Watcher in the Shadows

by Geoffrey Household

  Both of us were now on foot and under the beeches. The windbreak was a rough oval with a diameter of a hundred and fifty yards one way and about a hundred the other. That sounds a small arena for terror and uncertainty, but visibility was down to twenty feet if the enemy moved and nothing at all if he didn’t. Wherever a man lay down he automatically created an ambush. So, on the face of it, the odds were heavily against the attacker. But it was not much use to crouch and wait and switch a tail unless the prey could be attracted out of a thousand possible squares of darkness into the right one. And that meant that the defender had to make some noise while the attacker could afford to move silently.

  The only moonlit space was the clearing in the centre of the copse which led to the barn. It gave an impression of being longer than it really was and looked like an avenue. At the head of it the entrance to the barn showed as a black arch, flanked on the left by a broken outline of black where were the remains of an old dung heap and a pile of rubble.

  Saint Sabas was on the other side of this avenue. If he wanted to attack he had either to cross the open, which was suicide, or to work his way round the back of the barn into my side of the wood. I could faintly hear him on the move, so I decided to let him take the initiative.

  I tip-toed silently to the back – the north side – of the barn where the belt of trees was narrow and waited for him to enter my territory. But he was up to that one. He left the trees and took to the open hillside, re-entering the wood behind me and in my half of it. He did not seem to be taking the precaution of moving silently, so I knew that he meant me to hear what he was doing. I could not make it out at all.

  Had he decoyed me round to the back of the barn so that he could enter it by the door? I returned to the front and covered the door, though I had an uneasy instinct that the move was what he intended me to make and I paid more attention to my own security than to the threshold of the barn.

  But he was nowhere near the barn. To my astonishment I saw him across the bottom of the clearing. He then started another round of the copse, sometimes out on the hillside, sometimes penetrating deeply into the trees. It was little use trying to intercept him or hunt him down. His movements were quite unpredictable.

  This was nerve-racking. It only made sense on the theory that he was testing me to see if I were fool enough to fire at random. He used his mare, too – twice slapping her away to trot on her own through the darkness. I began to wonder if he had gone mad under the strain. This circling and darting back reminded me of an inefficient beater ordered to drive the game into the centre of the cover and thoroughly apprehensive about what might break back.

  It was I, however, who was apprehensive and beginning to be fascinated. Tiger? He was more like a stoat or a weasel playing the fool in order to attract a bird’s curiosity. Well, if he wanted me to come fluttering up to him, I was not going to.

  His occasional dashes on the other side of the clearing took him nearer and nearer to the barn. So that was it, I thought; he meant to distract my attention so that he could get inside and make me winkle him out. The next time I heard him safely turning somersaults on the north side I crossed the front and dropped into the shadows of the old manure heap. As soon as another dash for the barn began, I crawled in and turned round to cover the edge of the trees and the doorway. I must admit I was thankful to be inside. I had never been asked to study forest fighting against the lunatic crashings of a poltergeist without a plan.

  I suppose he continued beating the bounds for another quarter of an hour. Meanwhile, knowing that he was engaged outside, I took stock of the barn and freely used my torch in the corners which were out of sight of the doorway. During the afternoon I had merely glanced over the place with a view to making Nur Jehan comfortable, and had not examined it in detail.

  In the left-hand wall as I faced the doorway was a long, narrow window, the sill of which was about six feet from the ground. A man entering from outside would make a good deal of noise, but it offered an easy way out from the inside, for there was a pile of loose hay beneath the window. The floor of the barn was fairly clear of obstructions, except for an old chaff-cutter, some bits of iron and baulks of timber which had been part of a cart, and a pile of hazel rods close to the door. Against the back wall were three dilapidated stalls for horses or cattle.

  At last there was silence under the trees. I lay down a little back from the doorway preparing for the final shot. After a while I heard a horse walking placidly over the turf of the clearing towards me. I suspected that Saint Sabas was going to charge the door. It was not a bad idea if he thought that I was outside the barn and he wanted to get in through my covering fire. But I refused to be dazed by haute-école stuff this time and I was not going to be caught on the ground again.

  I stood up to get a level shot, for I could not be seen in the pitch darkness. But there was no change of pace, no sudden rush. Nur Jehan, his lighter colour showing just in time through the grey-black of the entrance, walked into the barn, gave me a casual Judas kiss in passing and strolled into one of the stalls to see what, if anything, was in the manger. I prayed that Saint Sabas did not know his habits. If he did, Nur Jehan had given away the fact that I was in the barn.

  A minute later the mare followed, sidling through the doorway and very nervous. She got mixed up with a pillar and an old cart shaft and let out at the lot with her heels. It was plain that Saint Sabas had driven her in to distract my attention – if I were inside – from his own approach. He succeeded in that. The crash made me as jumpy as the mare. I retreated a little from the door so that I could cover the window as well.

  Then silence returned, broken only by the munching of the horses who had found something to their taste. Instinct told me that I ought to be really frightened, that the tiger was crouched for the spring. I refused to believe instinct. I could not afford to. Panic was very close. I kept on reminding myself that I must not risk being wounded and helpless. Saint Sabas had not the three days which he had spent on the punishment of Dickfuss, but no doubt he would gladly spare an hour.

  At last I heard a scuffling on the stone sill of the window to my left. That was more cheerful. If he were climbing in, there had to be a moment when his head and shoulders would be silhouetted against the lighter night sky and it would be his last. My hand was perfectly steady in spite of the uncontrollable beating of the heart.

  The scuffle stopped. When it began again it sounded like a slipping boot but was too high up. I moved a step or two back from the window to get a clearer field of fire and met an unexpected barrel hoop under the scattering of hay, which rustled as I gently extricated my foot. Out to my right a torch and a shot flashed, one as fast as the other – and too fast. I fired back to each side of the flash. There was no apparent effect. Six in the Mauser against three in the Colt.

  I did not think I had scored. In the close quarters of the barn it was impossible to hear what the bullets had struck. Something long and light fell as I fired. It was one of the long hazel rods. Saint Sabas had used it for tickling the window sill. My instinct had been right. He was with me inside the barn.

  So this was the position he wanted, where a savage recklessness would count for more than skill and a club be nearly as effective as a fire-arm. Now that it was too late his tactics made sense. The spectral referee of the two chess boards said nothing, but I was within a move of mate. All that aimless rushing about had been most effective psychological warfare, destroying my nerves until I was ready to seize upon any easy explanation of it.

  He had indeed wanted to reach the barn, but not before he had hypnotized me into going inside it. He was not sure, I suppose, that I had really done so until Nur Jehan, fetched by him from the open hill, looked for and found me. Then the rest of his plan, the closing of the trap, came into operation. He had entered the barn crouched behind the mare’s quarters. I should have remembered the cows and the stream.

  My one idea now was to get out.
That was partly due to shock at discovering myself so obedient to the enemy, partly to sheer terror because I dared not move so much as a coat sleeve in case he was within a couple of yards of me. I sank down slowly and squatted on my heels, afraid even so that a creak of the knees might give me away.

  And then Nur Jehan screamed. It was utterly unnerving. A ghost or the sudden shriek of a mating vixen could not have been more weird and startling. I jumped round to face the horses without any regard at all for noise or cover. What in the devil’s name was this loathsome ruse, and how had he done it? He would draw the line at getting under Nur Jehan’s belly with a knife.

  It was not till the stallion’s second scream that I realized what was happening. The mare plunged out through the door, Nur Jehan after her. So that was the cause of his restlessness; and I had no doubt what had broken the inhibiting link between himself and the kindly creatures who played with him and tried to train him. It was the scent of human fear.

  I dropped to the ground, streaming sweat. Mrs Melton’s odd words came back to me: that the same fate was on the horse and the goat in the same place. I was near to tears with the poignancy of it. I wanted to live, as Nur Jehan would, to enjoy that fate.

  ‘A fine foal, von Dennim, I should think. Ah well, in the midst of death we are in life.’

  The panting, but still ironical voice came from the far end of the barn on the other side of the door. Under cover of the excitement he had slipped out of my half. The speed of my two shots must have shaken his confidence. It was comforting to know that he hated the threat of such incalculable close quarters as much as I did.

  I was sure that this conversational opening meant that he wanted to know whether he had hit or not. It was a good moment to choose. One leaps at a human word when recovering from near hysteria. But I did not reply.

  ‘They’ll be very pleased at Chipping Marton, the vicar and all!’ he went on. ‘What a charming passionate child! Even a Gestapo officer will do at her age … Missed again, von Dennim!’

  The whine of a ricochet contemptuously emphasized it. I had been fool enough to fire two more shots at a voice certain to be under cover. Four in the Mauser now against three in the Colt.

  A needed lesson. I reminded myself how I had made rings round this famous Savarin in the fields of Hernsholt. I must not be bluffed, I must never fire unless sure to hit. I must escape to the trees, and I must use my brains to get there. It was not going to be easy.

  His night sight was as good as my own. If either of us attempted to crawl through the area of dark grey on the threshold of the door, he was dead. Within the recesses of the barn no night sight mattered at all. Our world was black.

  His preference for the barn suggested that it was not the first time he had fought for his life in darkness. But in the battles of his guerrilla warfare he was festooned with full magazines for whatever weapon he used to spray his enemies. He could not use that technique. Past experience would not help to solve his ammunition problem. So we were equal. A sound had to be very promising indeed before either of us was likely to fire at it.

  There were plenty of little sounds if one listened carefully – some made by rats, some by the settling of rotten wood and mortar after the plunging of the horses, some by Saint Sabas. It was difficult for either of us to move quietly. He was wearing riding boots; I, ordinary boots and leather gaiters. Three or four steps might be completely muffled by patches of chaff or dung dried to powder, but the next crackled on noisier debris.

  I was sure that Saint Sabas had moved away from the far corner of the back wall where he had crouched to speak to me. He had crossed the barn to the front wall. An absolute silence from that direction – no rats, no movement – suggested that he was lying down in the angle of wall and floor close to the entrance, waiting for me to try to get out.

  I decided on a booby trap to distract his attention. Close to my hand were the remains of a stable door, hanging from one hinge and swaying and creaking in the slightest breath of wind. I lifted a truss of hay and balanced it on the door. On the truss I laid my torch and covered it with more hay. I switched it on. No trace of light showed.

  Then I moved on hands and knees to the angle of wall and floor on my side of the doorway. The wind or even a heavy footstep ought to bring the whole teetering pile down and give me a moment to leap out of the barn while Saint Sabas charged the light or shot at it.

  There we lay, separated from each other by fifteen feet of lighter space into which neither dared venture. He was there, all right. I once heard him draw a deep breath. I was very tempted to risk a shot parallel to the wall and six inches above the floor. But if I missed or only wounded, exactly the same shot in reverse would get me.

  I waited quarter of an hour for my delicately balanced bundle to collapse. It did not. No obliging rat. No puff of wind. Too ingenious. So I thought I might employ my time to better advantage. It would cost me a shot, but the shot might very well hit.

  With infinite precautions I discarded my gaiters, took off my boots and stuffed them inside the top of my pullover with laces knotted behind my neck; I have never moved so slowly in my life. Then I started to circle the barn keeping close to the far wall so that I knew where I was. My plan was to crawl up behind Saint Sabas and shoot whether I could see him or not. He would assume that he was faintly visible, and his only possible move was to hurl himself away from the wall into deeper darkness. That gave me a split second to get through the door before he recovered from the shock.

  The circling of the barn tried patience hard; but my long practice in moving imperceptibly counted. There were numerous small scraps of barbed wire and old iron about. Each foot had to go down slowly feeling for the floor. At last I struck the front wall, followed it towards the door and stopped a couple of yards short of the point where I believed Saint Sabas to be. I did not want to touch him. There was no telling what his exact position was. He might have heard me. Even if he hadn’t, the instinct of the hunted could be strong enough to make him turn round to face the imagined danger.

  Bent low and with my left hand on the ground I fired into the darkness ahead. Saint Sabas cursed and seemed to charge the spot where I had been but was not. I tip-toed in two strides round the doorpost and into the open.

  So easy. So unhurried. And it was successful just because I had used my superiority in stalking, though not under the conditions I expected. I sat down and put on my boots. It was nearly as dark outside as in the barn. The wind had dropped. A soft, straight drizzle was falling. Low down on the horizon was the faint streak of the false dawn.

  I lay down on the left of the door between the pile of rubble and the dung heap. He could never see me there until he stepped on me. If he tried to break out it was the end of him.

  It was now my turn to wear down his nerves. He did not know whether I was inside or outside the barn; and he had to know, for time was against him. On the top of that, loss of blood from my first shot might be telling. All I had seen when he tried to ride me down was the edge of a stained cravat and his coat collar pinned up over it. The last shot, too, could have scored. His exclamation seemed to carry more than surprise, but whether pain or just anger I was not able to tell.

  I intended him to waste himself by useless cunning and empty attacks until he lost patience. Meanwhile I waited, covering the door. Several times I heard him. Once he made a rush, but there was no shot. After that was silence. He was listening for me.

  It was essential that he should go on thinking I was inside, so I cautiously heaved a clod of earth obliquely through the door. When it fell, it sounded exactly as if I had tripped over something soft. The result was a rustle of movement and an audible stumble. I could feel that his nerves were at last giving way. By this time there was a curious occult sympathy between us; I imagine it was the effect of intense concentration upon the other’s mind. In another minute he would have charged out of the door, regardless of the consequences.r />
  And then that blasted bundle of hay collapsed when it was no use to me. The torch rolled tinkling across the floor. It was still lit, of course. There was no immediate reaction from Saint Sabas. He was holding his breath and living only in his ears.

  I never knew such a tiger of a man for swift decision. The lighted torch, falling without any sound or action to back it up, convinced him that I was not in the barn at all. If I was not, then it did not matter whether his figure was outlined for a second in the window. I might be watching it from the outside, but it was a hundred to one that I was watching the doorway. Perhaps that clod of earth clinched it. Whatever the object was, it had been thrown in through the door.

  I heard him run across the barn and drop down to the ground through the window without any precautions at all. I ran on a parallel course along the outside wall, but arrived at the corner of the barn just too late. All I saw was a movement into the copse without any clear outline. I fired at it and he replied from the trees as I hurled myself into cover a few yards away from him.

  This at last was the game as I wanted it to be played. I knew on which black square he was and the particular complex of shadows which held him. But the beech leaves underfoot were not packed and there were too many dead and crackling stems of some kind of umbellifera. To stalk him was not easy. It was impossible to move quietly – or quietly enough for ears trained by those hours of terror in the barn.

  In a sense we were nearly always in sight of each other. But which shapeless spectre was man and which a bush or a tuft of coarse grass was hard to tell – unless, that is, it deliberately moved to draw a shot. Each knew that the other knew exactly what he had left in the magazine; and neither could be tempted by anything less than a certainty. Myself I would have considered a certainty any solid which still looked like part of a man at a range of a dozen feet.