Black August gs-10

by Dennis Wheatley

  The lascar rushed in again, but Kenyon put out his foot and the man crashed to the ground; another dashed in ducked as Kenyon lashed out and grabbed him round the middle. They swayed together, locked in each other's arms up and down the pavement. Kenyon gave his assailant a quick jab behind the ear, the man grunted and staggered back, but as Kenyon thrust his way towards the lighted window of the little restaurant, he suddenly missed Ann she had disappeared.

  A second later he saw her, still on her feet but out in the roadway, separated from him by half a dozen people. Her dress had been ripped away at the neck, showing the bare flesh of her shoulders, but she had snatched a short, thick umbrella from a woman in the crowd, and was beating wildly with it at the faces of the people who surrounded her. Kenyon dashed back into the road striking out right and left, irrespective as to whether his opponents were men or women, and the mob shrank away from the menace of his powerful blows. Ann had slipped to her knees by the time he reached her, but he used his long arms like flails and, clearing a space, lugged her to her feet again; yet it seemed that it could only be a matter of seconds before they were both dragged down, for his back was unprotected now and the mob was closing in again, snarling and angry.

  Suddenly there was a resounding crash. A group of people had fastened on Kenyon's car with senseless fury, and tilting it, had thrown it over on its side. In the brief silence that followed Ann glanced wildly round. A mad animal blood lust glared from the mean faces that ringed them. Hundreds of cruel merciless eyes seemed to devour her in anticipation, and a multitude of claw like hands reached out to rip her shrinking body, but momentarily they were drawn back, and Kenyon seized her by the waist, half carrying, half dragging her towards the lighted doorway.

  They were nearly there. The Greyshirts were already clustered in the entrance, and the big American was thrusting Veronica behind him when a well aimed brick caught Kenyon on the head. He staggered and fell.

  The mob rushed in again, but Ann stood over him. She remembered having heard somewhere that to lunge at people's faces with the point of an umbrella was far more effective than to beat them about the head. As in some ghastly nightmare she prodded fiercely at the head of an aged crone who was bearing down on them. The point caught the beldame on the mouth, and her stream of hideous blasphemies ceased in a sudden whine. A chimneysweep, his face begrimed with soot, his red rimmed eyes gruesome in the flickering light, dived at her from the other side; she jabbed at him and he clutched his eye with a scream of pain.

  'Well done, Ann well done!' It was Kenyon who had stumbled to his feet, blood streaming down his face, but grasping in his hand a short length of wood which he had found on the pavement. It was a Communist weapon and had two ugly nails driven through the heavy end.

  He gripped Ann round the shoulders with his left arm and began to savage the people nearest to them with the bludgeon. A moment later they were hauled into the cook shop by the Greyshirts.

  Ann sank fainting and exhausted to the floor, but Ken yon picked her up and barged his way towards Veronica, who stood half way up a narrow flight of stairs at the back of the restaurant. The whole place was a struggling melee of people. The Greyshirts were endeavouring to throw the customers and occupants out into the street.

  Veronica pulled Ann beside her and Kenyon jumped back into the rough and tumble. It was short and sharp, only one big man who looked like a professional bruiser was giving serious trouble, but a china mug caught him on the side of the head, the Greyshirts closed in on him, and he was flung out in a heap, on to the pavement.

  A bottle filled with stones hurled through the window, shivering the glass in all directions, and a slab of stone came whizzing through the open door. It caught the foreign looking youth who had started all the trouble on the foot, and flushing with pain and rage he whipped out his automatic again.

  There was a sudden crash of shots as he poured its contents deliberately into the nearest of the crowd. The carnage at such short range was terrible, some of the bullets penetrating two or more people apiece in the close packed mass. Kenyon saw them fall right and left, gripping their wounds, vomiting blood, and howling with agony while the unwounded turned on their companions, fighting desperately to get out of range of the murderous weapon.

  A temporary lull ensued while the Greyshirts stood, gasping and panting, dabbing at their wounds and trying to staunch the flow of blood.

  'Don't waste time!' bawled Harker. 'Get that door shut and make a barricade.' He knew that they had only secured a most doubtful sanctuary. The mob still swayed angry, threatening, dangerous outside. '

  The door was slammed and a couple of marble topped tables piled against it.

  'Let's use the counter, that looks solid,' suggested Ken yon.

  'Can't,' said the youth with the gun. 'It's nailed down.'

  'Oh, pull the damned thing up!' Kenyon seized one end of it in his strong arms. The American grabbed the other end. 'Come on now! all together heave!'

  The counter came away with a loud splintering of wood. The coffee urn fell to the floor with a ringing thud. Plates, glasses and cake stand crashed and jangled. Pushing and panting they slewed the mighty piece of wood across the window and the door, pulled out the tables and piled them on the top, then the chairs and stools. In an incredibly short space of time they had formed a solid barricade which it would not be easy for the mob to force.

  'Wonder if there's a back way out,' gasped Kenyon to the American.

  'Good for you! I wish you'd look,' was the terse reply.

  Kenyon ran to the rear of the shop, through a door and into a small kitchen. One narrow window looked out on to a dark well, enclosed on three sides by sheer blank walls. No hope in that direction!

  He dashed back and up the stairs to the first floor. In the front room overlooking the street he found Veronica quietly making up her face in the central mirror of an ornate overmantel, and Ann dialling away at a telephone.

  "What's the idea?' he asked.

  'Trying to get help, of course.'

  'No good, my dear. The Inspector told us that only official calls were allowed.'

  "Well,' she protested, 'the police are official aren't they?'

  'Yes, but I shouldn't think there's a policeman within a hundred miles of here.'

  'Why not?' asked Veronica, carefully darkening her eyelashes.

  'Because they have to concentrate in the West End; what good could they do scattered in twos and threes all over London at a time like this?'

  'How too shattering ' Veronica inspected her handiwork with care.

  'Hadn't you better cut that out?' Kenyon suggested. 'It only angers the crowd to see you painted up like Jezebel!'

  'Darling, I'm sorry, but if we're going to meet God face to face in the next hour I must look decent. Besides it gives me moral support, like boiled shirts to Englishmen in the tropics. Tell me! If there is no chance of help what does A do now?'

  'Get out if we possibly can. I'm trying to find a way now; if we can't God knows! Anyhow, keep away from that window both of you or they'll start throwing things in here.' Kenyon slammed the door behind him.

  The back room he found was a frowsty bedroom, and the windows only showed the blank walled well again. Above there were two more bedrooms, stale smelling and horrible, the beds unmade, and the tumbled sheets filthy with stains and grease. He had hoped to find a trap door in the ceiling of the top landing, but he was disappointed. After a hasty search he gave it up and hurried below to report to the American.

  'That's bad,' nodded Harker. 'We've just beaten off an attack, but how long we'll be able to keep them out, Lord knows!'

  'Give me a couple of your men and the next time they rush you we'll chuck things on them from the upstairs windows,' suggested Kenyon.

  'That's an idea.' The American tapped two of his Grey shirts on the shoulder. 'Bob Harry get upstairs and lend a hand to Mr. Whatshisname.'

  Although all the men round him were sweating and dishevelled, the gigantic Mr. Harker remain
ed as cool and unruffled as if he were seated in his favourite bar playing a game of poker dice.

  Kenyon and his assistants collected all the plates and other useful missiles that they could carry and staggered up to the front room. Veronica and Ann were peering cautiously out of the window.

  'Oh, look!' cried Ann as he came in. 'They've got a battering ram!' Then he saw that a dozen burly fellows had shouldered the shaft out of a large wagon, and were making ready to stave in the door of the shop.

  He threw up the window and seizing a hideous china vase from the mantelpiece, hurled it at the men below.

  Bob and Harry took the other window while Veronica and Ann kept all three supplied with plates, and a rain of clattering china descended on the heads of the besiegers forcing them to drop their ram, but the mob on the far pavement were quick to retaliate. Bricks, stones, bottles and potatoes came from all directions, smashing through the windows and thudding into the room. Harry's face was so badly cut that he had to retire, and Veronica stopped half a brick with her elbow, which temporarily put her out of action.

  The mob howled and shouted, urged on by a blue chinned man who had climbed on to the Greyshirts' derelict car. He waved a Red flag in one hand and pointed at the windows with the other. Kenyon picked up an aspidistra plant from a nearby table and hurled it at him, but it fell short, the pot obliterating the scared face of an old woman who saw it coming but had no time to get out of the way.

  The agitator yelled derisively at the men with the battering ram. They picked it up and came on again. There was a rending crash as the door gave way, Bob staggered to the open windows with an old shiny, black, horse hair covered arm chair. With Ann's help he tipped it out; yells and curses from the street told that it had found at least one mark, but for every casualty the mob sustained there were a hundred infuriated, fight maddened people pressing forward to fill the gap.

  'One, two, three.' The battering ram was flung with the weight of twenty men behind it against the barricade. The flimsy shop front had been completely demolished now. In the parlour above, the ammunition was almost exhausted; every ornament had gone, the oleographs and photos from the walls, and most of the furniture. Kenyon turned to fetch more missiles from the bedroom and found Harker behind him.

  The big man was grinning but he shook his head. 'We can't keep it up, and they'll be through below stairs in a moment; barricade's half down already.'

  Kenyon groaned as he wiped his grimy, bloodstained face. 'Where has that fellow with the gun got to? Can't he pick off the agitator and the other ring leaders?'

  'He's run out of shot, but don't worry. I'll bring the boys up here. The crowd will never be able to pass us on those stairs in a month of Sundays.' With his leg of mutton hands thrust deep into his breeches pockets the Greyshirt officer strolled out of the room.

  The battering ram found its mark again with a terrific thud, the whole barricade was shifting, chairs and tables tumbling to the floor. With a howl of triumph the mob surged forward, thrusting the remaining obstacles inward through the shattered shop front, and clambering wildly over the top. The Greyshirts retreated to the rooms above and hurriedly erected a new rampart on the landing with beds and bedding; the fight at the windows was renewed with increased vigour.

  Suddenly there was a lull. A motor horn was hooting insistently further along the street, and the crowd, scenting fresh and easier prey, began to stream in that direction.

  The hooting grew louder, and there were angry cries as a big closed car zigzagged down the street. The people drew hastily back on to the pavement, but one small urchin ran out and threw a broken teacup at the chauffeur. Next second the mudguard caught him, and he fell under the near front wheel. There was a howl of execration, and a dozen men flung themselves in front of the long bonnet. Two, three, four were sent spinning, and then the car pulled up.

  'How about trying to break out now?' Kenyon suggested.

  Silas Gonderport Harker shook his cherubic head. 'Not a hope; we'd never get a hundred yards.'

  Over the heads of the crowd they watched the occupant of the car, a tall, lean, elderly man with a lined aesthetic face. He showed no trace of fear or excitement but produced an automatic and with the utmost calmness fired three times, once to the front over his chauffeur's shoulder, then swiftly once through each side window of the car. The bullets drilled neat round holes through the glass, and each one killed a man. The mob snarled with rage but gave back instantly, cowering with fear one against the other. With a sudden jerk the car bumped over two more of the bodies and sped on.

  Almost before it was out of sight another car came in view, and the crowd greeted it with a roar of savage hate; the driver, a young man in a soft hat, hesitated and slowed down. A woman stooped and picking up a small bronze ornament from the gutter hurled it at him. It struck the young man full in the face; his head lolled stupidly for a second and then the car swerved violently, ran on to the pavement, and crashed through the window of a shop. A man was pinned between the bonnet and the framework, his head gushing blood from the cuts of the splintered glass; his screams, and those of the other people who had been run down could have been heard half a mile away, yet no one paid any attention to them; they were dragging the occupants from the back of the car; an old man, a fat woman, and a girl.

  'Oh, can't we help them?' Ann clutched at Kenyon's arm, but almost before she had finished speaking the girl had disappeared, thrown down and trampled upon by a hundred feet. The old man went next, struck on the back of the head by a bottle. His eyes goggled stupidly, staring out of a fleshy white face for a second, then he sank from view; but the fat woman survived for three or four minutes. She swung a weighty bag, driving her aggressors from her by striking them with it in the face, but hands clawed at her from all sides and her clothes were ripped to ribbons; a malicious urchin kneeling behind her lugged at her skirt, the fastening broke and it descended to her ankles revealing a bright blue petticoat. He seized that too and wrenched it to the ground.

  Suddenly she kicked herself free of the clothes around her feet and leaving a large portion of her pink silk blouse in the hands of a vicious shrew, broke away from her tormentors. With amazing swiftness for her bulk she pelted down the street, naked to the waist, her legs encased in a pair of frilly calico drawers; she presented a ludicrous, but pathetic and terrifying sight. Rivulets of blood coursed down her shoulders and tears gushed from her eyes; before she had gone twenty yards she was tripped and fell. The mob closed in on her and kicked the great unwieldy body into shuddering immobility.

  'Hunted like hares!' whispered Kenyon.

  'What say?' asked the American.

  'Nothing.' Kenyon was thinking of his father's prediction and wondering where he was now; safe at Windsor, or already fallen a prey to the blind resentment of the people against the ruling caste which had allowed things to drift into this terrible pass.

  The car had been pillaged before the fat woman fell, and now the sullen, angry faces in the street were turned up to the windows again. Like a savage inhuman herd they stampeded across the road and into the shop below. Fighting began on the stairway while Kenyon and Bob tore down the over mantel and curtain rods to hurl from the windows.

  'Burn them!' yelled a shrill voiced woman suddenly. 'Why don't yer burn 'em.' The cry was taken up; the street seemed to rock under the reiterated howling of the mass. 'Burn 'em burn 'em! The blasted Greyshirt swine!

  Kenyon caught a glimpse of Ann's face, drawn and haggard with unnaturally bright eyes. He fumbled for her hand and pressed it. 'I'm sorry, Ann, terribly sorry that I bought you into this.'

  She smiled, frightened, but trying to remain courageous. 'It wasn't your fault. I'm quite all right.'

  Veronica joined them. She held an unlighted cigarette between her fingers. 'Kenyon,' her voice was quite even, 'got a match?'

  He produced a lighter. 'How long,' she asked, 'do you think we've got?'

  'Not long,' he confessed. 'If they do set fire to the place we'll have to try
and fight our way out, but Anyhow, I wish to God I'd taken you out of London last night.' The moment he had spoken he regretted his words, for the delay of course was due to Ann, but she still held his hand and now she pressed it.

  'I'm sorry, Veronica; I've been an awful fool,' she said.

  'Darling, I could not have borne it without another woman!' Veronica announced, puffing at her cigarette; which was a lie anyhow, since she hated the presence of other women if there were men about.

  Silas Harker hurried in from the landing. For the first time his placid cheerful face showed real anxiety. 'We're sunk!' he exclaimed to Kenyon, 'they've just set the staircase on fire!'

  'Turn on the tap in the bathroom and flood the house,' suggested Veronica.

  'There is no bathroom in a place like this,' the American answered tersely, 'and we're for the golden shore unless we can think of something quick!' Without waiting for a reply he left them again and as he opened the door a cloud of smoke billowed into the room.

  The acrid fumes caught Veronica in the throat; she coughed and spluttered. 'What shall we do, Kenyon? For God's sake say something; we can't stay here to be burnt alive!'

  Wreaths of smoke were creeping under the floor, filtering into the room so quickly that it was already difficult for them to see out of their smarting eyes. It could only be a matter of minutes before they would be driven into jumping from the windows to be seized upon and kicked to death by the frantic crowd below.

  At his wits' end Kenyon moved back to the windows; as he leant out a lump of coal sailed past his head. It was not more than a twelve foot drop to the ground, but the mob stayed there angry, expectant.

  'Hark!' he exclaimed, drawing in his head. As they listened a faint rat tat- tat came to their ears. 'Machine guns!' he added suddenly.

  'Soldiers!' supplemented Bob. 'If only they're coming this way.'

  A low sullen roar like an angry sea came to them from the distance; then the staccato rattle of a machine gun again, clearer now; a sudden hush had fallen on the crowd outside.