Enthroned at the bonfire’s summit, the huge guy awaited its doom. Sir George, with a sigh, removed his pork-pie hat and gazed mournfully upwards, bidding a last farewell to his favourite armchair, sacrificed for the good of the village and for the sake of domestic harmony. He cleared his throat emphatically, and blinked.
“Good gad!” He blinked again, and rubbed his eyes, into which tendrils of acrid smoke had been blown by a mischievous breeze. “I could have sworn ...”
He’d spent many a pleasant hour in that armchair: first in state by the sitting-room fire, then (after too lively an encounter with a wayward spark) in the comfort of his study; then—at her ladyship’s decree—in the earthy bohemia of the potting shed. Woodworm, dry rot, and a virulent strain of fungus had finally worked their evil way on both the frame and the horsehair stuffing: even Sir George could not deny that his chair had long since passed its prime, but he couldn’t help feeling a little sentimental about that one piece of furniture—although surely that was no excuse for him to—
“Good gad, I was right!” It hadn’t been any whimsical notion of the chair’s making one last, wriggling attempt to escape its fiery fate: the thing really had moved. Rather, not the chair, but the guy seated in state upon it ...
“Stop!” Sir George, hurling his hat aside, bellowed the command even as he ran across to where Major Matilda Howett had mustered a small group of wheelchair-bound patients from the nursing home. “The guy—the guy! Get it off!”
Wasting no time on explanations, he snatched from her startled grasp the Howitzer’s umbrella, and galloped with it back to the bonfire, where he began raking furiously at the bottom branches.
“Help!” he cried, coughing. “Here—help, here!”
The major, like the major-general, had been trained by the military to respond promptly in an emergency. Her quick eyes saw what Sir George had seen; her quick wits urged her to seize a stout walking-stick—his favourite, but that couldn’t be helped—from old Mr. Meredith’s knees. Within seconds, she was at Sir George’s side, tugging at the branches, shouting for more people to join the rescuers.
Lady Colveden, Miss Treeves, and other friends of Miss Seeton found their brollies wrenched from them by urgent hands. The smoke and flames were thicker now. Few could see what Sir George and Matilda Howett had seen; but if two such common-sense types thought the guy had to be got off the fire, then got off that guy would be, or they’d burst in the attempt. Those without umbrellas followed the Howitzer’s example and indulged in a bout of sticknapping; Lady Colveden and the rest of the catering committee dragged the emergency buckets—woefully inadequate, never intended for more than a spark-caught coat, a careless match—to the bonfire and hurled their contents—“Don’t!” cried Sir George, but too late—into its very heart.
Smoke surged out in a dense, acrid cloud. A fusillade of coughs, a cataract of tears from smoke-stung eyes. From above—from the guy—a feeble croak, a convulsive wriggle as smoke and heat enveloped its bulky form ...
But no flames. Not yet. The wild water had suppressed, though not extinguished, the flames: the mischievous breeze was fanning them again into life, but it was at the same time blowing away the smoke. There was, after all, a chance ... and those who had brought pocket flashlights pointed them towards the centre of operations, and prayed.
The guy croaked again, and jerked back and forth on the chair, which swayed and rocked as, settling a little on the first fire-weakened branches, the top of the bonfire slipped sideways and down—no more than an inch or two, but an inch or two closer to the red-hot peril still beneath.
“Stand back!” The words came in a bellow as loud as any Sir George could command: heredity will out. Nigel Colveden—soaked to the skin, his face cut and bleeding—erupted like a fury from the shadows with, close behind him, Jack Crabbe and Len Hosigg, carrying a ladder. “Mind out!”
“Nigel!” cried his mother, then clamped her lips in Spartan fashion together, and said no more. Sir George was too breathless now for speech, but his heart swelled with pride as he saw his son and heir plunge into the flames and smoke, swarming up the ladder which Jack and Len had thrown against the bonfire’s side, stationing themselves—they, too, were soaked and dripping—at its base to catch whatever, whoever might come down, no matter in what condition.
Everyone fell silent. Moved away, if they feared they would be more hindrance than help; moved closer, ready to seize the guy from Nigel’s hands and bear it out of range of the still-smouldering fire—if once he brought that guy to safety. But could he do so in time?
Only a muted crackling, the hiss and spit of green wood, was heard as Nigel neared his goal. Some watchers were so tense, they could almost swear they heard bells ringing. As he laid his hand in triumph on the sacking foot, there came a muted outcry, a release of pent-up breath, a groan of general excitement, almost a cheer: and the sound of bells was audible to all.
“It’s okay,” they heard Nigel say, as he tried to scoop the still-struggling guy into his arms. “Don’t worry—try not to fidget ...”
A swirl of smoke hid him from view, and they heard him cough. Heard, too, above the bells, the sudden swooping two-tone approach of sirens ...
Torch-beams wavered through the smoke as—cautiously, but as quickly as he dared—Nigel began his descent. Over his shoulder, the sacking guy drooped, without movement: had rescue come too late? Jack and Len, steadying the ladder, reached up; were shouldered out of the way by big Dan Eggleden, head of the human chain organised by the admiral and PC Potter while Dr. Knight and Major Howett, with anxious faces, stood by to administer first aid. Deaf old Mr. Meredith—who’d always been suspected of leading a secret life behind his deafness—released the hotwire safety switch on his wheelchair, and hurtled across the grass towards the gate, and the road, and the nursing home, where the alarm must be raised, emergency beds prepared.
As he rattled out of the playing-field, he was almost run down by the high-speed scarlet jubilation of a fire engine, its bell clamouring, turning gleefully in through the narrow gateway. As he whizzed up The Street, in his haste ignoring the Highway Code, he narrowly missed being flattened by the panda car approaching from the north. Old Mr. Meredith shouted something rude, and scorched onwards ...
The crew of the fire engine couldn’t believe their luck. A nine-nine-nine call to put out—of all conflagrations—the Plummergen bonfire? It was the best Guy Fawkes message the retained men of Murreystone had had in years.
“Stop!” thundered Sir George, as the oilskinned rivals from over the marsh leaped from their appliance and began to uncoil their hoses. “Stop! No need—panic over. She’s safe!” And even in the heat of the moment, he couldn’t help the hint of paternal pride as he imparted this information.
“Alarm call to Plummergen playing-field,” said the chief officer stoutly. “Bonfire out of control, believed to have caused injury to an elderly party—it’s got to be put out, and put it out’s what we’re a-going to do, so stand aside!”
“She’s safe, I tell you!” Sir George almost choked on the words. “Look!”
Had they cared to follow his pointing finger, they would have seen a tumult of sacking and straw on the ground and, in the middle of this tumult, a small woman in tweeds. Her grey hair was rumpled, her eyes seemed out of focus in a pale, drawn face: but she was blinking up at the two persons chafing her limbs, and smiling her feeble thanks to somebody trying to wrap an overcoat about her shoulders.
“Look!” instructed Sir George: but Murreystone did not care to look. This, at last, was their chance, which they had no intention of missing.
“The hose, lads!” commanded the chief officer.
And the lads of Murreystone rushed to obey.
And Plummergen began to murmur ...
And blue, flashing light filled the sky: light not from an errant firework, but from a police car ...
Which swept, its siren yodelling, across the grass, and bumped to a halt just as Plummergen’s menfolk were f
lexing their muscles and rolling up their shirtsleeves ...
Official eyes quickly assessed the situation. And an official voice calmly remarked:
“Hello-ello-ello, what’s all this, then? Did we get here too late—or just in time? Pity to spoil our moment of glory, if you ask me. When we’ve never had a nine-nine-nine call dialled direct from a palace before ...”
chapter
~ 26 ~
“AND NEITHER,” countered the Murreystone man at once, “have we.” Through the glowing bonfire darkness, punctuated as it was by torchlight beams and the vivid, rhythmic blue of the official beacon, he glared at the glinting buttons and beady eye of the Ashford policeman. “So never you mind moments of glory,” he went on, with a sneer. “We’ve a job to do, with this bonfire here reported out of control all the way from Buckingham Palace, no less. So there’s nobody going to stop us a-doing our—our loyal duty by extinguishing it, I tell you straight!”
“That bonfire,” said the driver of the panda, as Plummergen began to expostulate, “looks as safe as any I’ve seen, and then some—except,” with a cough, as the wind changed, “for the smoke. But even then it’s not that near the road it’s a hazard to passing traffic, so—”
He broke off—or, rather, was drowned out: partly by the swelling murmurs of discontent from Murreystone (who saw themselves about to be thwarted of revenge by this uniformed jack-in-office), partly by swelling murmurs of annoyance from Plummergen—but mostly by the rumble and roar of two fast-approaching cars across the grass, and the urgent pip-pipping of their horns as they drew near.
The Ashford bobby looked round, in some relief: the cavalry was coming! He thought he recognised the sound of the closer of the two cars ...
He was right. Headlights blazing, both vehicles came to a screeching halt, and four doors opened as one. Four large men—no, one was a giant, the others merely tall—leaped out, rushed towards him—and past him, though he tried to catch Superintendent Brinton’s eye—rushed on towards the bonfire which was the subject of such heated discussion ...
And all four, as they ran, clamoured severally: “Police! Stop! Put that fire out! Is Miss Seeton safe?”
“Hey!” cried Sir George, while PC Potter shouted, and the admiral view-hallooed. “Delphick—hold hard, man!”
But it was left to Major Howett to announce, in tones of utter triumph which halted the four in their headlong rush: “Perfectly safe, thank you! What this poor woman needs more than anythin’ right now is peace and quiet—and she isn’t,” with a glare, “goin’ to get that with you people makin’ such a dashed noisy racket all around her.”
The Howitzer could be a regular dragon where her patients were concerned. These draconian tendencies were given full rein as she supervised the loading of Miss Seeton—weakly protesting that she hated to be a bother—into the most commodious of the three official cars; after which Major Howett gave firm instructions that the invalid was to be treated with the utmost care during the half-mile trip to the nursing home, and herself followed in the second car, assuring Dr. Knight that she and his wife could cope very well between them, with the night staff and everythin’, and that he must stay and keep an eye on the bonfire, just in case, as they’d previously arranged.
The major’s forceful eye had not only quelled the rescue rush of Delphick, Brinton, Foxon, and Bob to the bonfire; it had also—at least temporarily—stemmed Plummergen’s fermenting defensive attack upon devious Murreystone, the fire crew being all too ready to take advantage of a situation about which everyone kept trying to insist there was no further cause for alarm. Before the full effects of Major Matilda’s personality had worn off, PC Potter remarked—at some volume—on the presence of official reinforcements. Sir George and Admiral Leighton loudly restrained their troops, then muttered sage promises of opportunities yet to come; Dr. Knight, examining the cuts on a now-shivering Nigel Colveden’s face and the burns on his hands, expressed himself far too busy to bother with anybody else, adding that if people proposed committing wholesale slaughter on one another he was dashed if he was going to waste good bandages and sticking-plaster on a single man from either side.
“And this wreck here,” he concluded, giving the sodden Nigel a jovial buffet on the shoulder, “is in danger of death from double pneumonia, never mind tetanus and blood-poisoning and multiple bruises.” Nigel’s teeth chattered, but he grinned even as he winced. “To jump,” continued Dr. Knight, “head first through a cricket pavilion window, in my opinion, suggests less an urgent requirement for a shower than a sudden outbreak of rampant exhibitionism. Judging by the, ahem, dramatic results of his action, this patient is suffering from a previously unsuspected circus performer complex of considerable intensity. My prescription would be a booster jab, a hot bath—which should satisfy any latent craving for cleanliness—and a warm bed, in that order, to be followed by a stiff tot of whisky and a sleeping-pill, which together should serve to banish all thoughts of an acrobatic career. Such treatment to be administered,” he added, with a nod for Jack Crabbe and Len Hosigg, lurking damp (but relatively undamaged) close by, “to anyone else in the throes of a similar complaint. Immediately.”
The doctor’s voice was a carrying one, and full of authority. Delphick and Brinton hesitated, exchanged looks, and then nodded. Brinton thereafter rolled his eyes in the direction of PC Potter and the panda man, who meekly signalled back their obedience to his unspoken command. Sir George and the admiral did not allow their eyes to meet, but they cleared their throats, and otherwise said nothing.
“I believe,” said Delphick, “that our wisest course of action is to set a guard around Miss Seeton before another attempt can be made upon her life, and so that a statement may be obtained from her at the earliest possible moment. In the circumstances, those who are already conversant with the complexities of this particular case must be best suited to the task of bodyguard: and, as there are several persons here in obvious need of medical attention, I suggest that we combine two duties in one by giving them all a lift to the nursing home. This will, of course, necessitate the use of more than one official vehicle ...”
Quite how it happened, Murreystone could never afterwards decide. One minute there were six policemen and three police cars keeping the peace in the bonfire field; then the cars—and the policemen (even Potter, who lived, as everyone knew, so near he had no need to drive)—were gone. The women of Plummergen hustled the children out of the way, and muttered reminders about not spoiling the kiddies’ treat; the men of the village closed ranks, and once more rolled up sleeves the untimely arrival of the Law had encouraged them to roll back down.
“Now then,” said Sir George, as the leader of the fire crew prepared to renew the offensive, “just what was it you were saying about hoses?”
“I doubt,” said Delphick, as they drank coffee and waited for news of Miss Seeton, “whether worse than a good soaking is likely to befall them—and I also doubt they’ll seek refuge here with Nigel and company. Once the fire tender has been thoroughly emptied, I imagine they will be allowed to make their escape—whereupon the celebrations may begin in earnest.”
“Let’s hope we’ve got something to celebrate, as well.” Glumly, Brinton stirred sugar into his cup. “Potter’s a good man: he’ll keep an eye from behind the hedge to see things don’t get out of hand—but what about Miss Seeton, poor old biddy? In her case, they’ve already got—out of hand, I mean, or pretty damned serious, at any rate. She looked more than peaky, I thought, and there’s got to be a first time she doesn’t come bouncing back ...”
An indignant chorus from Foxon and Bob—privilege of rank be blowed—drowned out the rest of Brinton’s remarks. Delphick smiled.
“There, I think, you have your answer, Chris. Miss Seeton, thank heaven, is a born survivor. The yoga, of course, will have helped—being drugged and bound without food for twenty-four hours must come as less of a hardship to MissEss than it would, say, to young Georgina.”
“What a girl!” Br
inton forgot lamentation in his amusement. “Something she’s always wanted to do, she says—like pulling the communication cord on a train, except I don’t suppose royal trains have emergencies, really—but to dial nine-nine-nine all the way from Buckingham Palace like that ... The kid’s made history, I should think.”
“A worthy recipient,” agreed Delphick, “of the Order of the Gold Umbrella, should such a decoration exist. Perhaps we might have a word with the relevant authorities.”
“Awarded to people who’ve survived one of MissEss’s adventures.” Brinton grimaced. “In which case, young Georgy’d better be the first person to get it, or I’ll—I’ll—”
The door opened before he could find words to frame the threat, and Major Howett marched in, rubbing her hands.
“Give her a few hours,” she said, “and you can pop up for a quick chat—just one of you, that is. The poor woman needs a natural sleep now, and to wake up in her own good time without people explodin’ rockets in her ear or half chokin’ her with smoke. Try around mid-mornin’ tomorrow—though don’t be surprised if she’s still a bit woozy. After a sensible breakfast, mind you, if she can keep it down, she could well surprise us all.”
“In the past, she frequently has,” Delphick agreed, as his companions expressed their relief at the major’s advice. “If we must wait,” he went on, “then naturally we will. But if you could tell us whether Miss Seeton has said anything about how she came to be in her recent predicament ...”
Matilda Howett shot him a shrewd look. “She hasn’t said much at all.” She paused. “Not much that made sense, that is ...” She seemed to be considering his request for information very carefully; and nobody made any attempt to hurry her to a decision. The sound of late-night fireworks filtered through the curtained windows of the comfortable little room; a sudden loud bang overhead made everyone jump. The major frowned at the noise, then coughed. After a further contemplative pause, she continued:
Miss Seeton Rules (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 18) Page 24