by John Creasey
The other smiled.
‘Haven’t had the report myself yet, sir,’ he declared, and Murray wondered if he was a liar in a good cause.
Murray went quietly upstairs. The bedroom door was closed, and he tapped very lightly, but there was no response. He needed some clothes if he was to go to London, but he didn’t want to disturb Juanita. He tapped again, and then opened the door and peeped in. He could see her snuggled down, golden hair spread over her pillow, one arm hanging over the side of the bed, bared from the elbow because the wide pyjama sleeve was rucked up.
He saw the dark bruises.
They always made him angry.
Forget the bruises, and she was like a child, a lovely child. He’d seen a picture something like her, in an old magazine; not long ago, either. A magazine which had ceased to appear years ago, associated with—ah, yes. Soap. Bubbles. And there’d been a popular song, I’m for ever blowing bubbles. She reminded him of the curly-haired boy in the picture, who was the artist? Millais, that was it. At least his mind was working. He opened the door wider and crept in, but didn’t disturb her. His clothes were in a small wardrobe, not close to the bed, and his shoes, a clean shirt, collar and tie were there, too. He collected everything very carefully, and when he tip-toed out, the girl hadn’t stirred. The door closed with more of a click than he wanted, but she didn’t call out, and he hoped that he hadn’t disturbed her.
He had a shave, and dressed; and was knotting his tie when he heard the sound of an aeroplane—probably something very small, more like a training aircraft than anything else. He looked out of the kitchen window, and saw the khaki-clad guards peering up, too. Hovering not far above their heads was a helicopter, obviously preparing to land in the meadow next to the cottage.
Murray went out and watched it.
Three people got out: a youngster who was obviously the pilot, a man of about forty who looked remarkably thin and who, even at a distance, appeared to have enormous eyes, and a woman, probably in the middle thirties. She wore a short leopard-skin coat, and a pale brown suit which just missed being khaki, and a small hat trimmed with the same fur as her coat. Money, walking. She walked across the uneven meadowland smoothly, with the spindly man, presumably Oundle, holding her elbow, but obviously she didn’t need his help. A soldier waited for them at the fence, and Oundle helped the woman over, but again she looked quite capable of managing without help. She was tall, slim, and wholesome-looking, and there probably wasn’t a better complexion in England. She had a rather full, nice mouth, and looked as if she didn’t smile often, but there was a calmness about her which one couldn’t mistake; a kind of serenity.
The subaltern, still in charge, came hurrying.
‘Mrs. Wyatt and Mr. Oundle?’
‘That’s right, old chap,’ said the spindly man, and flipped a card out of his pocket. ‘Identification and all that nonsense.’ He let the youngster read, and then tucked the card back. ‘Where’s the patient?’
He was looking inquiringly at Murray.
The subaltern introduced them, formally.
‘I gather the lassie chose your home to take cover in,’ said Oundle, ‘and you seem to have done quite a job. Congratulations and apologies for the nuisance we’re being.’
Murray said: ‘The main thing is that it works out all right.’ He looked at Mrs. Wyatt, and at close quarters liked what he saw even more than he had at a distance. ‘You’re to look after Miss—or mustn’t I mention names?’
‘Oh, between friends,’ said Oundle, and then spread his large, bony hands, ‘let’s be safe, shall we? Call her the lass, miss, thingummy, what’s-her-name, or even little girlie.’
‘Ned, don’t be a fool,’ said Mrs. Wyatt, and a smile showed in her grey eyes. ‘How is she, Mr. Murray?’
‘Surprisingly well, I think.’ Murray glanced at the cottage and, beyond it, saw a speck in the sky announcing another aeroplane, but didn’t give that a second thought. ‘She was asleep twenty minutes ago, after having some eggs and toast.’
‘A cook, too,’ Oundle marvelled.
‘How long was she in the water?’ asked Mrs. Wyatt.
‘At a guess, twenty minutes,’ Murray told her, ‘but a lot of things were happening, and I don’t know when she actually fell in. I think she’ll be all right.’
‘Safe to move her, then?’
‘Good lord, yes!’
‘That’s fine,’ said Mrs. Wyatt.
She glanced up at the aeroplane, which was not far away now, flying very low, and making a lot of noise. It was a old Spitfire, but its R.A.F. markings weren’t there, like hundreds of others it had been sold to private owners, all too often for scrap. It so happened that this one was directly in line with the cottage and with a little group approaching the front door, and it seemed to be swooping lower than before.
Then Oundle said: ‘Look!’ in a shocked voice, and as he uttered the word, he began to run. Murray stood back stock still. Mrs. Wyatt stared up at the aircraft, and the subaltern, behind them now, called out something which the din of the engine drowned.
Oundle was almost at the open front door of the cottage.
Then, Murray—baffled until that moment—saw ‘it’.
A ball about the size of a football was swaying about beneath the aircraft, and as the nose drew almost level with the cottage, the ball fell. It had only ten yards to go. Then the aircraft roared over the slate roof, making Murray duck involuntarily. He heard another cry, as of horror—and then he heard a strange sound, the spitting snarl of a Bren gun.
All of this happened so fast that he hardly had time to think—and yet he had a sense of disaster. Oundle flung himself inside the house, and the subaltern, running desperately, was only three yards behind.
Then the ball hit the side of the house, and exploded.
Murray saw it.
First, the wall split open and great pieces of stone flew from it, there was a roar, then a smaller ball which looked red hot, and spread into a vast sheet of flame. It seemed to hide the whole of the roof. As the horror registered on his mind, Murray felt the blast surge over him, powerful enough to make him lose his balance. He banged into Mrs. Wyatt, and they fell, hugging each other. The echo of the explosion was almost deafening in Murray’s ears, and yet the other sound came through it. Bk-bk-bk-bk-bk. There were other noises, as of men shouting, engines starting, and a cry which had a strange note in it, almost one of exultation.
Murray staggered to his feet.
Mrs. Wyatt was up first, and she began to run towards the cottage. A corner of it was already blazing furiously.
‘God, no!’ breathed Murray.
He overtook the woman, and was almost level with the subaltern. He caught a glimpse of the youth, lying on his back. The sight was hideous, for a piece of the ‘ball’ had caught him in the forehead. From the bridge of the nose downwards he hadn’t a mark, but above it...
Mother’s pride.
Murray jumped over him.
He heard a different note in the engine of the Spitfire, but didn’t think about it; all he could think about was Juanita Lang. The bomb had struck that corner of the house where she lay, where she had been asleep, and already the roof was on fire and part of it had fallen, and there was that gaping hole in the wall.
He saw the man Oundle, at the top of the stairs.
‘Turn right!’ Murray bellowed.
Oundle seemed to work on his reflexes alone, and he swung towards the door on the right and thrust it open. Murray saw him vanish—and then saw him appear again, his hand up in front of his face, as if he was keeping something off. Murray felt a despair which made him groan: ‘No, no.’ He was almost at the top when Oundle seemed to gather his strength and plunge into the room again.
Murray reached the landing.
The room seemed to be a mass of flames, but the bed was away from the window and the great hole in the wall.
Juanita Lang lay quite still, and on her pillow was a big piece of granite from the blasted wall. The
head of the bed was smashed.
8. Disaster
Murray realised almost subconsciously what had happened when Oundle had opened the door; the draught had brought the flames shooting across, and the carpet was already blazing; so was the dressing-gown hanging behind the door, and so were the clothes at the foot of the bed. But the bed itself had not been in a direct line between the gaping hole and the door, and the flames hadn’t yet taken a hold.
Oundle reached the girl.
Murray couldn’t see any blood, or any sign that her head was crushed; but the sight of the rock affected him much as the sight of the ‘ball’ had affected Oundle. The stink of smoke was so powerful that he began to cough, but the girl lay completely oblivious, peaceful, and—asleep?
‘Windows,’ Oundle gasped. ‘Hur-ry.’
He picked Juanita up, bedclothes and all, and the foot of the top blanket burst into bright flame. Murray snatched at it, stung his fingers, but got it free and tossed it behind him. He reached the window ahead of Oundle, ready to fling it up. But if he drew the flame this way one searing blast might be too much for them all.
He began to open it, slowly.
Oundle stood close to him, and behind them the fire raged and the way to the door was already cut off.
The window stuck.
Murray pushed it harder; it opened with a jerk and he felt a blast of hot air. He clenched his teeth against the coming of panic, and began to climb out. There was Oundle, with the girl in his arms, her lead lolling on his shoulder in a mass of fluffy gold. Murray climbed out backwards, just as he had done during the night, and this time with a speed that could never be fast enough. He hung at arm’s length a moment, then dropped; and as he fell, he remembered his twisted ankle, and tried to get the weight on to his left foot.
He did.
He swayed, but straightened up and turned round in the same movement. As he did so, he caught sight of several little dark men—like those who had been by the well. One was hurrying, two lay still on the ground—and one had a gaping hole in his head.
So they had come under cover of the bombing.
Murray stretched his arms upwards.
Oundle was already lowering Juanita, while a flame spat out above his head. Now the girl was half-way out of the room. The blankets dragged behind her, the pyjama trousers rucked up beyond her knees; her feet and legs had a golden colour which might be tan and might be a touch of Cannan blood.
‘Coming!’ Oundle called. He seemed to choke.
‘I’ve got her!’
‘Take the strain,’ called Oundle. It was like a scream.
Murray gripped Juanita’s legs, and then let her slide down, holding her all the time until he was able to hug her close to him, and make sure that she didn’t fall. He staggered away from the wall, catching a glimpse of Oundle climbing out, as he did so; and above Oundle there seemed to be nothing but a mass of flames.
Soldiers appeared, stretching up their eager hands to help. A dark man who had come from the well stopped, and watched Murray. Fool. Then Murray heard Mrs. Wyatt’s quiet voice, saying:
‘I’ve sent for the army doctor; he’ll be here in a moment.’ Her voice and her manner were strangely calming, and she had lost none of her serenity. ‘Put her down on that seat.’
‘That seat’ was a rustic bench, facing the well, and it was amply wide enough. Murray staggered to it, and two soldiers helped him. Mrs. Wyatt had turned away, and Murray straightened up, grunting, and lifting his right foot from the ground; he hadn’t put all his weight on it, but hadn’t done it any good.
He saw the soldiers carrying Oundle away, saw Mrs. Wyatt approach the spindly man—and realised that Oundle’s hair had been burnt right off, that his face and hands looked raw.
Oh, God!
This was horror upon horror.
And—Juanita?
‘It’s all right,’ the doctor said quietly; ‘she came out of it well, anyhow. Just knocked out. Might be a bit of concussion, but no real harm done. Wish I could say the same about the others.’
He was standing by the side of the rustic bench. Mrs. Wyatt was sitting at one end. Except that her hair was untidy—dark hair but showing glinting gold lights as the sun shone upon her—she hadn’t been touched by the explosion or the fire. Murray was vaguely aware that the fingers of his left hand were sore, and there was a small burn on the back of his right hand; he didn’t know that his hair, eyebrows and lashes had been singed, but not enough to hurt.
An ambulance was already moving off, with Oundle in it; the army unit hadn’t lost a moment.
‘How many hurt?’ asked Murray gruffly.
‘Four dead—a C.I.D. man, Lieutenant Soames, Lance-corporal Downey, and a private whose name I don’t know,’ the doctor said. He wasn’t much older than the lieutenant whose name Murray had learned only after death. ‘Two badly injured—all guards near the house, of course. Hell of a business.’ He was bleak and almost hostile as he looked past Murray towards the empty sky. ‘At least we got the swine.’
‘Oh?’
‘Didn’t you know?’
‘Know what?’
‘We captured one of three men who tried to reach the house, and two were killed,’ Mrs. Wyatt said. ‘And the Bren-gun crew brought the Spitfire down.’
So that was the explanation of the second plume of smoke, and it was something to be glad about. Murray could picture the scene as the Spitfire came swooping, while he had wondered why it was flying so low; and then Oundle, the man he had known only for a few moments, had cried: ‘Look’ and started to run. If he hadn’t done that, the girl would be dead.
How badly was Oundle hurt? With burns like that, would he ever see again? And could the surgeons help him to be anything but a freak? Freak. Miller of the Yard had said that Juanita was a freak, in a kind of way. Was it freakish to be within the clutch of death twice in less than twelve hours, and to escape each time?
Was it freakish to be in such danger?
Murray kept staring down at Juanita, remembering what had happened since he had first seen her, remembering what he knew about her, about Judge Lang, about her uncle Sir Meya Kamil, about Canna. His thoughts were hopelessly mixed up, but through them all was the cause for the savage anger which possessed him now.
‘What’s it all about?’ he asked roughly. ‘Do you know?’ He glared at Mrs. Wyatt as she put a salve on his burns and then gave him a finger-stall. ‘Do you? Why the hell do they want to kill her? What makes them prepared to kill anyone who tries to help her?’
Mrs. Wyatt said, very quietly: ‘I don’t know what it’s about, but I do know that when you reach London you’ll be told much more than you know yet.’
So she knew he was to go to London.
‘I’m not so sure I’m going,’ he said savagely. ‘How do I know that she’ll be all right? I seem to be her lucky star. If I leave her. . .’
‘We’ll look after her,’ Mrs. Wyatt said; ‘we’ll make quite sure that nothing else happens to her. But they need your help in London; they wouldn’t have sent for you if they didn’t.’
‘Who wants my help?’ Murray was still angry and aggressive.
‘I was told that I could tell you, if you asked,’ said Mrs. Wyatt. They were alone, now, except for Juanita, who was still lying unconscious, and looking as if she was asleep. ‘It’s Department Z. Craigie’s department.’
Of course, he should have guessed, because of Miller; but the assurance sobered him, making him realise that whatever else, this wasn’t being taken lightly. Lightly! He was almost out of his mind. Every organisation in the country had been warned to look out for the girl, as soon as she had been found she had been surrounded by guards, it had been treated as a major military operation; and yet it hadn’t been possible to stave off attack, it was more luck than judgment that Juanita was still alive.
And courage; like Oundle’s courage.
If he’d been a yard ahead of Oundle in that room, he would have lifted the girl from the bed, he would have wa
ited, as Oundle had, holding the girl out of the window and dropping her into succouring arms—and he would have been burned as Oundle had been.
Murray said, in a calmer voice: ‘I think I need a drink.”
‘There’s one in the helicopter,’ Mrs. Wyatt said, and as she spoke the pilot of the machine came towards them, with one of the men in ordinary clothes who had been searching near the well—Dorset C.I.D. men—and behind these in turn four brisk-moving soldiers who obviously knew exactly what they were about.
‘Here’s my guard, and Juanita’s,’ Mrs. Wyatt said. ‘Won’t you get away as quickly as you can?’
Murray hadn’t really any choice.
The flight didn’t take long, and neither Murray nor the pilot said very much. The pilot was an older man than he had seemed at first sight, and he handled the controls as smoothly and naturally as the man in the street would drive a motor car.
‘We land in St. James’s Park,’ he said, as they flew over London’s outskirts, and Murray looked down upon the spires of the churches, and saw St. Paul’s and the winding river, Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament—all the landmarks which made this home. ‘Special dispensation, but I’ll have to mind the ducks. Er—we’ll be met. Miller, probably. Then off you go to see the great man.’
‘Who?’
‘Gordon Craigie,’ the pilot said patiently. ‘Jane told you, didn’t she?’
‘Who told me what?’ asked Murray obtusely.
‘Mind’s not on the job,’ said the pilot mildly. ‘Jane— that’s Jane Wyatt. She told you—that’s you, Nigel Murray, ex Post-Dispatch—that you’re to see the big shot of Department Z. That’s Craigie. I refuse to believe that a foreign correspondent of such renown doesn’t know that Department Z is one of the home security organisations. Some say one, others say the one. I’m one of the others.’
He wasn’t really fatuous, and wasn’t talking for the sake of it. Murray realised that, and he also realised that this man was one of Craigie’s agents; as Oundle was. Oundle had talked in very much the same way, flippantly, almost as if it was deliberate intention not to take anything too seriously. The reputation of Craigie’s agents in Department Z was that, for better or worse, they were trained to behave like this—using a kind of defensive shield. It was a long time since Murray had heard much about them, but he didn’t need a refresher course. For instance, the casualty lists in the Department were appalling. He had heard it said that a man who served as an agent had one chance in two of living five years, one chance in three of living seven.