heat barrier for a while. I poured the water over the carpet and dashed into the kitchen alcove again.

  By plugging the sink and turning both taps on at full blast I might eventually manage to flood the cottage floor. I’d actually done it once by accident. I wedged a dishcloth into the overflow at the back of the sink, which was the best I could do. It broke my heart to leave the Mortimers, but since he knew I’d fired at him they were going to be evidence of my doom. Quickly filling two milk bottles with water, I grabbed a loaf and a big piece of cheese which would have to last me. I remembered the torch at the last minute.

  The idea was to have the flag in place covering the priest-hole with me in it and the wet carpet covering that neatly. Under a mound of ash and fallen debris there’d be little sense in searching the ground unless they knew of my priest-hole, and nobody else did. But how to do it? I stood on the steps with my shoulders bracing back the flag while my fingers inched the carpet forward until it touched the floor. Then I lowered the flag by edging my way down step by step. The last step was done with the heavy paving stone actually supported by my head. Twice I had to repeat the manoeuvre because the carpet somehow folded inside and wedged the stone open a fraction. I couldn’t risk that. I stepped down inch by inch. The stone finally clicked into place without a hitch. Now it was covered by the carpet, and above me the cottage was roaring like a furnace.

  And I was entombed. Ovened.

  The vents showed a hazy glimpse of orange redness to either side. Fine, but there was smoke starting to drift in from the direction of the back garden. My water and foo
d I placed on the lowest shelf for safety where I couldn’t possibly knock them over. I swiftly took stock of what I had to fight with. First, his ignorance of my priest-hole. Second, the weapons I had available.

  There were the powder guns, but black powder is notoriously unstable. Even the modern versions such as I had got from Dick Barton could not be completely free from capricious behaviour. Weapons already loaded could easily explode in heat. I’d heard of it happening. Still, if I loaded a couple of pistols and left them cased and carefully pointing along one of the vents there might not be too much risk, and they’d be cooler. I stuffed my shirt into a vent and shielded the other with my body. I switched on the torch.

  I decided on the Barratt pair although they were percussion. The sight of my bloodstained hands frightened me almost to death. I was glad I hadn’t got a mirror because my face was probably in a worse state still. Shakily, taking twice as long as usual, I loaded the pair of twin barrels and slipped valuable original Eley percussion caps over the four nipples. Half-cock. Then I loaded the Samuel Nock pair. They were more of a danger in this growing heat, being flintlock, as the powder in the flashpan was external to the breech and so more easily ignited. For what it was worth I bid them flashpan downwards in one of the vents.

  The heat was greater now. Smoke was still drifting from one vent. I must find some means of creating an increased draught from one vent to the other, perhaps bringing in cooler fresh air from outside to dilute this hot dry air inside the priest-hole.

  Barrels. Barrels are tubes. The longest barrels I had were on the Brown Bess and the Arab jezails. Perhaps, I reasoned, if I drew in a deep breath facing one vent and blew it out down a barrel lying along the other vent, I would be all right with the faint draught it was bound to create. But I’d need to take the breech-plugs out. The tools were handy, which was one blessing.

  As I worked I stripped naked. The heat was almost intolerable now. I used up a whole bottle of water wetting my shirt and using it to cover my head. The barrels together would reach about halfway down one vent, so they’d have to be bound in sequence. I did this with an old duster soaked in my urine, binding the rag round the junction of the two barrels to make it as air-tight as possible. Because the priest-hole was so narrow I had to complete the job standing on the steps with one barrel already poked inside the vent’s shaft and the other sticking out past my face. By the time it was done I was quivering from exhaustion.

  I tried my idea of blowing but the heat was beginning to defeat me. The air entering my lungs was already searingly hot. From above my head came frantic gushing sounds, creakings and occasional ponderous crashes which terrified me more than anything. The walls would be burning now, and the beams would be tumbling through the living-room ceiling. Twice, I heard loud reports as the glass windows went. It must be an inferno. I was worn put and dying from heat. Too clever by far, I’d got myself into the reverse of the usual position. I was safe from smoke and being cooked in an oven. If only I could bring air in.

  I forced myself to think as the blaze above my head reached a crescendo. What could make air move? Propellers, windmills, waterwheels? A fan. A jet engine. A ship’s screw. A paddle-device. What had they used in prisoner-of-war camps when digging those tunnels? Bellows, conveyors of buckets, paddle-engine? Bellows.

  Below me, on the shelf near my precious bottle of water, was the air-gun. I had a pump for it, but what rate did it actually pump air? It usually needed about four minutes to fill the gun’s copper globe going full-pelt, and that was tiring enough. I took the implement and gave a couple of trial puffs. The force was considerable, as it indeed would need to be, seeing the eventual ball-pressure was enough to propel a fourteen-bore lead sphere some thousand yards or so. I clasped it to me and put the screw-nozzle against the open gun-breech projecting from the vent. With some difficulty I began pumping. Almost immediately I felt a marvellous gentle breeze against my back from the opposite vent, but there came an unpleasant inrush of smoke with it. I would need to blow out air in the opposite direction. There might be less smoke that side.

  The barrels were easy to swap over as the vents were of a height. I simply slotted them in, having to mend the junction on the way across. That way round, it was easier to use the pump because I found I could use the wall as a support and one of the shelves as a fulcrum for my elbow. This time I was rewarded by the cool air on my shoulders without very much smoke. I guessed that a faint breeze must be blowing the fire and smoke in the direction I was facing.

  There was a certain amount of squeaking from the air pump and its leather bellows flapped noisily, but in the cacophony from the fire above nothing I was doing could possibly be distinguished from the other noise. My only worry was if he saw a steady current of air somehow piercing the slanting smoke from somewhere in the grass. The shifting firelight would help.

  As minutes went by, I improved on the system. Once it became obvious the system was working, I started settling down to a less frantic rate. I might, I reasoned, have to do this for ever. You see fires still burning days after they’ve started, don’t you? I counted my rate at about twenty pumps a minute. By stuffing my shirt into the vent round the jezail barrel I improved the motion still further by preventing any back-draught. All incoming air was from the opposite side. Occasional gusts of smoke frightened me now and again but they weren’t too bad.

  I tried pausing for two consecutive beats to listen. Was there shouting from above? I dreamed – was it a dream? – I heard a big vehicle revving, followed crazily by a sound of splashing water. But the bastard might be trying to pretend the firemen had arrived. Twice, I was near screaming for help. Drenched and demented I resisted and pumped on, haunted by the memory of the stables which had burned down behind the old rectory. Submerged by the low evening mist, horses and stables were found as just ashes a full day later. And worse still I had no way out, whether it was friends or foe on the other side, except through the flames. For some daft reason it seemed vital to suppress hopes of people like Margaret and Tinker Dill, those smug bastards in comfort somewhere who were believing I wasn’t dying. The smarmy pigs, all of them. I sobbed and sobbed, pumping crazily on amid the lunatic noise.

  One really monumental crash interrupted me about an hour or two after my life-supporting system had been started. That would be the central longitudinal beam, I thought. The whole cottage was down now, with the exception of maybe part of a wall here and there.

  After that, nothing but the faint shushing roar, the ponderous crumblings and tremors all about me, and the steady slap-click-pat-hiss of the ancient bellow pump wafting beautiful cool air over my shoulders and out through the old barrels.

  Nothing but my arms moving, the pump handle slippery from sweat and spurts of blood as a cut re-opened briefly. Nothing but leaning one way for a hundred pumps and another way for another hundred to ease my tiredness, nothing but the hiss of outgoing and the gentle coolness of incoming air. The question of survival receded. I became an automaton.

  There was nothing in my mind, no thought, no reasoning, no plans, virtually no consciousness, nothing but to continue pumping for ever and ever and ever.

  Chapter 16

  IT MOST HAVE rained about ten o’clock that Sunday morning as far as I was able to tell. All that did was make the wretched ashes cool a little faster than they’d otherwise have done.

  As time went on the noise above lessened somewhat, though the intolerable heat reached a peak some hours after the sounds of the fire had faded. The first improvement I noticed was that smoke wasn’t coming in anything like as frequently as it had. My breathing was difficult from the heat though, and once I cried out in pain when, shifting my cramped position on the steps, I inadvertently touched the flagstone above my head. It burned my arm and stinging blisters rose swiftly in my skin. As I resumed my pumping they burst and serum washed warm patches down my arm and on to my knee. I’d been going some eight hours at a guess when I finally decided to chance a minute’s rest.

  Numbly
, I forced myself to work out the time by counting. The vent was showing that daylight glow. I could actually hear the cracklings of the settling ash mixed incongruously with faint twitters of the birds. No sound of revving engines now, no faint shouts either real or imaginary. If the firemen had come at all, they were gone now. And a wise murderer returns to see his job’s properly done. Maybe he was already sifting through the embers for the turnkey. I know I would have done just that. God knows, I thought wearily, what the robin thinks of all this. I drank about a third of my water and endured the discomfort as the heat rose while I sat down. The ache was almost pleasurable. Sitting and eating dry bread and cheese seemed bliss after the horrible efforts I’d expended at the old bellows. Within two or three minutes, however, the heat rose again and I had to resume my action with the air-pump to cool the cell down and allow me to breathe properly.

  Throughout the morning, I drove myself into forming a scheme. I would pump for about five minutes, then rest for as long as I could tolerate the heat, upon which I’d resume pumping. Limping along in this fashion for a while I soon realized I’d overestimated the rate at which the incoming air cooled my prison. I reluctantly had to increase pumping time to about half an hour or so, which gave me sufficient coolth for about five minutes. There was an additional danger here, in that I was tempted to fall asleep while resting. I had to prevent this by standing up.

  With time to think I became bitter. Where the hell were the fire people? And the police? And my lazy smarmy self-satisfied bloody friends? Why weren’t they calling frantically for me, digging through the ash with their bare hands? I would. For them. But Lovejoy’s nearest and dearest let him have a private bloody holocaust. The swine had all assumed I was shacked up elsewhere with some crummy bird. Could life be so outrageous that I’d been trapped by an armed maniac and so-say roasted alive by him in my own bloody home, and the entire country was just not caring enough? I wept from frustrated anger at the insult. All life in that moment seemed utterly mad. No wonder people just set out determined to simply get what they could. Who could blame them? The proof was here, in ashes above me. And I, honest God-fearing Lovejoy, finished up buried underneath the smoking ruins of my own bloody house, cut, filthy, bleeding, weary, and as naked as the day I was born.