Black August

He nodded and turned his attention to Ann. There were dark shadows under her eyes, and her face looked pale and drawn, but she caught his glance and smiled.

'Well, I've always hated getting up in the morning but I'd rather be here than on that beastly ship. Hello, Gregory's awake!' she added as she caught his quick eye examining their faces from the bottom of the boat.

'Have been for some time,' he murmured.

'How is the leg?' she asked, bending over him.

'Aching like hell, but my head's better and that's what matters. Where's Rudd?'

' 'Ere we are, sir.'

'Right. Give me a hand up on to the seat.'

With Kenyon's help he was lifted up and made comfortable by the tiller.

While they were finishing their meagre breakfast they discussed the situation, and then for a time sank into silence, each one privately considering the unpleasant possibilities which might arise. They were adrift in the North Sea, perhaps many miles from shore. If the mist failed to lift all day and night came on before they could sight land, winds and tides which they had no means of assessing might carry them a hundred miles from their assumed position off the Suffolk coast, and then it might be days before they were picked up. Their supplies were extremely limited and another night at sea without proper food or warmth was a thing to dread. The fog showed no signs of dispersing. It clung and pressed about them, muffling even the sounds of their voices as it hemmed them in.

The forenoon dragged by, each hour seeming the length of half a day. They talked in subdued voices, or dozed again between the thwarts. Veronica displayed a marvellous cheerfulness and kept Gregory amused by her witty chatter, but Ann, chilled to the marrow and shaken occasionally by slight shivering fits, could only assure them that she was quite all right, and hug her frozen limbs in silence. Kenyon and Silas chafed her hands, arms, and feet between them, but the shock of Brisket's assault the night before in the wardroom seemed to have sapped her vitality and left her body temporarily incapable of resisting the rigours of their situation.

At midday Kenyon suggested the issue of a further ration but Gregory would not have it. He pointed out that they had breakfasted less than three hours ago and that it was essential to conserve their limited supplies. At one o'clock he made the same reply to Rudd who had been in the bows talking to Sergeant Thompson and came aft with a similar suggestion. Every one of them was hungry now, having had nothing but a few mouthfuls of dry biscuit and a wedge of cheese since the previous night, but he stuck to his decision.

A little before two Sims pointed to the heavens. 'The sun, sir, or I'm mistaken.'

'Where?' asked Kenyon quickly? The vague chill grey ness above and about them did not seem to have altered, but Gregory nodded.

'You mean the lighter patch: are you sure?'

'Certain, sir. The mist'll clear in about half an hour I should say, but it's enough to give us a rough direction now. It'll be near four bells, won't it?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it's on the port beam so we must've been on a north westerly course unless we've been going round in circles. Shall I take over the tiller now, sir, being more used to this sort of thing?'

'Do.' Gregory moved further along. 'Whose spell is it?'

'Mine,' said Silas getting out his oar. 'And now we've got something to go on we'll put some ginger into this pocket Ark. Come on, boys.'

The course was altered by about forty five degrees towards the bearing of the sun, and the Greyshirts cheerfully enough put their backs into the rowing. Half an hour later Sim's prediction was fulfilled, the mist broke into banks and patches, the sea began to sparkle and the sun came through.

'ln Out, in Out,' Harker urged his crew, and now that they had had rest and a little practice they managed to shift the boat along at quite a decent pace.

Gregory had himself inspected their scant provisions and now ordered the issue of a small ration of meat and biscuits to all hands with about a quarter of a mug of water. He still felt it necessary to exercise the strictest economy, and so with this frugal late lunch, chewing the tough cold meat to extract its goodness and spitting out the residue, they had to be content, but now the sun was shining everybody felt more cheerful.

The men roused themselves from their lethargy and began to crack jokes; the others in the stern discussed the possible places at which they might land, from Scarborough to Southend, and speculated vaguely once more ass to what might be happening in London.

By three o'clock all traces of the mist had vanished. A wide expanse of shimmering sea lay all about them still rising and falling in a gentle swell. Of land there was no sign, but Sims cheered them with the statement that it might not be very far away since their low level on the water gave them such a limited horizon. No masthead or smudge of smoke, above the grey green wash and where the waves melted into one another, broke the skyline, and for all indications of other human life they might have been a thousand miles out on the wide wastes of the Atlantic.

'What about a bit of a sing song, sir?' suggested Rudd.

'Fine, just the thing. Go ahead,' Gregory agreed.

'Come on, mates.' Rudd waved a grimy hand. 'All ter gether now.'

'Pack up yer troubles in yer old kit bag, an' smile boys smile, Pick up yer troubles in yer old kit bag, an' smile boys that's the style,

Wot's the use o' worryin', it never was worth while, So o o o o Pack up yer troubles in yer old kit bag,

an'Smile! Smile!! SMILE!!!'

A hesitating support greeted the first line, the second was taken up more generally, and by the last everybody had joined in to the full extent of their lungs.

'Na, then, let's 'ave it again. All ter gether now!' and at the second attempt the rolling chorus thundered out across the seas.

After that the self appointed master of ceremonies kept them going without ceasing, varying his programme from the bowdlerised edition of Mademoiselle from Armentieres to the sobbing sentimentality of Roses of Picardy.

The sun was high in the heavens, glaring from a bright blue sky, and soon the men at the oars began to feel the heat. Then to everybody's astonishment, Ann, who felt better since the coming of the sun, suggested a swim.

'You can't,' said Kenyon, 'you've got no bathing dresses.'

'Never mind. Rig us a shelter at the back of the boat and Veronica and I will undress behind that.'

'But how will you dry yourselves?'

'Sunshine and knickers,' said Ann promptly.

'No, it can't be done, if you cling on behind it will stop the way of the boat.'

'Don't make yourself out more of a fool than you are, darling,' Veronica chipped in with acid sweetness after a swift glance at Ann. 'Do as you're told."

'Oh, I see,' he said lamely, and with a collection of rifles and coats he proceeded to erect a small partition shutting off the last few feet of the whaler. Ann and Veronica disappeared behind it and when they emerged again some twenty minutes later they both looked considerably more cheerful.

In the meantime the troops had relieved the Greyshirts and were pulling with a will. Sims had gone forward in the hope that they might soon descry the first glimpse of the coast, yet Kenyon's spell came to an end and Harker took over once more, but still no trace of shipping broke the horizon and no clouds ahead suggested land.

All through the long afternoon the strong sun blazed down on the backs of the oarsmen. Their muscles were aching from the unaccustomed exercise, their hands were chafed and blistered, but they still swayed backwards and forwards in monotonous rhythm. The sun was causing acute discomfort to other members of the party too.

'Jolly for sunbathing, but not like this, my dear,' as Veronica expressed it to Ann. for they had no shelter and whichever way they turned it seemed to beat down upon their bare necks; their faces, unprotected by hats, were already turning an angry red.

When Kenyon's party went on again, Sims, having handed the tiller over to Rudd, leant towards Gregory. 'There's something wrong, sir, I'm assured of that.'

'Oh, how do you mean?' asked Sallust.

'Well, 1 won't say Crowder didn't act in good faith when he said he put us off by the Sunk., but how's the likes of him to know one light vessel from another, and their course was only guessed at anyhow. If it was the Sunk we should see land by now even allowing that we was on the wrong track this morning. If you ask me, sir, it was the Galloper Light we saw, and not the Sunk at all.'

'I see, and how far is that from the shore?'

'Twenty five miles, sir, or maybe more, we was a bit to the north east'ard of it when they dropped us.'

Gregory nodded. 'What sort of speed do you reckon we can make an hour?'

'Three knots, sir, that 'ud be good for scratch crews like this.' The Petty Officer stroked his chin and looked at the General thoughtfully.

'Three knots, eh?' Sallust repeated. He was reckoning up quickly their probable distance from the coast. Over twenty five miles meant an eight hour pull at least. They had started with the break through of the sun at two and it was just on six o'clock, so they might have covered half the distance. Daylight should last till about nine, just long enough for them to pick up the coast line before the sun went down, and another hour to pull. But that was only providing that they had not increased their distance from the land by rowing in the wrong direction for three hours or more in the early morning. If they had, darkness would close down again before they picked up the coast, then it was probable that they would row round in circles again all through the night a grim prospect. Yet there was nothing he could do about it so he sat there in the stern massaging the muscles of his leg and puffing away interminably at Rudd's looted cigarettes.

Gradually the sun sank towards the horizon, its slanting beams lighting up the tired faces of the men. For more than twelve hours now, apart from the forenoon interval, they had been rowing turn and turn about. Their mouths were parched and dry, their palms hot and aching, their backs weary with the strain, but wherever they turned their eyes there still remained the unaltered prospect of the gently heaving sea. Long banks of cloud were gathering in the west and for a little time those in the stern were entertained by the glory of a magnificent sunset, but Gregory and Sims who were whispering anxiously together again knew that it was the last glimpse of their friendly smile. In a great ball of fire the sun sank into the restless tossing waters beyond the bow.

'Think we'll be able to keep our course?' asked Gregory.

'I doubt it, sir.' The Petty Officer shook his head. 'But if it's a clear night there'll be a moon and stars. They'll help us to get back on it.'

Unfortunately as the twilight deepened, great masses of cloud seemed to be piling up from the west, obscuring what little light still remained in the sky, and half an hour after sundown black night had come upon them.

The double crews stuck uncomplainingly to the toil, relieving each other at set times, but there was no longer any strength or elasticity in their stroke. They did little more than pat the water with their oars despite Kenyon's and Silas's encouragement. The night of fighting and the long day in the boat had fagged them utterly.

At eleven o'clock Gregory ordered a further issue of rations. More of those evil biscuits, another wedge of cheese and a swig of water. It had turned chilly again and Veronica and Ann huddled together once more under their tarpaulin. Sallust refused to lie down, but sat, poker faced and silent, in the stern.

Rudd started another sing song, but gay choruses and marching songs were conspicuous by their absence. Sad, lilting tunes followed one another with unbroken regularity. Annie Laurie, A little Grey Home in the West and Mother Macree took the place of Tipperary and Three Men Went to Mow. In an attempt to raise their spirits Rudd called for individual talent, starting with a raucous rendering of Do we love our Sergeant Major? sung to the travesty of an ancient and popular hymn. Veronica, who had no voice at all, surprised them by a gallant attempt at Sur le Pont D'Avignon, but although she could not sing herself she adored music, and she was rewarded for her pains by the discovery that one of the Greyshirts was an ex opera singer, so after a little persuasion she had the strange pleasure of hearing a first class baritone pouring forth the clear notes of the Toreador Song from Carmen into the echoing silence of a desolate sea. No one had the temerity to follow so excellent a performance and by midnight the whole party were sleeping, or silently endeavouring to still the cravings of their empty stomachs.

Sims was nodding in his seat when Gregory roused him. 'Isn't that a light off the starboard bow?'

The Petty Officer started up. 'Why, yes, sir.'

'Is it a lighthouse or a vessel, do you think?'

'That I wouldn't like to say, sir, but we'd best pull towards it.'

Orders were given to the weary crew, and the boat headed again in a new direction. The man at the bow, now worn out with his exertions, occasionally caught a semi crab and, topping the wavelets, sent a sheet of spray into the stern. Gregory cursed him mildly but knew that the man's blunders were unintentional. Kenyon was bandaging his blistered palms with the tail of his shirt which he had torn away. Veronica was feeling sick but feared to rouse Ann who had dropped off to sleep.

'I got a feeling that's Orford Ness Light, sir,' said Sims after another half hour had slipped by. 'We'll make the coast quicker if we put her over to port a bit, for we should be south of that.'

'Very good,' agreed Gregory. 'Do as you think best.'

'If I'm right, sir, we've been drifting down the coast for some little time.'

The new direction taken with the light on the starboard bow, the duty crew, unutterably weary now, tugged at their oars. No sound broke the stillness but the gentle swish of the waters and the rhythmic rattle of the oar looms in the crutches.

After a time Kenyon stood up to take over again, he had ceased by this time to count the number of spells that he had done, but looking forward he saw a line of whiteness in the gloom and at the same moment a cry came from the bow.

'Something ahead, sir.'

All but the sleepers peered into the darkness. It was the surf breaking upon a shallow beach, and as the boat slid forward, the exhausted crew leaning on their oars, a black mass became visible.

'All together,' sang out Gregory, and with a sudden access of energy the Greyshirts began to pull again.

Sims hastened forward and was the first to jump ashore. Several others followed, plunging knee deep into the water as the boat grounded on a shelving beach of shingle. The remainder stretched their cramped limbs and climbed out one by one.

'Pull her ashore,' Gregory ordered, 'we may want to use her again later,' and. after two or three heaves the men succeeded in running the whaler up out of the water.

In groups of three or four they stumbled up the beach, the loose pebbles slipping and slithering beneath their feet. When they reached the top the faint starlight from one quarter of the heavens gave a little help as they looked about them. The shore seemed to curve away on either side without any sign of habitation.

'We'll try to the right,' said Gregory, 'must strike something sooner or later, but first let's get clear of this shingle.'

The pebbly foreshore seemed to stretch interminably inland,, hummocks and dips of slippery stones alternating like the waves of a solidified sea, but at last they became firmer and interspersed with small tussocks of coarse grass. The party turned right and trooped wearily along the last embankment beyond which it seemed that the sea never penetrated.

Ann was almost dropping with fatigue but Kenyon had his hand under her arm and was leading her forward into the darkness. Silas was helping Veronica, and Gregory, limping painfully now, was at the head of the party, leaning hard on the shoulder of the faithful Rudd, but suppressing a groan at every step. With bowed shoulders the non commissioned officers and men brought up the rear.

Suddenly a dark blotch loomed up before them. ‘Martello Tower,' Kenyon and Ann heard Gregory mutter, and a moment later the whole party were standing in a group beneath it.

They had not got a torch between them but the lance corporal produced a box of matches; they found the doorway and Gregory followed him inside. In the faint light the walls were hardly perceptible, but the floor seemed reasonably clean and even.

'All right,' he said to Rudd, 'we'll doss down here for the night. Fetch 'em in.'

Everybody was too completely exhausted to grumble at the lack of bedding. In the light of the remaining matches they sorted themselves out and scattered round the walls. The two girls sat down on the hard floor; they had never felt so unutterably tired in their lives before. Kenyon was near them and he glanced at his wrist watch as a match flickered on the far side of the tower.

'It's a quarter past two,' he said.

'When? What day are we now?' asked Veronica.

'Let's see, we left London on Friday, didn't we? Well, it's Monday then.'

lGosh!' she exclaimed rolling over on her side, 'never, ever, at any time, have I been away for such a ghastly week end.'

Gregory's cigarette glowed faintly in the darkness. 'Yes,' he said slowly, unaware that the whole of his audience were now sound asleep, 'but the trouble is that we have failed to make our getaway. We're back in England after all.'

17?

Strange Sanctuary

Dawn came and found the whole party still sunk in heavy slumber. The pale light filtering through the narrow door did little more than lessen the musty darkness in one segment of the tower, and their many hours of exertion, anxiety, and distress had utterly exhausted every one of the survivors. It was well after eight o'clock before the first stirrings among the men showed signs of returning consciousness.

When they awoke it was with no sense of tired limbs refreshed after healthy sleep. They were stiff and sore from a night spent upon the hard concrete without bedding or blankets, chilled through by the damp atmosphere into which the sun never penetrated, and gripped instantly by the sharp pangs of unsatisfied hunger.

Silas looked round the great, circular, vault like chamber. His eyebrows, which Veronica had likened the day before to circonflexe accents, rose, giving a comically Robeyish expression to his large pink face, as he turned to Kenyon.

'Where in the world have we got to now?'

'This is a Martello Tower,' Kenyon replied. He was hopefully but quite uselessly trying to comb back the rebellious auburn curls with his fingers.

'And what would that be?'

'An old fort. There are dozens of them dotted along the East Coast of England, and the South Coast too. They were built when Napoleon threatened to invade England with the army of Boulogne in 1802.' Kenyon rose stiffly to his feet and followed Gregory who was limping towards the door.

Silas smoothed back his thin, rather fine hair over the bald spot at the back of his head and, following them out into the morning sunshine, looked up at the old tower with interest. It stood solitary and grey upon the edge of the shingle, windowless and severe, its sides sloping inwards towards the top; rather like a vast sand castle that some enormous child had deposited upside down out of a gargantuan bucket; the strange relic of military activities in a former age.

Gregory was studying the landscape. Half a mile of rolling shingle separated them from the sea, and to the south the long curving beach swept uninterrupted to the horizon. Behind them spread a mile or more of low, desolate marshland, intersected by watery dykes, then further inland rose gently sloping wooded hills.

They walked round to the north of the tower and Kenyon gave a quick exclamation of delight. The same curving beach of shingle stretched away to infinity before them, and the same low marshlands, but some three hundred yards on a little eminence between the two stood a single row of fishermen's cottages. 'Breakfast,' he added briefly.

'We'll hope so,' Gregory agreed.

'Where would you think we are, General?' Silas inquired.

'God knows, but we'll soon find out.' He settled his impressive cap at a rakish angle over one eye.

Ann came towards them from the tower, pale dishevelled, but smiling. 'This is Shingle Street,' she cried. 'I've often picnicked here.'

'Have you, my dear,' Gregory turned to her quickly. 'And where does Shingle Street happen to be?'

'Suffolk; it's only about five miles from my old home at Orford.'

'I see. Sims was right about that light then. At all events we're a healthy distance from Harwich.'

'Oh, miles and miles,' Ann agreed. 'The nearest town of any size is Ipswich.'

'How far is that?'

'About fifteen miles as the crow flies, but you'd have to cross the river Deben and there isn't any bridge unless you go round by road and then it must be twenty or more.'

'Good! We're not likely to have any trouble from that quarter then. Fane, will you take half a dozen men and reconnoitre the hamlet; see what they can do to help us with supplies.'

'With the greatest possible pleasure.'

All the men had come out of the tower now and were stretching their cramped limbs in the sunshine. Kenyon picked half a dozen lads and set off with them along the foreshore, but evidently their presence had already been noticed by the locals, for as they advanced a small crowd came out to meet them. Several fishermen in dark blue jerseys, an anaemic looking youth in plus fours and a little tubby man with an ancient boater set at a jaunty angle on his round head. The latter seemed to be the spokesman of the party.

Kenyon explained briefly how they had fetched up the night before and were in urgent need of food. The tubby man gave him a whimsical look.

'So's lots of people or my name's not Solly Andrews.'

'Well,' said Kenyon persuasively, 'there are only about twenty of us and we had practically nothing to eat all day yesterday so we should be awfully grateful if you could help us out.'

'What do you say, Jan?' Mr. Andrews looked at a tall fisherman with bright blue eyes and a face tanned coffee brown by constant exposure to wind and sun.

'There's no lack of fresh fish and plenty more where they come from.'

'Well, there you are,' said Mr. Andrews; 'fish if you want it and water to wash it down, but nothing else mind.'

'That suits us splendidly.'

'Right, best bring your party down to the hotel, and I'll tell my girl to put on some whiting and a few herrings.'

'Hotel?' repeated Kenyon in mild surprise, glancing quickly at the single line of twenty or thirty low houses.

'Yes, the Anchor; that's my house and has been these twenty years. I'll be setting up the tables up in the garden.'

"Thanks, Mr. Andrews, it's very good of you. With a smile Kenyon turned away and a few moments later he was reporting the good news to Gregory.

The remnant of the small force was paraded and marched down to the inn, Ann and Veronica following fifty yards behind since the latter declared that she would allow no one to see her until she had had a bath.

'I feel completely leprous, darling,' she announced to Ann. 'Somebody ought to give me a bell so that I can warn them of my coming.'

'What nonsense,' Ann protested, shaking back her short, dark, tangled curls. 'We may be a little untidy, but look at those awful stubbly beards on the faces of the men.'

'Sign of virility, love, and you'd be all right in your birthday suit; everybody would simply adore you, but I become a perfect hag without the amenities. My face must be like the Gorgon's head at the moment, and every male would be frozen in his tracks at the very sight of me.'

'What'll that thing be?' Silas asked Gregory on the way to the hotel, nodding at a low, round, fiat roofed concrete structure perched on a slight ridge of rising ground halfway across the marsh. A narrow slit like the elongated mouth of a pillar box gave it the appearance of a stumpy, grinning head peering towards the sea.

'Oh, just an old machine gun emplacement.'

'Really! But who'd put a thing like that in this god forsaken spot?'

'The army,' Gregory laughed. 'The whole country round here is peppered with those pill boxes; you'll find them even miles inland. They were put up in the German invasion scare of 1916.'

'Is that so? Well it certainly brings home to a stranger like me how near you really are to the Continent of Europe. We're apt to overlook that in the States.'

'It's a darn good job nobody wants to invade us now,' said Gregory thoughtfully. "We should be caught properly on the hop.'

When they arrived at the Anchor they found two buxom fresh faced girls and a busy lad laying up long trestle tables on a square fenced in lawn behind the inn. It was a jolly little place; two broad bow windows set in the house and painted, like a porch, a brilliant green, suggested the quiet homely comfort of long winter evenings with good fires burning, and big tankards of Mr. Tollemache's best beer. The proprietor bustled out, a pleasant smile on his face.

'Well 1 never! To think I should live to see a real live General as a guest of my house,' he cried as he caught sight of Gregory's hat, 'but it's strange times we're living in.'

Gregory limped up to him. 'It's very good of you to give us a meal at all with things as they are, but you must let us pay you whatever's right.'

'Keep the money, sir. Mr. Andrews gave a short laugh. 'What good is it now? There wasn't a tin of biscuits to be bought in Ipswich Saturday; no, not for a five pound note.'

'Things are as bad as that, eh?'

'Worse, friend, worse, and the people spreading over the countryside like a flight of locusts. We're in luck's way being off the map like this or they'd eat us out of house and home.'

Gregory led the little man on to talk of his last visit to the town, and listened with sombre interest to the account. Andrews, it seemed was the only man in the community who owned a car, and he had gone to Ipswich in the hope of obtaining groceries. He found the shops all shut, while police and Greyshirts patrolled the main streets of the town, and long queues of people waited patiently before the Government depots for their rations, the delivery of which had been delayed owing to the breakdown of the railway services. There had been riots on Friday night, and the poorer suburbs were in a ferment. In fact, when he was trying to leave the town again, bricks, bottles and stones had been hurled at his car, smashing the windows and the windscreen, and only by driving recklessly through the demonstrators had he escaped. The road towards Woodbridge had been thick with hungry people seeking shelter and food in the outlying villages, and as Andrews described the long procession of vehicles, vans, carts, cars, and even perambulators, piled high with furniture, bedding and more precious household goods, it reminded Gregory with terrible vividness of the refugees retreating westward along the poplar lined roads after a big German advance in France.

'Would you go in again?' he asked. 'I mean, if it is necessary to make a reconnaissance?'

'Not me,' said Mr. Andrews fervently. 'Not for a thousand pounds I won't; and I couldn't if I would for that matter. I'd hoped to get the gas for the car, but there wasn't any so it died on me back on Sutton Common, and I had to walk the last five miles home.'

Gregory smiled. 'There must be hundreds of thousands of cars abandoned by the roadside by now. What a chance for the car bandits, eh?'

'Ah! if they had the gas,' laughed Mr. Andrews, 'but a thousand atmospheres would be worth more than a Rolls today. Come on now, sir, here's breakfast, and eat hearty. You never can tell when you'll see another square meal.'

The men had already sorted themselves out and stood round the two long tables, which had last accommodated a crowd of noisy trippers, and Gregory needed no urging. With Veronica and Ann on either side of him he took his place at the top and they sat down to the dishes of fine fresh fish.

'Boiled, they are, miss,' Mr. Andrews apologised, leaning over Veronica's shoulder, 'but none the worse for that and I must keep what little fat we've got for other cooking.'

'They're delicious,' she declared heartily. 'What fools people are to make such a fuss about blue trout; if herrings cost as much they would be three times as expensive because they've got ten times the flavour.'

'Well now!' declared Silas, 'I do think Lady Veronica's arithmetic is just marvellous. I couldn't have worked that out in a month of Sundays.' His blue eyes twinkled merrily at her out of his round expressive face, and they all joined in the laughter.

When the meal was over Gregory led three rousing cheers for mine host of the Anchor, and after many expressions of goodwill, marched his queerly assorted company back to the Martello Tower.

The men were sent down to the beach for a bathe under Sergeant Thompson and Petty Officer Sims, while Gregory called a conference of the officers. Ann, Veronica, and Rudd were asked to attend ex officio and the party settled themselves upon tufts of coarse grass in the sunshine, some fifty yards to leeward of the tower.

'Now,' said Gregory, 'we must discuss our future plans. As you know it was my intention to take you all safely out of England but my luck didn't hold, so here we are back again in this unfortunate country where everyone is about to starve to death or go mad. The question is, do we stay here where an inscrutable providence had seen fit to park us, or do we advance upon a port in the hope of securing another ship?'

'We haven't been lucky with ships,' murmured Kenyon, 'and we are lucky to be here at all.'

'Unless you can procure a private yacht of at least a thousand tons with a skipper and crew who adore you, my dear, this child sits on the beach until it is all over,' said Veronica firmly.

Gregory smiled. 'You assume that it will be over then, in say a week or a fortnight's time?'

'I haven't the faintest idea, but nothing will get me on a warship again until the King holds his next review at Spithead.'

'You prefer to face the very real possibility that civilisation is breaking up and England going back to the dark ages?'

'Yes, O man of valour! I'm prepared to walk naked about the beach if need be, but I'm not going on a warship.'

"This ship business,' said Silas suddenly. 'Why did you choose a naval boat? Surely a trader would have been easier to get away with in the first place, and a whole heap easier to control once you were on board.'

'In order to be able to say “Stand and deliver” at the Azores or to other shipping when our supplies of food and fuel ran low.'

'Well, it certainly was a great idea, and with fifty good men behind you it might well have come off, but we've nothing like the same chance now, so I'm for taking a tip from the big Willie with the brown face. There's plenty of fish in the sea, let's stop here and eat them.'

'What's your view, Ann?' Gregory smiled, noting that a touch of colour was creeping back into her lovely face.

No more ships for me, thank you,' she said promptly; 'and anyhow I'm quite near my home now.'

'I don't see how that will help you, or us. However, what do you say, Rudd?'

'I'm for doin' jus' what you think best, Mr. Gregory, sir. I don't doubt but we'll manage ail right.'

'Yes, but I'd like to have your opinion all the same.'

'Well, if that's your wish, sir, this is 'ow it seems to me. Mr. 'Arker there, if 'e'll excuse the expression, said a mouthful. Wiv invalids an' ladies pardon me, Miss 'ow are we goin' ter get another ship? But if we stays put in this 'ere tower we could 'old it against the 'ole blinking Army if we wants to, an' speakin' for meself I've 'ad worse vittals than those we 'ad fer breakfast many a time, so wots the matter with a bit of a 'oliday by the sea?'

Gregory nodded. 'Well, you all seem pretty unanimous against any further attempt to leave the country, although frankly if I thought there was any reasonable chance of capturing a sea worthy ship, I'd take it, whether you came with me or not. I can see some sort of decent future for myself if only I could get to a black man's country where the climate's good and the food abundant, but I can't see any here. In a week or so the people from the towns will have permeated the whole countryside and then it will be dog eat dog. Once our ammunition is exhausted we shall stand no better chance of surviving than the rest, and if we do, it will be to drag out a miserable existence through a bleak East Coast winter on a diet of herring. However, there is no prospect of a ship at the moment, and as Rudd says, we can hold the fort if we're attacked by any starving rabble, so we had best dig in here for the time being. Now I'm going to have a talk to Sergeant Thompson about the men.'

'One moment, General,' Silas raised his pointed eyebrows. 'Are you banking on our friends in the village feeding us all the time?'

'They don't imagine that they are going to at the moment, but, of course, they will.'

'Does that mean that King Sallust is going to do his buccaneer act again?'

'No, I hope that won't be necessary. There are many ways in which we can be useful to the locals and earn our keep. The gift of our protection alone is worth a lot at a time like this.'

Silas looked up in admiration. 'Give them your protection in exchange for fish, eh you're a marvel. Al Capone would have gone all green with jealousy if he had ever heard about you.'

Gregory grinned back. 'Well, at least I'm adaptable. If I can't be King of the Hebrides, I certainly mean to be King of Shingle Street, and that before the day is out.'

'Sure,' drawled the American, 'and what do we do now?'

'Sit in the sunshine while I see Thompson, and discuss the future with the Mayor and Corporation,' With a little laugh Gregory moved away.

'Kenyon,' said Ann quietly, 'I want to talk to you.

He looked up catching his breath a little as he met her eyes. 'Righto, let's walk down to the shore.'

Side by side they strolled across the little valleys of shingle, the pebbles jumping and sliding under their feet until they reached the last ridge above the gleaming line left by the turning tide.

As they sat down Kenyon felt a nervous apprehension, the tension was almost visible between them now, then slowly, awkwardly, Ann broke the silence.

'This has been an incredible experience, my dear, and I shall never forget you, as long as I live.'

Something seemed to sink in the pit of Kenyon's stomach as though he was falling in a rapid lift. 'What on earth do you mean, Ann?' he managed to say.

'Only that, although I was stupidly angry with you at the time, I do realise that you saved my life by dragging me out of London, and I wanted to thank you before I go.'

'Go!' he echoed with dismal foreboding, 'go where?'

'To Uncle Timothy at Orford. It's only five miles away, you know, and I must see what has happened there. I'm naturally anxious about him.'

'But you won't stay there, will you?'

'Yes, if everything is all right.'

'You'd be safer, much safer here with us.'

'Why, it's such a quiet little place I don't suppose for a minute that it's been affected any more than Shingle Street, and it's my home. The people there have known me all my life and would never dream of doing me any harm besides '

'Besides what?'

'Well, I don t want to see you again for a long time.'

'But why, Ann, why? What have I done? I know I behaved like a fool in London, but everything seemed to happen so quickly. My head was bung full of the election when I met you, and before I saw you again we were right on the verge of the crash. I hadn't a thought of marrying anybody, and was only living from day to day, just wondering what was going to happen to us all. I loved you before that night in Grosvenor Square, you know that, but I hadn't properly woken up to it, and because I hesitated a second you're holding that against me. Surely you're not going to turn me down because of that?'

Ann sat silent, staring at the countless spangles of dancing sunshine which flickered on the sea. In her heart she knew she loved him, and she was fighting a bitter battle with herself. If she had been certain that Gregory was right and everything was going sky high she would not have hesitated, the trimmings of civilisation were not essential to her happiness, and she would have remained cheerfully, joyfully adapting herself to a new and primitive existence, where she would cook and fend for Kenyon while he snared game or gathered shell fish from the beach; and both would laugh together over silly stupid things till dawn dimmed the camp fire, then sleep, his curly head pillowed upon her breast, far into another day. Ann, perhaps, was more bitterly disappointed even than Gregory that their fortunes had not carried them to Southern Seas. There it would all have been so simple but here the old problems remained.

Kenyon had taken her hands in his and was kissing the small grubby palms while he went on pleading fervently for her to stay, but she could only mutter: Don't, my dear, don't,' and stubbornly shake her head as she visualised the actual possibilities.

If Gregory was wrong, and, after a period of violence, order was restored again, where would she be if she had married Kenyon in the meantime, as he was pressing her to do now? That streak of pride in her which took the form of queer inverted snobbery, revolted at the thought of the position she would occupy. His wife, but not quite of his world, if only ail the women were like Veronica, but they weren't and she was tortured by a vision of their subtle slights, aimed at her but lodging in Kenyon's heart and therefore causing her a hundred times the pain and mortification.

He could laugh over it now and call her 'a precious little fool with absurd notions about people she did not know,' but would he laugh after a year or so if they went back to Grosvenor Square? If she married him and then lost him she thought it would kill her, and her resolve not to let him see her true weakness for him made her harsher in her refusals than she knew herself. Yet despite the pain in his face she was determined not to give way and chance spoiling his life by a surrender to this passion scarcely yet a week old.

She even refused to allow him to accompany her to Orford saying that she had already spoken to Gregory who had promised her Rudd and two men as an escort for that afternoon.

For an hour he reasoned, and finally, driven by the ill success of his arguments, bullied; but her firmness shook him, and as he talked on. reverting again to tender expostulations at her hardness, he began to be conscious of a horrible feeling of futility, that whatever he might say or do she would not alter. His awareness of it sapped the logic from his contentations and the passion from his pleading, so that after a time he found himself stupidly repeating the same phrases over and over again, and at last, by sinking into a miserable silence, he acknowledged defeat.

'My dear, I'm sorry,' she said, 'terribly sorry, but it is far better that I should go away, and that five mile trudge with a parting at the end of it would be a miserable business, you must see that.'

'All right,' he agreed a little suddenly, then with a quick movement he drew her to him. 'Kiss me, Ann, kiss me; we shan't have a chance later on.'

She pressed his face back gently, terrified that if he kissed her she would fail at the last and let herself go. 'I-​I'd rather not, Kenyon. Oh, well, if you want me to.'

He hesitated for a second, and then as she assented crushed her in his arms, but her lips had none of the soft warmth that has made his senses rock in Gloucester Road, they were firm, cold and unresponsive. With a little sigh he put her from him, and she turned her face away to hide her quick relief that he had not tried her resistance higher.

A few hours later he watched her small, almost childish, figure as she stepped rapidly along between the tall soldiers. All four grew smaller and fainter until they were gradually merged into the green and grey of the foreshore towards the north.

He turned away to find Veronica beside him. 'I wish she hadn't left us,' she said suddenly. 'Do you remember, there was death in her cards that night I told them at Grosvenor Square?'

18

The King of Shingle Street

True to his boast, Gregory concluded a highly satisfactory understanding with Mr. Solly Andrews that evening, by which he became virtually the dictator of Shingle Street, and at the same time responsible for the lives and well being of the whole community. Then he set himself with tireless energy to provision and fortify the place against siege, which he felt certain they would be called upon to sustain from the starving multitudes of town workers who would sweep the country, picking each village clean.

During the days that followed, every man, woman and child who were not employed in augmenting their supplies, laboured at the fortifications which he threw up; and once they understood the grim menace of the furtive strangers whom Gregory's sentries were already turning back from the outskirts of their area, they worked cheerfully enough; joking and laughing as though they were assisting in the erection of some strange fair for a super Bank Holiday.

His main objective was to make the place impregnable and self supporting so that whatever horrors might befall beyond the wooded hills that ringed them in, they might live secure and in plenty for many months, or even years, if need be.

Silas was set to build a strong redoubt at the north end of the village and with his machine gun party took up his residence there. Gregory continued to occupy the Martello Tower which must prove the natural keep of the fortified enclosure, and Kenyon, now made Town Major, moved with Veronica to the Anchor.

All! four messed at the inn, Mr. Andrews handing over his private sitting room to them for the purpose, and after the first night the jolly little landlord became by invitation a member of the Mess.

The day after their arrival was mainly occupied by making the first dispositions, and after dinner that night Gregory outlined his plans.

'Hell's bells!' exclaimed Veronica when he spoke of remaining there for months or years; 'what a prospect!'

'Sorry you re bored.' He gave her a quick, sidelong glance, 'but later 1 hope to have more leisure to entertain you.'

Her curved eyebrows went up as she puffed at her after dinner cigarette; two a day was the ration now. 'Is that a promise or a threat?'

'Shall we say a desire,' Gregory answered smoothly, and for once Veronica was left without an apt reply. Then he turned to Kenyon: 'You and Silas will take out parties tomorrow. Four men apiece should be enough. Move off at eight o'clock, and scour the country for five miles around, one to the south and one to the north. Visit the nearest farms, make a note of all provisions, live stock, fruit and crops, then get back about four o'clock to let me have all the information that you can. On Thursday we'll start in to clear up everything we can lay our hands on while the going is good.'

'Do you mean that you're going to rob these poor people of anything they have left?' Kenyon asked in a shocked tone.

'My heart bleeds for them,' Gregory smiled with mocking cynicism, 'but my stomach craves for fresh meat or will do before long. So I fear it has to be. By the by, keep your eyes skinned for a bull and if you find one don't take any chances on it being there the following day, but bring it back with you.'

'You're going in for raising cattle then,' Silas remarked.

'Yes, the sooner we start a home farm the better. Cows, pigs, sheep, geese, chickens; we'll need them all if life is to be made bearable.'

Solly Andrews shook an admiring head. 'It was a lucky tide for Shingle Street that washed you up on the beach, if I may say so, sir.'

'Well, I hope you're right,' Gregory laughed. 'Who's for bed?'

Silas stood up slowly. 'I've no objection if you're all for it, but not requiring a deal of sleep I'd be happy to take a stroll along the shore first; if Lady Veronica felt that way.'

Gregory just caught the twinkle in Veronica's eye before she lowered her lids and said demurely: 'I'd adore to, Mr. Harker.'

'That's fine.' He held the door open for her and threw a casual good night over his vast shoulder to the others.

Secretly she was tremendously intrigued. Gregory's interest in her had been patent from the beginning, but Silas had never shown anything more than the genial good nature that seemed to radiate from his large person to all about him.

He led her down to the fringe of the beach where the rollers thundered ceaselessly upon the shingle, without attempting to start a conversation, and vaguely troubled by his silence she said suddenly:

'The waves are a natural orchestra, aren't they? We might be listening to the overture of the “Flying Dutchman”.'

'Yes, or Beethoven. It must have been like this when he wrote the “Moonlight”.' He nodded at the bright August moon riding high in the heavens, and added slowly: 'It seems natural somehow to transmute these long dark shadows and the shimmering of the waters into sound.'

She looked at him curiously. 'You're musical then; I don't know why, but somehow I feel I might have guessed.'

'Yes, it's half my life by far the better half and I knew we had that in common from the way you watched that fellow singing in the boat.'

'Did you? But tell me about the other half. What do you do in normal times, Mr. Harker?'

'I? oh, I'm in Steel,' he replied laconically. '

'Were you over here travelling for your firm when the trouble started?'

'I wouldn't say that exactly, the firm's got a London office on this side.'

'Oh, you were here permanently then?'

'No, just looking round, but maybe you wouldn't have heard the name of Harker in connection with Steel before.'

'What!' Veronica exclaimed, 'are you the Harker?'

'Surely. If you have ever heard of anyone named Harker in Steel, I think it would be me.'

'Of course; how stupid of us not to realise that before.'

'Well, now, why would you?' he protested with a little laugh. 'I'd hate to go around with “Millionaire” placarded on my back.'

'Yes, but your other name, Gonderport, ought to have given us the clue, if we hadn't been so busy wondering how long we were going to remain alive; and you must admit it's surprising to find a Captain of Industry who rows boats and digs trenches as cheerfully as if he had been used to it all his life.'

'Believe me, Lady Veronica, this is the first decent holiday I've had in years.'

' Holiday!'

'Yes, it's as good as breaking prison to get away from the sort of life I lead. Stenographers, balance sheets, and big business folk chasing me all the time, and every ten minutes: “This'll be your call, Mr. Harker. Mr. Harker, I've got your office on the wire. Mr. Harker, you're wanted on the Transatlantic line.” The same thing goes on even if I'm at Deauville or down for a bit at my favourite home in Atlanta, Georgia, for what the folk on the news sheets call vacation. For once in my life, too, I was dead certain that no one was after me for my money, and you've no idea what a joy it is to be taken at my face value by people like your brother and the General, without having to wonder just what they want to sting me for.'

Veronica nodded. 'Looked at that way a millionaire's life must be pretty grim, but how in the world did you metamorphose yourself into an officer of Greyshirts?'

'Easy,' he chuckled. 'I tumbled to it pretty early in the game that there was real trouble coming and I figured that every live man would have to take a hand some way in the cause of law and order, so I had a talk with an old friend of mine that I met way back in the War. He just insisted that I must be an officer and fixed it for me; so when the crash came all I had to do was to walk right out of Claridges and get into a suit of dungarees.'

And you honestly mean to tell me that you are enjoying this incredible party?'

'I do; but you're not really unhappy, are you?'

'Not really. In fact 1 might be quite enjoying it too, if only I could see my hairdresser and buy a few things for my miserable face.'

'Now isn't that queer ' she could see his cherubic smile in the bright moonlight 'ten days ago I could have gone right off and bought you a whole beauty parlour if you'd felt that way, now I can't even buy a ten cent cigar for anyone; but why worry, you don't need those things, you re just lovely as you are.'

'Mr. Harker!' Veronica's voice was not a protest, but a faint, delicious mockery,

'Have a heart now,' he protested quickly. 'I may have lost my fortune but I've still got my first name; it's Silas.'

'Well, Silas, do you know what I think about you?'

'No; but I'd give a heap to learn.'

'You haven’t got it dearie; but I'll tell you all the same. You're some fast worker.'

'An' you're sure the Katz pyjamas,' he laughed, copying her idea of Bowery American idiom.

'Sezyou?'

'Sez me an' how.'

'Is that a fact big boy?'

'It certainly is.'

Tra la la, well, some dew and some don't so let's get back to the ballroom.'

'What's that?'

'Oh, just a very antiquated joke, my dear; but seriously, I think you're a grand guy and I like you lots.'

'That's good to hear er Veronica!' He casually drew her arm through his and they began to stroll back up the beach.

'You may think so,' she said after a moment, 'but I'll tell you something. Silas. I'm a cad from cadville, so be sensible, laddie, and don't waste your time on me.'

'Thanks for the warning, but I'm not just out of the egg myself.'

'Why? Are you heavily married or something?'

'I have been and divorced, but that was when I was a kid pilot in the War days. We were all mad then and it didn't last a year.'

'But that's aeons ago; surely you haven't been lying fallow ever since?'

'Not exactly, but I've been mighty cautious these last three years. I near as damnit got hooked by a girl in Boston; she had all the virtues and was daughter to a rich man who ran his local church, but I Caught her selling my market tips and got out in time; since then I've been extra careful.'

'My poor friend, how easily you brainy men get stung.'

'Yes; I might have known she looked too good to be true.'

'Like me?' Veronica paused on the doorstep of the inn.

'No.' His slow smile came again. 'You're not good; but I'll bet you're true.'

Her ripple of laughter echoed up the stairway as she softly closed the door of the Anchor.

On the following day the exploring parties set off before Veronica was up so, after attending to the wounded who were progressing favourably under her somewhat spasmodic care, she spent the morning attacking a huge heap of mending which she loathed, but which Gregory had insisted on her undertaking as payment for her keep. After lunch she deliberately played truant and wheedled an old salt into taking her out for a few hours in his boat. By the time she got back Kenyon and Silas had returned, and both had a tale of woe to tell.

They spoke of deserted farms and frightened people who had fled at their approach. Kenyon had seen one poor woman and three children obviously murdered, a gruesome heap lying where they had been flung in a manure pit. A few of the farm houses were already looted and their contents left scattered about the rooms in wild confusion, while on the moors inland, the startled hares had given place to frightened humans, crouching in ditches here and there, scared and suspicious of each other. The few that they had caught and questioned could tell them little, except that nothing would induce them to return to the terror of the towns.

Only one piece of possible good news came out of these expeditions, and that was Silas's discovery of the Hollesley Labour Colony, which lay some two miles to the northwest of Shingle Street. It comprised a considerable settlement of town dwellers who had been transferred in previous years to the land, where they occupied small but pleasant houses and were peacefully engaged in fruit and dairy farming. Their principal official had failed to return from a visit to London early in the crisis, but under the leadership of an early colonist, whom Silas reported to be full of ability and sense, they had organised themselves to preserve order in their own district and resist encroachment.

Gregory felt that such neighbours might prove a blessing if they could be induced to trade the fruit and eggs which they had in abundance for Shingle Street's surplus of fish, and made up his mind to visit their leader as soon as more urgent matters had been attended to; but the general report of the state of the countryside made him more determined than ever to secure all the provender he could without further delay.

In consequence Kenyon was dispatched early the next morning with a party of six soldiers and six villagers, to collect all that he could of the remaining stock from farms which he and Silas had marked down the day before.

It was a heartrending experience and one that set a severe strain upon his loyalty. As a boy, like others of his class, he had snared many a plump pheasant on the neighbouring lands that marched by Banners out of sheer devilment, but to rob old women of their chickens in broad daylight is apt to turn the stomach of any decent man. Yet he knew that if they did not hang together and obey Gregory's orders, given in the interest of them all, they would surely die.

With a heavy heart he watched his men harness the scraggy horses into commandeered wagons at the nearest farms, and by ten o'clock a procession of five vehicles were winding their way behind him through the peaceful lanes.

At each house they visited he witnessed the same heartbreaking procedure, women in tears and sullen, cursing men. Whenever he could, he dealt mercifully with them, taking in quantity only from those who had comparative abundance, and consoled a little by the knowledge that, had he refused to undertake this foray, another might have been sent who would perhaps have dealt far more harshly with the unfortunate country people.

As the day wore on their loads increased. One wagon contained chickens under a net, another pigs, a third a fine stock of flour from a mill, a fourth ducks and geese, the fifth all sorts of miscellaneous provender; but the farther they advanced inland the more frequently they came upon batches of stragglers and the bolder these became. At first the little parties of two and threes only pleaded with him to give them food and followed for a short distance before despairing of succour from his convoy but, later, larger parties advanced threateningly from scattered coppices by the wayside and only the sight of the soldiers' rifles kept them from attacking.

When he arrived at Shottisham he encountered real trouble. A farmer had followed them two miles on foot, shaking his fist and shouting curses at them for the seizure of two of his pigs. To Kenyon's annoyance the man raised the village against him and the locals, hurriedly concluding a brawl in which they were engaged with some town roughs, joined forces with their late enemies and set on his convoy. The farm carts could not be galloped so he halted them as close together as possible in the wider portion of the village street, and then stood up in an endeavour to pacify the crowd, but a shower of stones soon put an end to his peroration.

Obviously there was only one thing for it; but he warned his men to fire high, and a volley shattered the silence of the sleepy street. For a moment turmoil reigned and the eighty or more people who composed the crowd fled in all directions, but with the sudden realisation that no one had been hurt they regained their courage, and under the leadership of the angry farmer made another rush.

Kenyon knew that his dozen men would be overwhelmed in two minutes if he hesitated any longer and that, hate it as he might, the outcome depended upon himself, so he drew his pistol and shot the farmer neatly in the thigh.

With a yelp of pain the man rolled over in the gutter, while the crowd stopped dead, overawed by this sudden display of determination. Swiftly Kenyon seized upon the ensuing silence.

'Take warning!' he shouted, 'or my men will put a volley in the middle of you. Up against that wall, quick now!'

In a rapid shuffle they obeyed, pressing near each other for shelter as they huddled against the barn he indicated.

He ordered down his troops and lined them up with rifles at the ready: 'If any of you move a step, you're for it,' he announced tersely to the cowering crowd, then, determined to punish the villagers for their attack rather than loot any more of the miserable scattered farm dwellings, he sent his half dozen Shingle Street handy men into every house in the place to commandeer all that they could lay their hands on.

Two more carts had to be requisitioned for the extra load, which consisted of a fine miscellaneous haul including the entire supply of drinks from the village pub, which were discovered to have been hidden in a hen house, and a most welcome find of some three thousand cigarettes.

With a parting threat, that if any of the wretched inhabitants moved a foot before his last wagon was out of sight they would get a volley, Kenyon turned his convoy about and headed once more for Shingle Street.

Silas was sent out on a similar errand the following day, but Gregory, suspicious that his Lieutenants were too soft hearted for the business, set out himself on Saturday with a squad of twenty men.

Just before midday Silas abandoned his Herculean labours on the Redoubt and went in search of Veronica. He found her, dressed in a suit of borrowed overalls, busy painting three enormous notice boards in the garden behind the inn. They bore the legend, WAR DEPARTMENT ENTRANCE FORBIDDEN, and were being made at Gregory's orders for erection, one about a mile inland on the road up into the hills and the others on the foreshore half a mile or so to the north and south of the village. In his view, the English being such law abiding people, the sight of them with a sentry pacing up and down nearby would be sufficient to prevent isolated tramps, or even small parties of fugitives, from advancing nearer to Shingle Street.

'Would you do me the honour to have a little lunch with me today?' Silas inquired blandly.

'My good man,' Veronica jammed her paint brush back into the pot, 'don't we always feed together in this infernal pub, and it looks as though we shall until I'm grey.'

'No, this is a little private party I'm throwing at the Ritz Carlton, Shingle Street; do come.'

'O.K., big boy,' she said a little mystified. 'Lead me to it,' and pulling off her overalls which concealed her long slim legs in a pair of borrowed shorts, she strolled along beside him to the Redoubt.

Rudd greeted them in the big dug out which Silas had constructed for himself; it seemed that he had been borrowed for the occasion, and he was busy arranging a mass of cottage garden flowers on a carefully laid table.

Veronica sniffed an appetising smell. 'Don't that make yer hungry, miss?' grinned Rudd.

'It certainly does! Produce the ortolans, friend.'

Silas settled her comfortably in a chair and the meal began. Fresh lobster, roast duckling and green peas, followed by a dish of nectarines and washed down with a bottle of Moselle.

'How did you do it?' she laughed as Rudd served the coffee and Silas produced fresh boxes of cigars and cigarettes. 'That's the best lunch I've had in the hell of a time.'

His round face broke into a puckish smile. 'There are plenty of lobsters on the coast and if you treat the fishermen right they're first class boys. As for the rest, didn't Gregory send me out raiding yesterday? The party occurred to me when I struck a good sized private house.'

'Well, I give you full marks, Silas.' She stretched out a hand across the narrow table, and he laid his own great paw gently on it.

'It's comforting, somehow, to eat a Christian meal again, but what wouldn't I do with you if I had you in New York.'

'You never know,' mused Veronica.

'No, I guess you never know,' he repeated and they smiled quickly at each other.

Silas went out to set his men to work after their midday spell and then returned to keep Veronica company, declaring that in the last six days he'd done enough work for a dozen men, which justified him in taking a holiday.

They laughed a lot, finding immense amusement in their different lives and the strange fate that had brought them together on this undreamed of shore.

The afternoon sped by all too quickly, and they were still together when Gregory returned from his foray. His men were grim and silent, evidently hating the work which he had imposed upon them, but his haul was far larger than that made on either of the two previous days and told the tale of many a ravished farmstead.

Not yet content he sallied forth again on the Sunday, this time with a different squad of men, and returned once more in the evening, tired, morose, and poker faced, but with a long line of loaded wagons. Between them in the four days the countryside for miles around had been swept bare of every living thing except the starving humans whom he now reported to be living on their cats and dogs; but Shingle Street was provisioned against an indefinite siege. With fish, meat and poultry in plenty the inhabitants could survive the most rigorous winter almost in luxury.

All he required now was fruit and fresh vegetables, so on Monday, having carried out a rapid inspection of the fortifications which were growing apace on the lines he had laid down, he set out as his own ambassador to Hollesley.

Mr. Merrilees, the elected representative at the Labour Colony, received him a little suspiciously at first, but soon became friendly. He was a small, nervous, bearded man, and his somewhat bigoted enthusiasms provided much material for Gregory's cynical sense of humour, yet Gregory took care to conceal his amusement with that urbane manner of which he was such a master.

The labour movement, the Wesleyan Church, and the British Empire were the trinity of gods which governed Mr. Merrilees's existence, but he was not above killing a chicken and cooking it for a Brigadier General.

'Not that I approve of the Military,' he hastened to say. 'I'm a pacifist myself, for the burden of war ever falls heaviest on the working man, but all soldiers are the servants of the Government and represent the King, who is a fine man if ever there was one long may he be spared to us!'

'Amen,' said Gregory, marvelling at the quaint philosophy by which his host had arrived at this loyal wish. Then after the fashion of all potentates, whatever the manner of their arising, they fed first and got down to business afterwards.

In Merrilees, when he had explained his project, Gregory found a willing trader, but one who knew how to drive a hard bargain. An agreement for the exchange of commodities proved a simple matter, but with all the tenacity with which he had fought against wage cuts in the past, Merrilees now demanded shelter for his people within the Shingle Street fortifications in the event of a concerted attack by the starving workers from the towns.

This Gregory was loath to concede since in a time of crisis it would mean his having to support a number of useless mouths who could no longer make a return for their keep, but eventually a compromise was reached. Merrilees was to place thirty of the fittest men in his community permanently at Gregory's disposal forthwith, to be trained in the use of arms and apprenticed to the fisherman's craft, so that they would be a present help and an additional support, in case it should become necessary to receive the whole Labour Colony into the sanctuary of Shingle Street.

When the treaty was concluded, Merrilees puffed thoughtfully at his pipe, filled with dried herbs, with which he was already experimenting and looked across at Gregory from beneath his bushy eyebrows.

'What's your opinion of the trend of things, General?'

The corners of Gregory's mouth drew down into an ugly bow. 'Pretty black,' he confessed. 'It seems to me that the present civilisation is doomed utterly. Railways, planes, motor cars, newspapers, are only words now; for all practical purposes they have ceased to exist. Even the wireless which might have kept us in touch with things, has broken down. It's ten days since the broadcasting stations have been silent, which means beyond any shadow of doubt that the mob have triumphed over any form of organised Government. It means the survival of the fittest, and for those who do survive, back to the land in almost primitive conditions.'

'I'll not agree to that,' Merrilees protested. 'We're passing through a terrible upheaval, I'll grant you, but the people will adjust themselves to changing conditions and the innate sanity of the British working man will prove the ultimate salvation of the country.'

"Perhaps he’s a fine fellow, but it's difficult to keep sane on an empty tummy. I see no remedy short of divine manifestation and I think we can count that out.'

'You're wrong there, General. The Lord shows His will in strange ways at times, and like as not it will be in a movement of the common people.'

Gregory nodded silently, forbearing to voice his own conviction that race movements and mass urges, either to sound policies or madness, had for their inception fundamental reasons which al owed no place for a benign or angry God.

'Besides,' Mr. Merrilees went on, 'there must be other groups like ours scattered all over the country, whose leaders are getting into touch for the general benefit like you and I today.'

'Here and there,' Gregory agreed, 'but you forget the great industrial centres. I can do with vegetables and you can do with fish, but neither of us would swap a rabbit for a railway train, so the poor devils in the towns stand no chance, and the trouble is that they are in the great majority. Tell me what do your people do if they fall sick, ordinarily?'

'There's the hospital at Ipswich.'

'True, but from all reports nobody's life is safe there any more. What do you intend to do with them in the future?

'I hadn't thought, but why do you ask me this?'

'Because it is our greatest danger. People are killing each other in the towns already, some are dying as we sit here, in attempts to loot; others in trying to defend their property. Soon there will be thousands dropping by the wayside from sheer starvation. It is too much to hope that even a tenth of them will receive proper burial, and it is August, remember. The bodies will decay in the hot sun.'

'Yes, I take your meaning.'

'Disease will spread like wildfire, perhaps even plague will develop and sweep the country like the Black Death in 1348. What do you mean to do if some of your people begin to sicken?'

Merrilees bowed his grey head. 'It is a terrible picture that you paint, General. What can one do but try to nurse them back to health?'

'I'm sorry,' Gregory leant over the deal table, 'perhaps I'm looking on the black side.'

'No, we must face facts and you have spoken of a terrible possibility.'

Then to save the majority we must sacrifice the unfortunate, you see that, don't you?'

'What is it that you would have me do?'

'Isolate ruthlessly. It sounds brutal, I know, but we've got to do it for the sake of our respective people. Select a house a good mile from your Colony. I will do the same. The sick must be sent there to fend for themselves; if their relations care to accompany them, that is their look out, but there must be no communication and no exception to the rule.'

'But they'd die there without aid or comfort, man!'

'Maybe, but if you were sick yourself, which would you rather do; stay and endanger your companions, or take a chance of pulling through alone?'

The elderly man regarded him out of sad eyes. 'Why that's a simple problem, General, as you know yourself. It's these others that I'm thinking of.'

'Well, we ask no more of them than we would be willing to give, and as leaders we should be prepared to enforce our judgment; otherwise we are not fitted to be leaders.'

'Ah, it's a hard thing you ask, but you are right.'

'Then from tomorrow I think each of us should hold a morning inspection. Every man, woman, and child should be present; and if any are sick they should be given rations, but they must go. Is that agreed?'

'Yes, it shall be as you say; and may the Lord have mercy upon us all.'

A quarter of an hour later Gregory took his leave, and with a puzzled look upon his careworn face, the ageing fighter of many battles in the good cause of a fair wage for a fair day's labour, watched his retreating figure as, lean and panther like, his shoulders curiously hunched, he swung away into the distance.

On his homeward journey Gregory encountered two incidents which seemed to bear out his gloomy prophecy. First a dead horse lying at the roadside. Obviously the poor beast had recently been hamstrung, and from its still steaming haunches neat strips of flesh had been removed, while from the bracken a hundred yards away a thin spiral of smoke ascended. He did not doubt that certain very hungry persons were there gleefully awaiting an impromptu meal. The second might have proved his undoing had he been less well prepared. Three men with gaunt, strained faces, from which the eyes bulged large and unnaturally bright, leapt from the bushes at a turning in the lane and set upon him with silent animal ferocity. He felled the first with his loaded crop and flinging himself back against the bank covered the others with his automatic. They tell into a miserable whining about their ravenous Hunger, and in a sudden access of pity he flung them the emergency lunch which he had carried with him to Hollesley; yet, turning from them as they fought for the parcel in the road, his clear intellect, rejecting compromise, told him that he would have done them better service had he put a bullet through their brains.

The sentry at Veronicas newly erected notice board reported when Gregory reached it, that he had had a trying day. On one occasion he had actually had to fire over the heads of a party of intruders before he could scare them away; so on the last mile into Shingle Street, Gregory resolved that his guards should be trebled, and two men apiece from his new Labour Colony levies set to support each of his armed sentries, it was evidently no longer safe to leave them in such isolated positions on their own.

That night at dinner Gregory told them of his conversation with Merrilees and his agreement to shelter the population of the Labour Colony if they were attacked, but Kenyon shrugged his shoulders.

'I can't see what either of you are worrying about,' he declared. 'We may have to deal with a few poor starving wretches that any well fed man who is carious enough could drive off with a stick, but the refugees from the great centres aren't organised, so what earthly harm can they do to us?'

'No, but those who survive soon will be,' Gregory prophesied grimly. 'The strong men are probably forming Workers' and Soldiers' Councils now, and to keep the life in their bodies they’ll take anything they can lay their hands on before we're through. I haven't thrown up these entrenchments to keep off tramps and derelicts, but an organised attack upon a definite source of supply. Our only hope then will be to make it so hot for them that they will leave us alone and go for easier game until they settle down, with an enormously reduced population, to new conditions. Then we may be able to make a deal with whatever powers there may be.'

Silas laughed suddenly. 'You'll be a Kommissar General before we're through.'

'Well!' Gregory smiled back at him, 'I've no rooted objection to Kommissars providing I'm one myself. Care for a stroll, Veronica?'

She smothered a fake yawn. 'Why not, O reincarnated Vicar of Bray.'

'You think I change coats too quickly, eh?' he asked directly they were outside.

She laughed. 'My dear, if only some of papa's old cronies could see you in your present get up!'

'They're probably all dead by now, so what's it matter?'

'Not two hoots in hell, General, dear. If you choose to become an acrobat and get yourself up in tights, it's all the same to me.'

'You're no fool, are you?' he exclaimed.

'No dearie, I certainly am not.'

'This way.' He suddenly pulled her arm and turned inland behind the houses. 'The surf makes so much noise you can't hear yourself speak; and the shingle's hellish hard to sit on.'

'So we're about to sit are we?'

'Yes, unless you prefer to go back to the pub; I should not dream of protesting against your decision.'

'And you're no fool either, are you?'

'Yes; if I'd had any sense I'd have shot another half dozen of those bloody mutineers, then we'd be running south from the Azores by now.'

'Don't kick yourself unnecessarily. You put up a pretty marvellous one man show.'

'Not too bad, but I ought to have done better. How's this?' Gregory pointed to a gently sloping grassy bank.

'I've seen worse in my career of crime.' Veronica stooped to sit down.

'Half a minute, it may be damp,' he warned her as he slipped off his tunic and spread it out for her to sit on.

'Thank you, Sir Walter; but what about you?'

'I shan't die that way,' he laughed, and pulled her down beside him.

'You're a queer bird, aren't you?' she said after a moment.'

'Yes, I suppose I am, but so are you for that matter.'

'Touché and birds of a feather!'

"That's about it, but honestly I should go mad if you weren't in this party.'

'Liar!'

'No, I mean that.'

Tra la la! so you say.'

'It's a fact, but I wonder why it is that women always see the main issue of a thing so much clearer than the average man. Kenyon can't chuck off his stupid public schoolboy morality, Silas is so damned soft hearted he thinks I'm a devil from hell; Thompson and the troops still believe me to be a Brigadier so “theirs not to reason why”; Andrews is only interested in the welfare of his people, and good old Rudd follows me blindly, never pausing to think at all. Not one of them really appreciates that although I could clear out on my own tomorrow I'm staying here to fight their battle as well as my own. You're the only one in the whole party who may protest at times but, given a reason, understands and approves my actions.'

'Perhaps that's because woman always consider the man so much more important than the principle.'

'That's about it; and in this instance I'm the man, aren't I?'

'Your grammar, my sweet, is appalling.'

'Does that matter?'

'Not a nickel in hell!'

'Good for you; are you comfy?'

'Yes.'

'I'm glad of that because I now propose to kiss you.'

'Well,' she turned her face up to his in the moonlight. 'I'm glad of that because it will intrigue me to see if you are as great a lover as you are a leader of men.'

19

Death in the Cards

The first ten days at Shingle Street had seen the transformation of that quiet hamlet into a pulsing centre of strange and seemingly unconnected activities: the second saw them take form and cohesion. Regular convoys were proceeding between the village and the Labour Colony. The small fishing fleet was organised on Naval lines the men electing, at Gregory's suggestion, the most experienced among themselves as Commander and Lieutenant. They ordered sailings in accordance with weather and tide, while Petty Officer Sims augmented the flotilla by supervising repairs to boats that had long been out of service. The majority of farm carts, now no longer needed, were knocked to pieces, and from the material a jagged but stout palisade erected behind the village under the lee of the houses. Into the compartments of this great corral the live stock were herded, safe from the rigours of the coming winter or the depredations of desperate men who might slip past the sentries under the cover of night.

The fortifications were now almost completed and a long line of breastworks linked the Martello Tower on the south with Silas's redoubt to the north, screening the whole village and the stockaded enclosure upon the landward side. Gregory well knew the weakness of his defence to be his limited armaments. Only thirteen men with rifles had survived the debacle of the Shark, and his pistol and those of Silas, Kenyon, Sims and Rudd would be of little use except at close range. He still had his three Lewis guns, however, and leaving those in charge of picked troops, passed on the rifles to some of the ex service men in his Labour Colony levy. He had also acquired eight shotguns and several hundred cartridges on his forays into the interior, and formed a special squad to bring these into action if an attack was pressed to within the limits of their range, so he hoped to be able to put up a performance which would lead an enemy to think that the garrison was far stronger than it was in fact.

However, he placed his confidence far more in rendering the place almost impossible of approach, and for that purpose raked the village from end to end for suitable material. Wireless aerials, now silent and therefore useless, flagstaffs, wood fencing, iron palings, obsolete fishing nets. Every box, barrel, and wicker basket in the place to be filled with shingle and inserted in the breastworks. Old potato sacks and tarpaulins were filled with earth, and he even demolished several sheds to utilise their corrugated iron roofing for revertments.

Entrenchments were dug and emplacements thrown up, fields of fire cleared for the Lewis guns and these rendered doubly difficult of approach by a hundred ingenious devices. Tangles of wire and netting, pieces of board with long nails driven through them and scattered broadcast in the long grass to stab the feet of running men, and lines of pits with pointed stakes set upright in them, but cunningly concealed by rushes and dried turf.

Veronica meanwhile, slim and boyish in her borrowed overalls, worked at her mending in the August sunshine, or, when she could, sneaked off to sun bathe in a sheltered dip of the beach that she had found, continuing in the evenings her dual flirtation…

She felt that she liked the big American the better of the two; he never pestered her, but placid, smiling, efficient, always seemed to be at her side when wanted, and she grew to know him better she came to appreciate more and more the immense and kindly tolerance of his simple straightforward nature. He was widely travelled, deeply read, a distinguished amateur of music and at some time or other he seemed to have met nearly all the really important people who had influenced events, a month no, it seemed to her a year ten years ago, in that other, now so distant and orderly, existence. Yet he seldom spoke of the influence he had wielded and only little by little did she become aware of his vast interests.

Gregory on the other hand treated her in a fashion she would have resented from any other man. He forced her to fulfil her daily quota of the mending that she so detested, as ruthlessly as he made his soldiers dig; stalked off to bed immediately after dinner when he felt that way inclined, hardly troubling to throw her a casual 'good night', yet such was his magnetism that when he uttered an abrupt 'Come on let's walk,' her resistance seemed to crumple and with a half guilty, half defiant glance at Silas she would gaily respond 'Why not?' and accompany him to the grassy bank behind the stockade. He was as great a lover as he was a leader of men, when he chose to devote himself to her. His crisp intellect was a continual delight and he confided in her alone, often days in advance, every new plan as he devised it for their better security and comfort. He knew too, instinctively it seemed, just when to caress her and when to refrain; so that his passion never irked her, and she began to crave the deft touches of his masterful hands. She wondered sometimes what would have happened if they had met in normal times and felt, that if he had insisted on it, she might well have abandoned Grosvenor Square for Gloucester Road.

Some nights he would neither go to bed nor make love to her, but set off alone on long tramps, penetrating far inland and often not returning until dawn. No one else was allowed outside the fortifications on any pretext, so their news of the outer world was confined to such rumours as he chose to pass on to them after these solitary expeditions. However, he spoke little of them, except to state that conditions in the interior were growing more and more terrible and the roving population desperate to a primitive degree, until at the end of the third week of their stay he told them that he had good reason to believe that a Communist Government had been established in London.

'What effect is that likely to have on us?' Kenyon inquired.

'The disruption has been too great for it to have any at the moment,' Gregory replied slowly; 'and it is doubtful if it can last for more than a week or two. If the old order couldn't feed the people how can the Communists? Yet it is the danger that I have feared all along. Similar groups may gain control in places like Ipswich, and while they last they will endeavour to secure any sources of supply which are left for their own maintenance, regardless of the remainder of the people. Our state of plenty here must be known for miles around by now, and it is to protect us from a proper organised attack that I have thrown up all these defences, my automatic and a loaded crop would have been good enough to scare off anything short of a multitude without arms.'

'Do you think we'd be able to defend this place against troops then?' Silas asked.

'Yes,' Gregory declared firmly; 'the surrounding marshes form a natural barrier and all the ordinary approaches are now so skilfully protected that I am prepared to hold Shingle Street for the Shingaleese against all comers. They won't have any artillery and nothing short of shell fire could drive us out of here.'

During all his days of labour at the entrenchments and palisades, Kenyon's thoughts had never been far from Ann. Had he supposed her threatened by any danger, he would have set out for Orford instantly, but Rudd had reported her safe delivery into the hands of her delighted uncle with a wealth of fluent detail. He reported that the leading citizens of Orford had formed themselves into a committee to deal with any emergency and that, just as at Shingle Street, a plentiful supply of fish could be relied upon to keep the small population from any danger of actual starvation. The little town was shut away from the industrial areas and great trunk roads by miles of desolate heath and sparsely populated farm lands, so there seemed little imminent risk of invasion by hunger marchers; feeling her to be secure, Kenyon had flung himself whole heartedly into the work allotted to him in the early days of their arrival.

As time wore on the urge to see her again was strengthened by a desire to reassure himself about her safety, and in the second week he spoke of it to Gregory, but the General reasoned with him.

'Hang on for a day or two,' he begged. 'Ann's no fool and if there is any trouble at Orford she's certain to seek shelter, here. I simply can't do without you, even for a day, until Shingle Street is straightened up and my plans completed.'

'Perhaps she would like to now but is afraid to face the journey with all these toughs on the roads.'

'Nonsense, Kenyon. They wouldn't attack a woman; it's food they are after, and anyhow, she knows the district like the back of her hand, she could easily come by bypaths if she wanted to.'

'All right,' Kenyon agreed reluctantly, his uneasiness quieted for the moment by Gregory's reasonable hypothesis, but as the days passed he began to worry again. Orford might have its watch committee, but the town possessed no military strength, so how could they resist the growing bands of hungry desperadoes who were pressing daily nearer to the sea? Despite the hard labour on the fortifications which left his body tired each night, and should have ensured a sound healthy sleep, he could no longer quieten the wild and horrible misgivings which filled his brain. His imagination began to play havoc with his nerves and night after night he tossed and turned sleepless with anxiety until the paling of the stars.

When Gregory spoke of the possibility of organised attack, therefore, he could bear it no longer but declared his intention of visiting Orford on the following day.

The General shrugged his lean shoulders. 'If you want a holiday by all means go; it's Sunday tomorrow, anyway, and now we have broken the back of our job we might as well reinstitute the ancient custom of the Seventh day. The men will get stale if they're not allowed a break now and then.'

'Good. Then I'll set off first thing tomorrow.'

'As you wish, but I wouldn't fret yourself. I was in Orford a few nights ago and the place was perfectly peaceful. You'll find a picket at the approaches to the town, but I expect they'll let you through when you mention Ann's uncle. I had to dodge them, of course, but that was easy at night because I have the sort of eyes which can see in the dark better than most people's.'

Kenyon had already consulted Rudd on the best way of getting to Orford and knew it to be a longish journey. True it was no more than six miles as the crow flies but the River Butley, only a tiny stream at low tide yet with formidable mud banks on either shore, cut off direct approach from the south west. He must strike north, cross the stream three miles inland, and turn south eastwards along the Woodbridge Road, a good ten miles in all; but one of the villagers possessed a bicycle and proved willing to lend it to him for the day, so on Sunday, despite dull and cloudy weather, Kenyon set off immediately after breakfast with his heart high at the prospect of seeing Ann again.

He stopped for a moment at the Labour Colony to exchange a few words with Merrilees whom he met just starting out to visit Gregory. The little man was highly elated at a report that order had been restored in Ipswich and a limited ration, procured from where he could not say, was being issued to the residents who had remained in the town; but his brief mention of a Workers' Council which was apparently in control caused Kenyon to discount the goodness of the news. Merrilees would naturally suppose them to be an honest body, similar to his old colleagues of Trade Union days, but if Gregory was right they would prove a greater danger to the countryside than the unarmed stragglers who infested the woods and moors at the present time.

One thing was certain: no such groups could possibly be powerful enough to reorganise the country with such a terrible upheaval still in progress, and the probability was that, after a brief local reign, they would disappear or develop into bandit formations, who would levy a regular toll upon the produce of the surviving peasants in their area, just as their predecessors had done in the dark ages.

With these black thoughts, Kenyon pedalled on through Capel St. Andrew, Butley and Chillesford. Here and there upon the roadside, even in these quiet lanes, he passed an abandoned motor car or tradesman's van, and twice saw helicopters which had been forced to land in the open fields. Once he caught sight of some fifty people slouching along the road in his direction, and thinking discretion the better part of valour hid behind a hedge until they had passed, but for the most part the people that he saw seemed frightened of him and bolted into the bracken at his approach. Those whom he passed at close quarters showed faces gaunt and evil by lack of food.

Just after he reached the main Orford Road he got a nasty scare. A newly erected bungalow stood at the roadside apparently deserted, but a big Alsatian suddenly leapt the wicket gate and came for him with gaping, slobbering jaws. Evidently the poor beast, maddened by hunger had taken on the semblance of his half brother the hunting wolf and famished, perhaps for days, was now grown bold enough to attack a man.

Kenyon was knocked spinning from his bicycle and rolled into the ditch, but the dog got his forepaw caught in the spokes of the front wheel so he had a moment to whip out his jack knife, a souvenir of the Shark, and by the time the animal was free he was standing again, ready to meet its attack.

The dog howled pitifully as the blade went home between its ribs and Kenyon felt almost worse about it than when he had had to levy toll on the defenceless farmers, but it was absolutely necessary, and as he mounted again he felt that he had had a lucky escape from being badly mauled.

'Orford could not be far now,' he thought, and the last few miles of the way thither, he began to be more than ever satisfied that Gregory was right about Ann's safety. The scattered farms grew more infrequent, alternating with long stretches of beautiful but desolate heath where little woods of pine and birch, or wide stretches of golden flowering gorse, broke the monotony of the rolling sweep of heather. A land that had known the imprint of the hand of man for centuries but one with which he had dealt kindly, never settling in his hordes to blacken it with smoke and grime. As the road narrowed Kenyon felt that in normal times one would not see a human being in a three mile stretch, the way leading nowhere but to Orford and the sea. The last mile or so lay downhill through narrow twisting lanes and there was the little town sleeping in the sunshine as it had slept for centuries, cut off on the north by the great sweep of the Aide and on the south by the Butley from intercourse with its neighbours, its only method of communication the solitary inland road. He noted that it was even separated from the sea by a strip of water which he remembered to be the River Ore; a mile of marshland had to be crossed before the beach could be reached, and there no stretches of fair golden sand lay spread to attract the tripper, but a hard steeply shelving foreshore where the waves broke monotonously upon the pebbles. Ipswich might be barely a hundred miles from London and its population of eighty thousand people had enjoyed, up to a month ago, all the amenities of modern civilisation, but Orford, although only a further sixteen miles from the metropolis, was literally in the back of the beyond and the life of its inhabitants differed little in essentials from that of their predecessors two hundred years before. In the days of the Flemish weavers it had been a prosperous little port now it was only a village. A few crooked streets with rambling houses and fishermen's., cottages clustered about the great Norman Church; yet even that relic of bygone splendour was in partial ruin, the transepts fallen away, the main aisle only kept watertight for a limited number of parishioners. No railway station linked it with modern life, the nearest being at Wickham Market, seven miles away and only a branch line. Where in all England could Ann live more securely at such a time? At the first houses four men with staves, and brassards on their arms, stopped him but one of them knew Ann so Kenyon was allowed to pass, having learnt from them that the Reverend Timothy Croome was not the incumbent of the parish as he had supposed, but lived retired at Fenn Farm some way outside the town. The shuttered shops in the straggling square seemed no more strange than on a normal Sunday and turning to the right he took the road beneath the great eight sided single tower of the Castle, which dominates the coast for miles around, out into the open country once more. After a little it faded almost to a track running parallel to the sea, and passing two small farms half a mile or so apart, he came to a solitary house which he knew must be his destination.

The track ended there and he propped his bicycle against the ramshackle gate, noting as he did so from the hill upon which the place was set, the broad mud flats of the Butley which cut it off so securely from the south and west. For a second he wondered if Ann would run out when she saw him, and if they would kiss, but his thoughts were chilled by the bleak appearance of the house. Its peeling paint and dilapidated exterior suggested straitened circumstances and, set in this desolate spot between the wind and sea and sky, the thought of easterly gales beating upon its jimcrack doors and windows leapt to his mind, and how cheerless the place must be when the grey mists crept up to it from the marshes in the winter.

He paused for a moment irresolute beneath the scanty foliage of a tree warped by the constant pressure of the wind. The house was silent as the grave; silent with a queer sinister silence that seemed to catch at Kenyon's heart. Why were there none of the little noises that spoke of peaceful habitation? Why no questioning bark there should at least have been a dog. The Iron Gate clanged behind him with a dismal sound, yet no inquiring face appeared at the windows.

'Ann!' he bellowed, 'Ann!' but no small figure appeared to greet him. The house remained cold, a cheerless example of Edwardian architecture, grimly foreboding in its continued silence.

With a set face Kenyon hurried up the path. Something was wrong, he knew it with a horrible certainty as he pressed the bell in the absurd ornate porch which gave the place the air of a suburban villa that had gone a wandering. Jarringly the peal shrilled through the house but no footsteps sounded in the hall. He pressed again but no stir or movement broke the following silence, now weighing like a cloak of dread upon his troubled mind.

He left the porch, stepped back to stare up at the windows and noticed for the first time that the curtains were drawn. Perhaps the place had been abandoned, yet somehow he did not feel that it had, a second sense seemed to tell him that there were people in the house. In search of another entrance he walked swiftly round the corner and coming at once upon an open window, thrust it up, pushed back the curtains, and peered into the dim recesses of the room.

. The furniture was in keeping with the house, an Edwardian mahogany dining room suite, heavy and tasteless. The remains of a meal lay spread upon the table, but Kenyon's thoughts were not upon the furnishings.

An elderly woman lay stretched on her face in the doorway, she was quite still dead undoubtedly, and the dark matted patch in her grey hair showed that she had been struck down from behind. By the fireplace lay another huddled form, black clad, a clergyman his white collar proclaimed the fact but that was stained with blood, and the head hung back at a queer unnatural angle. Horrified but fascinated, Kenyon could not drag his eyes away from the white face and the red gash beneath for the man's throat had been slit from ear to ear.

'Ann,' he called again, but his voice only came in a hoarse choking whisper, and still there was no answer.

20

A Beacon in the Darkness

For a moment Kenyon leant against the window sill, almost sick with the fear he now felt for Ann, then, with an effort he pulled himself together and scrambled inside.

He stooped for a moment over the prostrate clergyman although he had no hope that his eyes had deceived him. The man had been brutally and abominably done to death. Next he turned to the woman and found her too, stiff and cold. It seemed the work of a maniac; then Kenyon noted that, although the knives and forks on the table remained unused, there was not a scrap of food left in the dishes, and he knew that men driven desperate by acute hunger must have done the killing. Staggering slightly he stepped across the body of the woman to the door.

It opened on a narrow hallway. A hat rack showed him the position of the front entrance and two other doors stood on either side of it. He flung open the one on the right and poked his head into an ordinary country drawing room. Chintz covered chairs, a mantelpiece loaded with indifferent china, and a piano decorated with photographs. Closing it softly behind him from some instinctive reverence for the dead who lay so near he tried the other. That led to a small study, and a little pile of silver coins lying on the top of a cheap light oak roll top desk were evidence that the murderers had not broken in for money. Food was all that mattered. For a second Kenyon ran his eye along the shelves of worn books; most of them were on ancient coinage, evidently the dead man's hobby, and that seemed in some way to bring the tragedy nearer. Softly he closed the door.

A green baize curtain beyond the stairs caught Kenyon's eye and with the sudden thought that the murderers might still be in the house he drew his revolver and tiptoed towards it. Beyond lay the kitchen, orderly and tidy as the old woman must have left it, but the larder had been ransacked. A broken dish and fish bones scattered on the tiles showed the haste which the ravenous pack had made to satiate their hunger.

He crept back into the hall and peered into the shadows of the stairway. It was possible that they were sleeping off their debauch upstairs. Gingerly, and testing each stair before he trod upon it, he made his way up to the first floor landing. In the dim light three doors were visible and with sudden decision he stepped briskly towards the one which opened into the room above the study.

As he opened it a new tension gripped his strained senses. It was Ann's, he knew by the very scent of it before he had the door open a foot. The bright simplicity of the furnishings, so different from the rooms below, confirmed his thought a second later and then he looked towards the bed.

Ann lay there, a small dishevelled figure, huddled upon the outer coverlet, her head buried in the pillow. For a second he felt a restriction in his chest as though his heart had ceased to beat. Was she still alive? Perspiration broke out in pearls little of cold dew on his forehead as he stood crouched in the doorway. He wanted to run to her but his legs seemed paralysed and he could not move a foot. Veronica's prophecy came back to him, and with leaden fear that it might have been fulfilled he whispered again:

'Ann, darling, Ann!'

She did not move, but lay there horribly unnaturally quiet. Then breaking through the invisible bonds that held him rooted he stepped across to the narrow room and put his hand on her shoulder. Still she did not stir but beneath the thin cotton frock he felt her flesh warm to his touch.

'Ann,' he spoke louder now, shaking her slightly and at last she rolled over on her back.

'Kenyon!' The big eyes opened.

He covered his own for a second, wiping away the beads of sweat, and sank to his knees beside the bed.

She sat up suddenly, staring with wide distended eyes round the familiar room, then with a little gasp she flung her arms round his neck.

'There,' he soothed her, 'there, don't worry, sweet. No one shall hurt you now. I swear they shan't. Thank God you're safe!'

For some strange timeless interval they clung to each other, speechless instinctive creatures seeking to escape from the horror of a world that had gone insane. Cheek pressed to cheek, their only realisation was that they were together again, although about them mountains slipped into the sea. Her body shook with frightening, tearless tremors, but in his relief at finding her alive, it was his eyes which filled with tears.

'Kenyon?'

'Ann dearest.'

'Have I gone mad or is it really you?'

He pressed the little body in an even stronger grip, seeking to assure her by sheer physical force of his actual nearness.

'Yes, really, Ann darling, and we're both alive and well.'

She laughed then, but her laughter had a queer jarring note bordering upon the unnatural. For a moment he feared that her brain had given way.

'No nonsense,' he said sharply. 'You must try and pull yourself together, and tell me what's been happening here.'

She stopped then, as suddenly as she had begun, and drawing away put her hands upon his shoulders. As she stared at him her eyes were strangely bright and the pupils horrifyingly enlarged.

'Are they are they really dead? Or did I see it in a nightmare?'

He nodded slowly. It was impossible to conceal the truth, and she shivered slightly.

'Oh, it was horrible, Kenyon!'

'Where were you?' he asked gently.

'Outside the window. It was before dinner last night, I had gone up to the hill. I used to do that every evening. Just sit and gaze towards Shingle Street, thinking of you, and wondering if I'd ever see you again.' She spoke simply and naturally now, caressing his hair with her hand. 'I came back in the twilight and what it was I don't know, but something made me look in at the dining room window as I passed, so I saw it all.'

He took her other hand and kissed it as she went on: 'Poor Agatha was just coming through the door as I looked in; her eyes suddenly seemed to start out of her head and she fell forward on her face, then I saw the men! There were five of them and their faces were horrible, they sprang over her body and set on Uncle Timothy, and one of them snatched up the carving knife, but I couldn't look away. I simply couldn't. Oh, Kenyon!'

It was a wail rather than a cry and again he pressed her to him while her body quivered and shook with great choking sobs, yet he was glad to see her cry for he knew that tears would bring her relief, and after a desperate fit of weeping she looked up again.

'Then then I realised that if they saw me they might kill me too so I ran, just wildly out into the heath among the gorse and bracken, and when I was breathless I flung myself down in a deep ditch where the long grass hid me. How long I lay there I don't know. It must have been hours I think, for the dew had fallen and I was shivering with cold when I did screw up courage to come back. My teeth were chattering, I couldn't keep them still, but when I crept in through the back door, the men were gone, then in the dining room I- I saw them both.'

She burst into a fresh fit of sobbing at the awful memory, and for a little time Kenyon strove unsuccessfully to comfort her, but at last she choked her tears back and concluded her story.

'First I thought I'd go to Orford, but my legs simply would not work so I thought I'd better rest for a little until I felt able to face the journey. I crept up here and lay on the bed crying desperately for I don't know how long, and then I suppose, oh, it sounds awful, but I was simply dead beat, and I must have dropped asleep.'

'Thank God you did,' he answered fervently. 'It probably saved your brain.

'But, Kenyon, what shall we do?'

'Why, get back to Shingle Street just as fast as we can.'

'I' can't, dear; there'll be the funeral and all sorts of things to see to.'

'Well, we must arrange all that as best we can, but I promised Gregory that I'd be back this evening and nothing will induce me to leave you here another night.'

She smiled rather wanly. 'You haven't changed much, have you?'

'Listen, darling I'm not threatening to carry you off as I did before, but you must see this time that it's really dangerous for you to stay behind on your own.'

'Oh, I wouldn't stay here. I've plenty of friends in Orford who would take me in.'

'Perhaps, but what guarantee have you got that the same awful thing isn't going to happen again, and to you, in a week or so's time?'

'How can I go, it's impossible until after the funeral.'

'Then that must be this afternoon.'

'Kenyon! It's not decent!

'Why, surely you're not afraid of what people in the town will say, are you?'

'Of course not.' Ann shrugged impatiently. 'It is respect for them I-I loved them, Kenyon.'

'Steady, darling.' He put a supporting arm about her shoulders as she choked back her tears. 'Don't you think that they would wish it themselves, Ann? They'd be the very first to urge it, if it meant your safety.'

She nodded wearily. 'All right, if you can arrange it.'

'Good, we'd better go into Orford at once then, I'll leave you for a moment while you put a few things in a bag.'

Downstairs he applied himself to the grim task of laying the two poor battered bodies side by side and covering them decently, yet even beneath the sheets he unearthed for the purpose the Reverend Timothy gave rise to gruesome thoughts. One knee, bent under him, was held firm by rigor mortis and defied all Kenyon's efforts to force it down. At last he was compelled to leave it, a grotesque and faintly terrifying protuberance still cocked ceiling wards beneath the linen.

He had only just finished when Ann came down, and after rummaging for some straps in the cupboard under the stairs, they attached her suitcase to the back of his borrowed bicycle and set off for Orford.

The Vicar's wife, whom Ann knew well but had never liked on account of her dictatorial manner, proved in this emergency a truly Christian woman. After their first words she would not allow Ann to talk of the tragedy, but made her lie down upon her bed, produced aspirin and fine china tea which she valued more than gold dust from her own limited store, and insisted that all arrangements should be left to herself and Kenyon.

Her husband was another of those who had been caught away from home at the time of the outbreak, so Orford was without a vicar; but a local colleague had promised a service for that evening and she suggested that he should be asked to officiate at the interment of the Reverend Timothy and his housekeeper, at the same time.

Kenyon soon learned from her that the little town was by no means so secure as he had supposed. At the outset of the trouble the local farmers had marched in and wrecked the bank, burning the ledgers that contained particulars of their overdrafts, derisively calling upon the manager, who had sought to protect his company's property, to telephone 'Head Office' and see what they meant to do about it. The Watch Committee had restored order, and the head of it was a retired Colonel, a capable organiser, but a martinet, many of whose decisions were resented by the locals, and a Communist Party had been formed among the poorer classes which was likely to revolt against his authority at any moment.

The village undertaker was sent for, and the verger, but neither expressed surprise at this hasty burial of a well known local character. Both had been called on in these last few weeks to deal with a rush of their melancholy business which neither had ever known before. Even to this seeming sanctuary the terror was creeping closer day by day and already outlying farms were no longer safe from the murderous hunger raiders, so they accepted the tragedy at Fenn Farm almost as part of the gruesome daily business which they had come to know.

Later, in an effort to cheer him, the Vicar's wife led Kenyon out into her garden, but the dahlias and golden rod could not draw his thoughts from the long queue of people that he had seen earlier that afternoon in the Square. Not a cigarette or pipe had he seen among the men, and the faces of the women were filled with strained anxiety as they stood patiently waiting for their meagre rations; some distance away a group of men wearing red armlets had been hustling three miserable looking fellows towards the lock up; invading townsmen, he had no doubt, caught in the act of housebreaking or some nefarious business on the outskirts of the town.

Now he was regarding Orford with very different eyes to those with which he had viewed it in the morning. It seemed only a matter of a week or two before the Colonel and his committee must be submerged under a wave of Bolshevism, and for the first time Kenyon admitted to himself that there was real justification for Gregory's policy of ruthlessness to any but their own community. Only behind those well panned and well provisioned defences at Shingle Street was there any real hope of survival in this dissolution of England which was now affecting even its remotest parts.

At half past six Ann and Kenyon accompanied the Vicar's wife to the ancient church. All regular parishioners had gathered for the service and, in addition, many townspeople who had learned of the Reverend Timothy's tragic death.

The visiting clergyman was an elderly man of unusually fine physique, stooping slightly in the shoulders but with a handsome leonine head on which the silver hair swept back from the broad and lofty forehead. His eyes were large, intelligent and kindly, and the fine tenor of his voice would have attracted large congregations had he been the incumbent of a wealthy parish. In a few simple sentences he passed from the subject of the newly dead to an address upon the present situation, urging his listeners upon a course which would ensure their spiritual, and might ensure their bodily, preservation.

He proceeded to cite the conduct of his own parishioners as an example. At the beginning all had been filled with fear at the approach of these terrifying and unknown dangers which were creeping in upon them, but a few, and those by no means the most regular attendants at his church, had come to talk with him about measures for their safety; and, in what seemed to him almost a miraculously short space of time, a strange understanding had come to them that if they would only believe in Our Lord and Saviour, no fear should ever trouble them any more.

Hard headed business men, and farmers who all their lives had been wrestling every penny from each other, had put their avarice behind them and spoken to others of their conversion, so that soon the whole village had come, in this great emergency, to see the light.

He went on to describe the new life and hope that had permeated his community. How each morning they gathered for a simple service to ask a blessing and a guidance for the labours of the day, and met each evening to render thanks for their preservation; while their need being greater than his, it had even been necessary for him to lend his own Bible to poor people who lacked that blessing, that they might read at home the wonderful message which all had learnt at school, but so many forgotten in the turmoil of modern life, yet which stood as a timeless beacon, unflickering, undimmed, in the growing darkness of a changing world.

'Of what value is property any more?' he asked; 'God in His goodness has given us many blessings, but in our folly we have abused them, hoarding where we had opportunity, striving against each other for a greater share than our necessities warranted, and waxing fat and slothful upon the labours of our weaker brethren. Now, in His infinite wisdom He has chosen to change the order of things that we may see them in their true perspective and live more nearly in accordance with His will. The fruits of the earth remain with us and the fishermen may still go down to the sea. There is no reason, once the crisis is past, why any man should starve, but once more the money changers have been thrown out of the temple and humanity given a new chance to accept the simple, straightforward teaching which Christ laid down nearly two thousand years ago for the guidance of mankind.

'Death and destruction are upon every side,' came the clear clarion note of the silver voice, 'yet that is only because we have been bound up with ignorance and evil for so long. No man who truly believes upon our Saviour can raise his hand against another, and although everyone will be called upon to make some sacrifice of worldly goods, how infinitesimal is that sacrifice compared to the ineffable peace and joy which comes to those who live daily according to the Word, strong in the knowledge that the divine love is about them, and certain that whatever may befall', their blindness has been lifted from them, so that when their eyes are closed to this life on earth they will be the joyous recipients of the eternal salvation in the life to come.'

It was the most vital sermon that Ann and Kenyon had ever heard, and with the people of Orford they stood silent and awe struck, so that the passion of the afternoon was gone and the terror which had assailed them in the morning.

Silently, with lowered eyes, they followed the creaking farm wagon which carried the coffins to their last resting place and after the final rites set out, with new hope in their hearts but little knowledge of what lay before them.

21

Gregory 'Reaps the Whirlwind'

Kenyon had been anxious to get Ann safely back to Shingle Street before dark, but that was impossible now. It was already seven thirty when they started off up the hill out of Orford, and he knew that they would have to tramp a good portion of the way for, in this undulating country, he could only carry her on the step of his bicycle where the gradients were favourable.

They made fair going until they reached the forked roads in Watling Wood, but there they were delayed for a little by a curious incident. A lanky man in a battered bowler planted himself in the middle of the road and asked where they were going.

'To Woodbridge,' said Kenyon promptly.

'Then you have our permission to proceed,' replied the queer individual.

'Oh? Oh, thanks!' Kenyon murmured with some surprise.

'Don't er mention it to the Cardinal,' added the other.

'What?' inquired Ann.

'I find him a little difficult, you know,' the stranger waved his cane gaily and then leaned forward in a confidential attitude. 'He is a little puffed up with the success of our Army at La Rochelle.'

'I quite understand,' agreed Kenyon with a soothing note in his voice. 'It must be very difficult for you.'

'True true, but not for nothing are we called Louis the Just, and the Bishop of Lucon has proved his worth.'

'I am certain that he appreciates the confidence of his master,' declared Kenyon, for after such a day he could not resist the temptation to indulge his humour with this curious acquaintance.

'You are a person of understanding,' was the quick response. 'What a pity that you are not noble. If you were we would nominate you for the Order of the Golden Fleece. Our brother of Spain has just sent us a couple.'

'Fortunately,' said Kenyon, 'I happen to possess the necessary quarterings.'

'In that case we must certainly think of you, but can we persuade the Cardinal? That's the thing. De Richelieu is always after these windfalls for his own cronies and he's so devilish plausible. We have hardly been able to call our soul our own since that terrible trouble with poor Cinq Mars.'

'Yes, that was a dreadful business,' Kenyon shook his head, 'but with your gracious permission we must proceed.'

'Of course, of course. We too must ride on. La Villette tells us that he has raised a fine stag in the forest of St. Ger mains, and as the Cardinal will not be back until tomorrow evening you understand.'

Kenyon politely raised his hat, and setting the battered bowler more firmly on his head, that strange wraith of a vanished sovereignty disappeared into the lengthening shadows of the Suffolk lane.

'Poor sweet,' said Ann. 'Who did he think he was, dearest?'

Louis XIII of France, I imagine, though God knows why!'

'Stark staring mad, of course.'

'Yes, these troubles must have sent him off his head, unless he is from the Ipswich Asylum. When they could no longer feed them they probably turned the inmates loose.'

'How ghastly.'

'I know, but let's not talk of it. There'll be a good dinner, and everyone so pleased to see you when we get to Shingle Street; I only wish the light would last a little longer though.'

Already the sun had set behind the trees, but the afterglow lit their way as they pushed on to Chillesford, where Ann suggested that they could save a mile by turning off down the track through the marshes, which would bring them out at Butley Priory.

By the time they reached the road again dusk had fallen, and now made bold by the coming darkness the human wolves who infested the countryside began to leave the hiding places where they had lurked during the day. Some accosted Kenyon, whose progress with Ann behind him on the bicycle was slow, casting envious glances at her suitcase, suspicious that it might contain food, but he warned them off with a flourish of his pistol. Others slunk quickly back into the hedges on their approach, fearful that Kenyon, with his superior physique, might have a mind to prey on them.

The cottages that they passed were either dark or deserted or, if inhabited, showed it only by chinks of faint light through heavily boarded windows behind which the owners lived a state of siege, yet in the second hour of their journey the road was rarely free of sinister moving shadows.

Only Horsley Heath now remained to be passed before they reached the friendly Labour Colony, and another half hour should see them home, but night had fully fallen, and when Kenyon was forced to dismount at a rise in the road both were filled with apprehension. Somehow the lonely stretch of common land seemed so much more likely to hold hidden danger than the friendly hedgerows which they had left behind, and it was easy to imagine every bush to be a crouching enemy.

Strange, whining voices came out of the darkness every now and then, and once the sounds of a violent quarrel. Ann's arm was through Kenyon's and her hand clasped his as they trudged up the hill, yet at each unaccustomed sound from behind the gorse on either side she shrank nearer to him in sudden fear and, as he caught the note of soft padding footsteps in their rear, he urged her faster towards the hill top, suddenly apprehensive that they were being followed.

'Who goes there?' A sharp voice cried as they breasted the rise.

'Friend!' said Kenyon, automatically.

'You come here, then,' said the voice.

Kenyon drew his weapon and, passing the push bike to Ann, stepped a few paces forward. Three men advanced out of the darkness to meet him.

'Where be ye a goen' to?' asked the man who had challenged.

'Hollesley,' declared Kenyon.

'Oh! then just you come and see the boss.'

Ann made ready to run for it and Kenyon moved a little nearer to her, but the following footsteps had stopped, and turning they saw two other men waiting silently behind them.

'Look here!' Kenyon protested.

'Now then,' countered the first man, 'you be a goen' to have a word with the boss; come on now!'

For a moment Kenyon was tempted to shoot the fellow where he stood, but four others were near enough to rush him and one of them gripped Ann by the arm. 'Take your hands off,' he said sharply.

'All right all right,' the offender protested. I ain't a goen' to do no harm.'

Four more men joined the group and Kenyon felt that it would be a risky business to start a fight now that they were surrounded. He might shoot a couple but how could he protect Ann in the melee better be tactful and after having been searched for food they would probably be allowed to proceed. 'As you like,' he agreed with a shrug, 'but it's late and I'm in a hurry.'

Foller me,' the man who had first challenged them turned on his heel and led them through a small coppice and out onto the open heath while the last four arrivals followed.

'Cattermole,' called the leader as he halted on the lip of a shallow dell, 'do you want to have a look at two folk a goen' to Hollesley?'

And Kenyon, peering over his shoulder, saw that two hundred or more men and women were seated in the hollow, their faces shadowed or illuminated alternately by the flickering flames of a small bonfire. From what little he could see he judged them to be agriculturists, farm labourers and the like, accompanied by their women. Then a tall man in gaiters and a yellow waistcoat came up the slope towards them.

After a sharp glance he nodded to his lieutenant. 'Bring them down to the fire, Rush, we'll see 'em better there,' and, the men behind closing in, they were hustled forward into the dip.

The ragged people crouching round the blaze regarded them with scant interest, most of them were busy on a meal of roots and vegetables which they were eating with their fingers from still steaming pots.

Kenyon was questioned by Cattermole who seemed to distrust his well fed appearance, but was obviously only out to secure further supplies of food, and after Ann's suitcase had been searched it looked as if they would be allowed to go on their way again, until Rush suggested to his leader: 'Better keep 'em with we till by and by, hadn't us? Or they might let on to what's up '

Even then it is probable that no harm would have befallen them if a stout red faced man had not glanced at Kenyon curiously as he stumbled past them to the fire.

He stopped dead in his tracks and thrust his face nearer, then suddenly he cried: 'Blow me if this 'ere chap ain't one o'they hisself!'

'What's that!' snapped Cattermole and in a second a score of figures had crowded round them.

'E's one of they,' declared the farmer angrily, 'him an' his khaki boys took a dozen hins an' a pig off me three weeks ago I'll swear to he and no mistake.'

A growling murmur ran through the hollow eyed throng as they pressed nearer, and when a rasping voice cried:

'Hang 'un then,' the cry was repeated from a dozen throats: 'Yes, hang 'un hang 'un!'

Too late Kenyon realised his crass stupidity in not having forced a passage in the road. Gregory would have done so, even at the price of killing half a dozen of these poor devils but, like a fool, he'd stopped to parley and now it looked as if his reluctance to shoot down unarmed men was likely to cost him his life.

Even now it was Ann who urged him into action as she clutched his arm and whispered fiercely: 'Shoot, Kenyon! Shoot! It's your only chance!'

'Run for it then I’ll follow if I can.' He thrust her from him and pressed the trigger of his gun.

Rush had caught her words and flung himself on her as she spoke, and with a sudden wrench she twisted from his grip and, ducking under the arm of another man, fled up the slope.

The man in front of Kenyon gave a gasp and, clasping his hands to his stomach, sank to his knees. The revolver cracked again and another livid spurt of flame lit the darkness. The red faced farmer let out a howl of pain and, tumbling into the heather, clutched at a shattered knee cap, but the others were upon him before he could fire again.

A heavy cudgel caught him on the shoulder, a piece of wood with a nail driven through the end descended on his upper arm, and as he stepped back, bashing sideways at a nearby face with the butt of his pistol, another cudgel came down upon his head.

His weapon was wrested from him and with the blood streaming into his eyes he fell half fainting to the ground. Someone kicked him savagely in the ribs, and a second blow on the head as he lay gasping in the heather made him see a horrid succession of bright stars and circles'" until blackness supervened and he lost consciousness.

Only the efforts of the gaitered Cattermole saved him from being kicked to death there and then, but he stood over Kenyon's prostrate body and drove off his followers with an angry snarl.

'Stop it, you fools,' he shouted, 'He'll be more use to us alive than dead and you can always hang him later.'

With surly looks they reluctantly gave up the lynching, and instead tied Kenyon's hands and feet, then left him.

By that time he was beginning to come round. Vague thoughts of Ann in Gloucester Road and the Mid Suffolk Election came to him, but as he struggled feebly to sit up the full realisation of his wretched position flooded his mind.

He lay very still then, reasoning that no crowd, however maddened by fear and hunger, ever hanged an unconscious man. To be a really sporting event the victim should be dragged screaming to the gallows, or at least be sufficiently conscious to kick lustily as he is hauled off the ground, and Kenyon meant to postpone his threatened execution to the last possible minute.

Inch by inch, with the most desperate care not to attract attention, he shifted his position slightly so that he could see what was going on, and found that he was lying a little outside the circle of light upon the rim of the small natural amphitheatre. He searched the crowd swiftly for signs of Ann, but she was nowhere to be seen and he gave a sigh of relief at the thought that she must have got away, only a moment later realising with a new wave of distress that she, like himself, might quite possibly be trussed and lying hidden in the heather.

Cattermole stood near the blaze, his arms akimbo and his hat perched well upon the back of his semi bald head. He was addressing the gathering in short sharp sentences, and as Kenyon listened, he caught both the trend of the speech and the reason for the crowd's violent hostility to himself. The last rousing sentences came clearly on the night air.

'Didn't they?' he cried with a challenging note. 'And what right have they to do that? None say I! Not under law or reason, soldiers as they may be. Property is property and if a man's no right to keep the hins what he's bred what rights has he got I'd like to know? It's every man for himself these days, not to mention the wife and kid's he's got to fend for. So, if you're game to back me up I'll lead the crowd of you down to Shingle Street and we'll teach these thieving soldiers a thing or two. There's not many of them but there's a lot of us, and if we stick together we'll be having a square meal that we've a right to before the morning.'

Loud shouts of approbation greeted the conclusion of Cattermole’s impassioned oratory, and Kenyon let his aching head sink back in the heather while a host of new thoughts struggled with the pain for supremacy in his mind.

These were wretched people whose homes they had robbed and looted, now banded together and planning a bloody revenge. He must warn Gregory! But how could he? His own skin needed saving first and of that there seemed little enough hope. The cords which bound him were cutting into his flesh already and he knew from his first efforts to free himself when still half conscious that his bonds had been tied with savage tightness. His friends at Shingle Street would be surprised and massacred but no, it was far more likely that Gregory's sentries would rouse the garrison, and this unwieldy crowd, surging forward in the darkness, be mown down by the blast of the machine guns, or caught as they fled in the treacherous pits and nets.

Both alternatives were horrible to visualise but Kenyon had little time for further speculation. A burst of cheering came from the dell and two men running up the bank seized him and pulled him to his feet.

He kept his eyes fast shut and tried to make himself a dead weight, but someone flung a pannikin of water in his face and his eyes flickered open at the shock. It was useless to pretend any longer that he was still knocked out.

His feet were untied and with his arms still bound behind him he was pushed roughly into the centre of the crowd.

'We're going to Shingle Street,' said Cattermole briefly ‘they’ve got arms there haven't they?'

'Yes,' said Kenyon, 'plenty. So unless you all want to get killed, you'd better keep away.'

'That's my business how about sentries?'

'Yes, they've got sentries too. You'll never take them by surprise. For God's sake be warned in time.'

'You can keep your warnings. What's the password?'

'There isn't one.

'Naturally you'd say that, you thieving, murdering swine, but I'll unloose your tongue. Bring me a faggot, Rush.'

Rush pulled a long branch from the blazing pile and Cattermole took it from him: 'Now, are you going to talk?'

'I can't,' protested Kenyon, 'there is no password.

You'll be met by the ordinary challenge that's all.'

'Hold him, chaps.' As Kenyon's arms were seized from behind, Cattermole thrust the lighted end of the faggot against his chest. He flung back his head in quick recoil, choking as the stench of burning clothing filled his nostrils.

'I can't,' he gasped again, struggling violently with his captors as the sharp pain seared his chest. 'If I said “stale fish” you might believe me, but there is no password.'

Cattermole removed the brand and nodded with slow understanding. 'All right,' he muttered, 'I reckon that's the truth, but what's the most likely spot to get through the sentries, eh?' He advanced the red hot piece of wood again threateningly.

Kenyon, the water starting from his eyes, sought wildly for some sympathetic face among the crowd, but their famished features showed only grim approval of their leader's tactics and a hard, gloating amusement.

'Don't be a fool,' he protested, 'if I tell you, what guarantee have you got that I'm not lying; and they'll shoot you down whichever way you try to rush them.'

'Well, you'll be the first to get it in the neck if that's the truth so you'd best take us the safest way,' Cattermole laughed with a bitter, scornful savagery. 'Why else d'you think I saved you from being lynched on the hill there? Come on, chaps, who wants red meat for supper!'

It was useless to argue further. Maddened by hunger the mob were prepared to take any risk and were as clay in the hands of their determined leader. With an answering shout they followed Cattermole from the dell as he pushed Kenyon before him, jabbing him in the back with his own pistol.

Muttering and cursing as they stumbled in the darkness the whole party streamed across the heath and out on to the road, then in a straggling body they set off towards Shingle Street.

As he trudged along, the unwilling head of the procession, Kenyon racked his brains for a way out of his dilemma. There were by paths through the marshes by which he could lead these maniacs so that they would get very near the defences before the challenge came, but that would be a sheer betrayal of his friends, yet there was no prospect of escape if he did otherwise and his whole soul revolted against the thought of a sudden and violent death.

In twenty minutes the short journey was accomplished; he stood again with the salt breath of the sea filling his lungs and heard the murmur of the surf upon the beaches. Only a few hundred yards in front lay Gregory's outposts.

'Which way now?' came a sharp whisper? 'And remember you'll get all that's left in this the moment your people open fire that is if you can't stop 'em. Now march!' Cattermole thrust the revolver into the middle of his back again.

'To the left,' he gulped, 'it will be easier there,' and he felt the hair prickling on his scalp as he lead them deliberately in the direction of Silas's Redoubt, the strong point in Gregory's whole system of defences.

A sickening fear filled him that when the time came his courage would ebb away. Wedged in front of the party he would stand no earthly chance of surviving the murderous hail of bullets which would sweep across the open fields, and if by some miracle he did, Cattermole would shoot him from behind.

As they advanced across the seemingly endless field a light wind rustled the tall grasses. No sign of life came from the fortifications, invisible in the pitch blackness relieved neither by moon nor stars, and for a moment it flashed into Kenyon's mind that perhaps after all the garrison would be taken by surprise. It would mean life to him, but what of the others, and Ann might be among them now for there could be no doubt that she had got clean away. At every second he expected to stumble into one of the stake filled pits the sentries must be sleeping. Then a tiny bell tinkled in the distance, someone had stumbled over one of Gregory's alarm wires and instantly the challenge rang out:

'Halt! who goes there!'

'Friend,' rasped Kenyon.

'Halt, friend, and give the countersign!'

Even in the second of horror and dismay, his gorge rising in a sickening fear, Kenyon found himself admiring Gregory for the faultless training of his little band. There was no trace of hesitation in the swift reply.

With a superhuman effort he braced himself. Then with all the force of his lungs, he yelled: 'I am Lord Fane but captured by the enemy Guard, turn out!'

A single rifle cracked, then with a savage will to live he kicked out violently behind and flung himself flat, dragging the two men who held his pinioned arms down with him.

His heel met solid flesh there was a grunt and then a deafening report as the pistol went off behind his ear. Next second the whole emplacement had leapt into flame. Silas was in action.

Kenyon kneed one of his captors in the belly and kicked the other in the face, stood up, staggered, fell again while the bullets sang and whistled overhead. Screams, curses, blasphemies came from the miserable people caught in that open field of fire so skilfully planned by a brilliant tactician. He jerked himself to his knees only to flop head foremost into a muddy ditch. He wriggled out and lurched up the steep bank, catching his feet in one of the treacherous, low lying nets and sprawled his full length, howling with pain as an upturned nail penetrated his thigh. Groaning, he wriggled free of it, scrambled up once more and blundered on, uncertain of his position yet instinctively trying to avoid those horrid, stake filled pits. A bullet, searing like a red hot iron, ploughed through his shoulder. Another streaked through his hair, then suddenly a voice came sharp and clear only a few yards ahead: 'Cease fire' and on a lower note but quite distinct: 'They must have had enough by now. It may teach them to stick to their blasted ship.'

Sobbing like a child, Kenyon swayed towards the dark figure. It was Gregory, calmly directing fire from the parapet. As he fell against the earthworks Rudd, catching a glimpse of him, leaned forward with levelled pistol, then thinking better of it, seized him by the collar and dragged him in.

'Made a prisoner, eh?' Gregory's voice was cold. 'Best shoot him and have done we've no use for useless mouths in Shingle Street.'

But Rudd had felt the cords that secured Kenyon's arms and pulled him over on his back. He stopped for a second to peer into the begrimed and bloody face, then he stood up.

'Lumme, if it ain't our bloomin' Lord.'

'What!' snapped Gregory.

'It is, sir, Mr. Fane 'imself, or I'm a Dutchman.'

Then Gregory was kneeling beside him in the trench, his arms were free again, and Rudd was holding a flask of spirits to his lips.

'Well done, Fane! Well done!' Gregory repeated over and over again with an unaccustomed tenderness in his voice. 'Thank God you got away. I suppose those blasted sailors caught you on your return trip?'

'Sailors,' gasped Kenyon, spluttering as the fiery spirit burnt in his throat, 'what sailors?'

'Why those damned mutineers of course. The Shark anchored off here this afternoon and sent a landing party. They want to collar our supplies.'

'These aren't sailors,' Kenyon stammered. 'You've been massacring those poor devils of farmers that we robbed.'

'Easy now,' Gregory threw an arm about his shoulders. 'It's their own damn fault if they're fool enough to attack us here. The only people I'm scared of are the mutineers you see they've got guns.'

At that moment there was a dull boom to seaward, a flash, and almost instantly a livid explosion on the beach a few yards short of the Martello Tower.

22

The Strongest Shall Go Down into the Pit'

'It's this little upsydisy wot we bin havin's woke 'em up, sir,' Rudd dec'ared.

'That's about it.' Gregory stared through his night glasses out over the darkened waste to seaward; 'seeing us attacked they thought it a good time to join in.'

The clouds which had obscured the sky were travelling fast, and through a partial break some stars now lessened the blackness with a faint uncertain light.

The destroyer was just visible, a jagged outline low in the water, less than a mile from the shore. A flash came from her bow, another dull boom followed and almost instantly the crack of the shell as it landed in the marsh beyond the tower.

'They're bracketin' on the Albert 'All,' said Rudd.'

'They shouldn't need to,' Gregory grunted, 'but even if they're amateurs they're devilish dangerous with that gun. We must evacuate the tower at once give Lord Fane a hand come on!'

With Rudd's aid Kenyon limped down the trench; his shoulder had gone numb but his thigh was hurting badly where the nail had caught it, his chest was smarting, although he had been little more than singed, and his head seemed to open and shut with every step he took.

Gregory paused for a moment further along, where Silas was leaning against a traverse, hands in pockets, near a Lewis gun.

'Keep a look out this side,' he warned him, 'but it wasn't a landing party only some farmers, and I should think they've had their belly full.'

'If that's so I'd best go out and see if Fane's among the wounded.'

'That's nice of you, Silas,' Kenyon stumbled forward, 'but by a miracle I got through.'

'My hat! Then there's a God in heaven yet.' The big man's voice came warm and cheerful as he gripped Kenyon by the arm.

'Don't,' moaned Kenyon. 'For God's sake I'm hit.'

'Sorry brace up, old chap but tell me, did you see the kid, or did they pinch you before you got to Orford?'

'What, Ann! Yes and I was bringing her back with me, but we were separated I I'd hoped that she was here.'

Gregory shook his head. 'No I'd know of it if she'd turned up on her own.'

'Then she's lost somewhere out on these cursed moors,' Kenyon passed his hand across his throbbing forehead wearily. 'Oh, God! I'm sick with worry for her.'

'Take a pull,' Silas tried to comfort him. 'She's full of pluck so she'll make Shingle Street some time before the morning.'

A third explosion sounded from the beach and Gregory turned away quickly. 'Come on, Rudd, that Martello was never built to resist modern shells once they get the range they'll pound the place to pieces.'

He climbed out of the trench and with Rudd's aid Kenyon followed. Three minutes later they were in front of the Anchor.

'Is Veronica in?' Kenyon asked Gregory.

'I expect so.'

'Then I'll get her to patch me up feel about all in.'

That's right, I expect you need a meal as well. Get Andrews to cook you something and open up one of his remaining bottles. If you feel fit enough you may be able to give us a hand later.' With a quick smile Gregory hurried on into the darkness.

Andrews stood in the porch of the inn watching the bombardment. 'Why, sir, we'd given you up for lost,' he exclaimed as he saw Kenyon.

'Had you well, I'm back again, thank God. Where's my sister?'

'You'll find her in the sitting room. I tried to persuade her to come out here and see the fireworks but she wouldn't. Still, I mustn't stay here talking when you've had no supper. I'll get the girls to cook you something.' With a friendly grin on his chubby face the little man went off towards the kitchen while Kenyon pushed open the sitting room door.

Veronica lay back in a low arm chair, her feet cocked up on the fire guard, showing a long length of leg, browned by three weeks' exposure, to excellent advantage. She was reading and did not turn her head but gave a little gurgle of laughter.

'Andrews, isn't Dickens too divine do you think people ever really made love like that?'

'I don't know or care.' Kenyon closed his eyes and dropped on to the sofa.

'Darling!' At the sound of his voice she cast the battered volume on the floor and jumped to her feet. 'Oh, Kenyon, we've been worried stiff about you. I couldn't even watch the fighting for fear you were mixed up in it somewhere outside the camp so I've been trying to sink myself in David Copperfield.'

'I was,' he murmured. 'They damn near killed me too.'

Instantly Veronica was beside him, her long fingers tenderly investigating the cuts upon his head, and the wound which still ebbed blood in his shoulder. 'My poor lamb, what have they done to you I'll get some water to bathe that horrid place.'

As she left him Kenyon sank back on the pillow, his bodily distress momentarily submerged, now that he had time to think coherently again, in fear for Ann. She must have escaped when he was captured but what had happened to her since? Perhaps she was lost and crouching in some ditch, desperately frightened by those ghoul like creatures who prowled the lanes, or worse, she might already have fallen prisoner to some gang of roughs. He knew that men had become crazed by their misfortunes; morals and all sense of decency had been flung aside, so it was hideously possible that these men turned brutes might seize upon any diversion which offered even temporary forgetfulness of their hunger. His tortured brain began to visualise the drama that might be proceeding in some lonely wood if half a dozen of them came upon a lovely girl alone and unprotected fine sport for the night, to satiate at least one appetite.

His terrible forebodings were cut short by Veronica's return. She bathed his wounds and sought to comfort him, as he told her of events at Orford, the return journey, and his fears for Ann.

No bones seemed to be broken in his shoulder, and by the time she had bandaged the gash and plastered up his head, his supper was on the table. His anxiety had driven away all appetite but she forced him to eat it, telling him meanwhile about the arrival of the destroyer.

'Crowder's not with them,' she declared, 'he and a dozen others took the second boat and made for Harwich. For a time it seems they've been playing pirate up and down the coast, raiding the smaller places for supplies, and now they want to take possession here.'

'How do you know all this?' 'Kenyon asked dully.

'Gregory got it out of them this afternoon at a sort of pow wow. They sent a boat ashore.'

'I wonder that they thought it worth while risking their skins.'

'Worth it, my love?' She took him up quickly. 'Twelve hundred chickens in the poultry farm, and a hundred head of cattle in the corral; Gregory adopted no half measures when he turned cattle thief.'

’Yes I suppose so, but what happened at the parley?'

'They said at once that they meant to land a party and seize all our stock.'

Kenyon nodded. 'I suppose Gregory threatened to turn a machine gun on them if they didn't sheer off at once.'

'Got it in one, my sweet, but luckily for them they were halfway back to the ship before Silas arrived with the arsenal.'

'I wonder they didn't attack the place right away.'

'No, they flagged a message saying that they would give Gregory until nine o'clock tomorrow to capitulate, and that if he wouldn't they'd blow the lot of us to hell, but he was afraid they might start in on us tonight.'

'I see, that's why you were all up and dressed when I came on the scene then!'

Every few moments a deafening explosion punctuated the conversation with clock like regularity, and Kenyon, his nerves keyed up but feeling a different man after his meal and Veronica's attentions, decided to go out and see how the sailors' marksmanship was progressing.

On the doorstep of the inn with Andrew and Veronica beside him he watched the bombardment. As they opened the door a shell pitched at the foot of the tower and even from that distance they could hear the whine and "rattle of pebbles, as they sang through the air and bounded along the beach. The next shell fell slap on the roof of the old fortress, bursting with terrific impact and hurtling lumps of stone in all directions.

'Put out that ruddy light,' cried a voice they recognised as Rudd's from further along the foreshore, and a few moments later he loomed up out of the darkness beside his master.

'It looks like a hectic night at the Albert Hall.' Veronica used Rudd's nickname for the Martello which they had all adopted.

'Yes,' Gregory agreed grimly. 'If they keep this up for half an hour the place won't be even fit shelter for the chickens in the morning. I got all our stores but we've lost poor Thompson.'

'Is is he dead?' Veronica hesitated.

'Yes a fragment of the third shell caught him.'

'What filthy luck such a decent fellow too, but couldn't we do something?' Kenyon stepped forward from the doorway. 'I'm pretty groggy still, but I'm game to have a cut at them.'

'I'm afraid there's nothing we can do against shell fire, that's just the devil of it.'

'Couldn't we man a boat with a volunteer crew and a couple of Lewis guns? Under the cover of the darkness we might get near enough to wipe out the men who are serving that gun.'

'Stark lunacy, my dear chap. They'd sink us before we got a hundred yards.'

Shell after shell burst upon the ancient tower with reverberating thuds which seemed to shake the very ground beneath them. The starlight showed a great crack which had appeared in one side of the fort, and large lumps of stone slipped and tumbled to the ground after each explosion. The strong point in their defence which Gregory had counted impregnable, was being pounded to a heap of ruins.

Suddenly the firing ceased. They waited in the doorway with strained, breathless anxiety two minutes, three four five then a long finger of bright light flashed up to the clouds, circled slowly and, descending, was brought to bear upon the village. Hovering for a second here and there, the searchlight picked out every detail of the foreshore and, as it moved on, the little group at the entrance of the inn were momentarily blinded by its powerful glare.

'Hell!' exclaimed Gregory pushing the others into the hallway. 'With that damn thing they'll be able to pick us off like rabbits this is even worse than I bargained for.'

The beam swept slowly back and forth, strong depths of shadows playing about its edges but revealing all within its circle with the vivid brightness of full day; then, as it passed on, its late discoveries sank again into the unnatural blackness of an even deeper night.

There was a sharp whine, a rending crash, and then the rumble of falling masonry.

'Next door but one,' cried Kenyon.

'Come on out you go,' Gregory pushed Veronica before him and they stumbled through the back entrance of the inn. Shouts and cries came from the neighbourhood of the demolished house and further off the sound of people running. Andrews's maids were already on the lawn, one of them was screaming in a fit of hysterics.

'Stop it d’you hear?' Gregory seized and shook her roughly.

'Can't we can't we help them,' hazarded Veronica.

'No, if they're not dead they soon will be. Come on, all of you.' Still gripping the girl by the arm he hurried them round the corner of the stockade, but Andrews stopped and turned.

'What is it?' muttered Kenyon.

'My money. I'm not going to leave my cash for others.'

'Don't be a fool,' snapped Gregory. 'What earthly good is it to you?'

'You never know.' At a quick trot the little man started back towards the Anchor.

'Hurry then,' Gregory called after him. 'There'll be another in a minute,' but his warning came too late. There was a blinding flash, the small hotel seemed to stagger for a second and then, as though some giant invisible hand had crushed it flat, it disappeared into a shapeless heap of debris, leaving a black empty gap between its neighbours.

Andrews had been halfway across the garden. They saw him stagger for a few steps like a drunken man and then slip down into a pathetic little heap.

Kenyon dashed back to him and raised his head, but a lump of flying brick had caught him on the forehead and killed him instantly.

'Oh, Gregory, I'm hating this.' Veronica's grip tightened on his arm.

'Of course you are.' His voice thrilled her by its tenderness. 'But you'll stick it, won't you? I've got to run this beastly show and it will be hell for me if you break down.'

She nodded quickly. 'I'll be all right don't worry about me, sweet just do your job.'

'Thanks.' He smiled in the darkness as they stumbled on. 'This last month may have been hell for some people but I've enjoyed it more than any time in my life. We've had a lot of fun, Veronica.'

'Yes, darling, we've had a lot of fun.'

Kenyon, his wounds throbbing afresh from the exertion, caught them up. 'Are you going to evacuate the village?' he panted.

'Not except as a last measure. I must protect the Shingleites as well as I can, and how could I do that once they're outside the fortifications think of all these women and kids straggling about in the darkness.'

'Yes, the farmers would set on us again for certain; there were a good two hundred of them, and that one burst of machine gun fire couldn't have laid out more than twenty or thirty.'

Gregory led them swiftly towards the Redoubt, where Rudd, who had run on ahead, was already assembling the villagers. Silas came out to meet them. 'All quiet, General,' he reported laconically.

Kenyon gave a brief, strained laugh.

'This end I mean,' the American amended. 'They seem to be making the village a pretty lively little hell.' As he spoke another shell came over crumpling up two fishermen's cottages.

'Yes. The inn's gone,' Gregory informed him.

'Any casualties?'

'Sergeant Thompson and poor old Andrews, and half a dozen more I expect by now.'

'That's bad I wouldn't give a dime for our chances here either if they turn their little pop guns on us.'

'Nor I,' Gregory agreed. 'A direct hit would go plump through the roof of any of these dugouts. I wish to God we'd had proper engineers' materials to make them with; still they are better than nothing.'

Silas made Veronica comfortable in what he called his 'parlour' while the other women and children were packed into the larger dugouts, and the fishermen, scattered through the trenches, miserably watched the destruction of their homes.

The single line of houses was now burning fiercely at one end, shell after shell crashed into the remaining buildings, and still the malevolent eye of the searchlight picked out fresh targets for the merciless gun.

'Wonder why they keep it up like this,' Silas muttered. 'They know we can't reply to them it seems stupidly vindictive to create such senseless havoc'

'Drunk, I expect,' Gregory replied tersely. 'Once some madman started in on us when the farmers attacked, the rest began to glory in the fun. That gun's like a new toy to them now they are able to blaze off as much stuff as they like at real targets.'

'Well, there won't be much left of the place when they come ashore to drive the cattle off in the morning.'

'Unless they come tonight. They can't have seen much red meat themselves in the last fortnight, so they may if someone thinks of chops for supper.'

'What'll you do if they turn that darn gun on to us here?'

'Evacuate only thing to do but I dread it with all these civilians to look after.' Gregory flung a glance over his shoulder. 'Where's Fane? Oh, there you are. Look here, the three of us had better arrange the order of our going if we are forced to quit.'

While the three of them went into conference, Veronica, her nerves strung to the highest pitch, sat fiddling with the papers on the table in Silas' dugout. Suddenly the drawing of a woman caught her eye. She moved the candle nearer and saw at once that it was a portrait of herself a beautiful thing, showing her lying on the beach, her hands spread out behind her, her legs stretched to their fullest extent and crossed. The toe of one of her shoes was turned up and in the drawing she was smiling at it pensively. A characteristic attitude of her, but how clever of Silas, she thought, to have caught it. She rummaged among the papers and found others, nearly two dozen of them and all of her in different positions. She realised then with a little catch in her throat that every waking moment he had spent there must have been devoted to making these charming studies of herself.

Gregory was just a lovely madness of course; the old tag came into her mind 'Man cannot live by caviare alone,' and Gregory was caviare. Quite marvellous if you liked that sort of thing, and Veronica did: 'We are a couple of rips, my dear,' she had told him once, 'and we wouldn't be otherwise for a million pounds,' she remembered how he had chuckled mightily but Silas

'Like 'em?' said a voice behind her and she looked up to see him in the doorway.

'I'm a brute to look but I think they are divine.'

He adjusted the blanket carefully over the entrance and took the drawings from her. 'Just a little hobby of mine,' he said quietly. 'I felt they'd be good to have if we got separated.'

'You're a dear, Silas how's the war?'

'Not so bad considering it's one sided, but the General's scared they'll turn that gun on this place.' He carefully folded the drawings and tucked them in his tunic.

The dugout seemed to rock as a new concussion demolished the last house their end of the village. 'It'll be sheer murder here if Gregory's right,' he added.

'I see,' her fingers drummed nervously upon the table. 'It looks as if we're for it then?'

'Not quite, I've got a proposition I want to put up to you.' His eyes held hers, kind and firm.

'Well let's hear it then.'

'It's this way. One woman's easier protected alone by a man who's useful with a gun, than she is with a whole crowd; so if we get out together now there's a chance for us. If we run into the farmers we'll be for it mind, but I mean to strike south along the coast, out of this area that Gregory's made so hellish hostile. Even then we'll be up against everyone who hasn't had a meal in days, but as long as they're only in batches I'll bluff them or shoot my way through. It's a better prospect to my mind than staying here, so if you'll trust me I want to take you out of here right away.'

For a second Veronica was silent, then she shook her head. 'I'd trust you, Silas anywhere, but we mustn't let Gregory down. I know it is unofficial and you've a perfect right to clear out if you like, but you are one of his officers in a way.'

He smiled quickly. 'Don't fret your sweet heart, Gregory and I fixed that between us.'

’What he agreed?' Veronica's delicate eyebrows went up in astonishment.

'Yes, what else would you expect you ought to know Gregory if anyone does.'

'Why do you say that?'

'You can't kid me, Veronica; I don't go about in blinkers, and I know pretty well how things stand between you and him.'

'Yes,' she said slowly, 'I'm glad you do, and he's just the sort of adorable blackguard who can be trusted to do the proper thing. He would pack me off with you if he thought it would save me, even though he knows that you are in love with me.'

'That's it, we've only got one idea between us, and that's your safety.'

'Silas, it's dear of you, but I think I prefer to stay and see it through.'

'Why?'

'All sorts of silly reasons.' She took his large brown hand in hers. 'There are Gregory and Kenyon, not to mention that divine idiot Rudd we've all been in this from the beginning so I don't think it's quite fair to scuttle now.

Then if we go I shall be depriving them of at least one good fighting man hush, now, don't interrupt and on top of that wherever could we go? So let's all stick together understand!'

'Yes; it's like you to say that.'

'No dearest; it's just laziness really. I loathe walking, and the prospect of being raped by starving farmers attracts me not at all.'

'Just as you say, Veronica.'

'I'll tell you what we will do though. If we do have to clear out you shall be my special defender, and I'll stick to you like a limpet.'

'That's fine we'd better leave it at that then.' With a nod Silas left her and went out to join Kenyon.

Gregory was pacing slowly up and down the parapet seeking to give confidence to the fishermen, labour colonists, and troops while keeping a wary eye upon the bombardment which continued with horrible regularity. Rudd sat opposite, perched on the parados. As Gregory passed he turned his back and a faint glow showed him applying a match to his pipe.

'Where did you get that?' asked Gregory curiously.

'Saved it for a rainy day, sir.'

Gregory moved on, a faint smile twitching his thin lips. He would gladly have given any chances of the survival of his immortal soul for a packet of cigarettes, but he had smoked his last three days before.

The searchlight shifted. Gregory flung himself flat and Rudd slipped off the parados. With a roar that reverberated and echoed in the hills a mile away the eighty pound shell burst upon the earthworks. Every sort of filth with pieces of wood and corrugated iron revetments sailed high in the air, and then descended with a series of dull thuds upon the trenches.

Kenyon, half dazed, staggered in the direction of a dugout from which came cries and groans. He knew that a score of women must be entombed there by a ton of earth. A kneeling figure rose before him it was Rudd. 'Blarst them swine,' came a hoarse whisper. 'I bin an' lorst me bleedin' pipe.'

Gregory forced his way past them towards the crater. 'They've found us,' he shouted above the din. 'We must clear out now and quick. Get the men together.'

He came on Silas round the corner of the traverse frantically digging at the entrance of the collapsed dugout with his mighty hands. 'What the hell are you doing here?' he thundered.

'She wouldn't go bless her.'

'Oh, hell! Why didn't you make her? Never mind, leave this to me get hold of her quick as you can and stick to her. We'll strike up the North beach; tell Kenyon.'

A fisherman and a soldier arrived with spades, and under Gregory's directions attacked the buried entrance with fierce determination. Rudd came hurrying up to help and was the first into the hole when it had been uncovered. He reappeared a moment later and a white faced woman peered from the opening.

'Come on, Missis,' he called; 'give us yer 'and and don't be frightened, Ma it's only like goin' through the roly poly at the circus. Ever bin ter Sarthend?'

She extended her arms and they pulled her through, the others followed weeping, or with terror in their faces. One poor creature just before the last had to be forced through the hole. She bit Rudd's hand as he tried to help her and staggering to her feet, clawed at the fisherman; the shock of the explosion had cost the unfortunate woman her reason.

'Christ! That's torn it!' Rudd slipped to his knees. He knew enough of shell fire to judge where a projectile would pitch, and by the short sharp scream low overhead, he knew that within a fraction of time another would burst just beyond the trench where Kenyon was endeavouring to get the crowd into some sort of order.

As the falling debris rattled down he popped his head over the parapet. 'Mr. Fane's copped it, sir,' he gasped, 'an' there ain't a ninepin in the bunch lef standin'.'

'All right you carry on,' Gregory's voice was quiet but there was a note of sadness in it a grim acceptance of fatality.

'Very good, sir.' Rudd scrambled obediently out of the trench. 'Na then, chaps no shell falls in the same place twice take an old soldier's word fer that an' show yer selves some of yer. We're abart to start on a 'iking tour.'

Almost at once shadows began to stir and creep hesitatingly towards him. 'That's ther spirit,' he sang out lustily: 'Coorage mons onjongs as they sez in the French old soldiers never die. 'Oo wants to see sunny Suffolk in the rain!'

Many forms remained still or groaning on the ground, but the rest came forward in increasing numbers, and when Gregory arrived Rudd had mustered the remainder.

'Armed men to the front,' ordered the General sharply, and eight or ten stepped from the uneven ranks, but he noticed sorrowfully that Kenyon was not amongst them.

'Now, follow me. Quick march!'

As they set off towards the shore Silas hauled Veronica out of the trench. He had kept her there until the last possible moment now that the destroyer was actually shelling the Redoubt, but no sooner were they standing together on the parapet than he flung himself flat, pulling her down beside him. Another shell screeched like the grinding brakes of a tramcar, and burst, causing the ground to shudder beneath them. They struggled to their feet again and, choking from the fumes, ran side by side after the straggling column of survivors.

When they were within twenty yards of its tail he caught her arm. 'No hurry now,' he urged. 'Till they get into open country we'll be safer here behind them.'

Once the main party reached the beach Gregory turned north. The gun continued to fling its high explosives into the Redoubt at intervals, but otherwise there was no sound except the scrunching of the pebbles beneath their moving feet for several minutes. Then without warning a single shot rang out ahead.

'On the ground all of you!' came the swift command. 'Ready with your rifles there!' and instantly the party flattened themselves upon the shingle, scuttling for any dip or runnel which might afford them greater protection.

Silas and Veronica dropped together and as the unknown enemy to their front opened a rapid fire, he clutched her to him, burying her head beneath his chest in an effort to shield her more effectually.

Gregory's order came clear and strong: 'Aim for their flashes. Fire!'

'Silas, what is it?' Veronica's muffled voice was hardly audible above the crackling of the musketry. 'Have we run into the farmers after all?'

'No, they've got no arms. This must be a landing party from the ship.' As he spoke that staccato note that they had grown to know and dread, the horrid rat tat tat tat tat tat tat tat of a machine gun, struck upon their ear drums.

Veronica gasped as a flying pebble struck her on the leg and shrank closer to him.

'It's them all right,' he added. 'I wish to God I could get you out of this,' but even as he glanced over his shoulder seeking a way of escape, final calamity swept upon them. The beam of the searchlight shifted, slowly, relentlessly, from the wrecked village, across the now blasted Redoubt, and came to rest upon them as they lay in little crouching groups half buried in the shingle; its fierce blinding light throwing every man and every movement into sharp relief before the enemy.

The machine guns were silent for a second, and then burst out anew trained now upon the writhing figures, their bullets clicking sharply on the stones or thudding dully as they found a human mark.

'Oh, hell!' groaned Silas, 'this is sheer bloody massacre.'

A man in front leapt up with a sudden scream and then dropped down again; another sprang up to run and fell with half a dozen bullets in his back. A small boy, with a seemingly charmed life, jumped to his feet and, head down, fists doubled, pelted up the slope into the safety of the darkness. A woman followed but fell before she had gone five yards, shot through both legs.

Suddenly the firing ceased. For a moment Silas waited, then cautiously he lifted his head from the cold stones. Clear in the relentless light beyond the rows of bodies Gregory was standing upon a mound waving a large white handkerchief above his head.

Silently but profanely Silas cursed himself. By following Gregory's party on to the North Beach at a little distance he had thought to use them as cover until he and his precious charge were free of danger from the farmers. Now they had been caught by the landing party from the Shark.

Bitterly he regretted that he had not stuck to his former plan of heading south, but to suggest running for it now was to risk instant annihilation.

As he watched, Gregory walked slowly towards the enemy.

'Had enough?' asked the leader of the mutineers sternly as he came forward to meet the defeated General.

'Yes,' Gregory's voice was even, but the scar above his eyebrow showed a livid white; 'don't think you've beaten me though, we haven't fired a dozen shots the whole evening, and I would have fought you for a year if you hadn't had that blasted gun.'

'Fortune o' war,' said the sailor grimly.

'Yes, and I want the honours of war.'

'Not likely,' came the quick reply. 'You should ha' surrendered when you were asked this afternoon; now you bin an' killed four of my men your crowd are for it, an' make no mistake!'

'Not for myself,' said Gregory gruffly, 'you can do what the hell you like with me, but leave these poor fishermen out of it, and the handful of soldiers whose only crime has been to obey my orders!'

'Officers excepted?'

’Yes one’s dead, and the other is a couple of miles away by this time.'

'All supplies an' livestock must be handed over to us, I'll shoot anyone who hides so much as a rabbit.'

'Yes, you're entitled to the spoils of victory.'

'All right, it's the officers an' cattle I come to get, so I'll accept your surrender.'

'Thanks, I'm grateful.' Gregory extended his automatic, holding it by the barrel, and the sailor's hand closed over the butt.

So, with the searchlight playing on the scarred and weary survivors, the burning village in the background, and the defences, which they had worked so hard to perfect, lying in ruins about them, ended the uneven battle of Shingle Street.

23

The Terrible Journey

After her sharp tussle Ann stumbled through the heather and bracken, terrified each moment that a restraining hand would fall upon her shoulder, but Kenyon's desperate resistance held their assailants until she was well away and, once assured of her escape, she threw herself panting into a ditch near the coppice.

For a little while she feared that they might search for her with torches, but the sounds of fighting ceased and, peering cautiously from her hiding place, she could see no moving forms between her and the camp fire that lit the dell, so she crawled out and gave a low whistle.

No answering note came from the surrounding moor and after repeating the experiment once or twice she decided that Kenyon must have been captured. For a moment the idea of trying to fetch help from Shingle Street occurred to her but, even if she could reach it, would Gregory be willing to send a force sufficiently large to cope with this big gathering, and was Kenyon still alive?

Her fingers plucked feverishly at the strands of coarse grass as she thought that he might be already dead, and she realised at once the necessity of finding out what had happened to him before endeavouring to reach Shingle Street by herself.

She began to creep forward slowly and carefully, fearful that the snapping of every twig might mean discovery, and after ten minutes of cautious manoeuvring managed to reach a position some ten yards from the backs of the nearest men, where she could see the hollow.

Kenyon was nowhere to be seen, and for a little she was filled with new hope that he might have escaped in a different direction to herself, but the bonfire interfered with a large section of her view so that she could not be certain.

A little man with fair lank fair hair and eyes that glittered fanatically in the firelight was haranguing the crowd.

Ann could not catch all he said but snatches of his discourse came to her borne on the night air: 'Our brothers black, white and brown An era of new Freedom Already the towns are organising '

The man nearest her spoke in a gruff voice to his companion, a frail looking woman. 'They ain't organisen' Communist though.'

'Ain't they, Jim?'

'No; too sensible be half.'

'What be 'em a doen' then?'

'Blow me if I know, but the chap I spoke to on the road today say as how the Mayor were back an' the Greyshirts a handen' out vittals from the Town Hall.'

'Think o' that now; in Ipswich do 'ee mean?'

'Yer and other places too!'

'Don't 'ee believe that,' cut in another labourer, ' 'tis a Soviet what's been set up it be true about the vittals, though only for the townsfolk they 'on't part with any for the likes o'we!'

'Well, if it do be the Communists that be a wonderful pity!'

'What the 'ell's it matter 'oo it be so long as they stop a murdering o' each other; seein' as the old lot let us down so bad, I'm all for given' the others a chance.'

' England won't never go Bolshie; happens us'll be all dead afore then.'

'If you fared as hungry as what I do, you'd go Bolshie all right; ain't you a commen' on this party tonight?'

'That be different thing; they stole my horse and tumbril, not to mention the bins and eggs. It be only human nature to want your own back.'

'You be right,' said the woman. 'Fair's fair, as I alius do say.' The agitator sat down and Cattermole took his place. With feverish impatience Ann listened to his speech, for until they made some move she had no means of ascertaining if Kenyon was still among them and every now and then she shuddered at the thought that he might be lying murdered in a nearby ditch.

At last in a storm of applause Cattermole ceased speaking and then Kenyon was dragged down the bank. Her intense relief at finding him still alive was soon submerged in shuddering dismay as she saw them press the burning branch against his chest. Unable to bear it any longer she closed her eyes and rocked with misery, but when she opened them again the whole crowd were on their feet and struggling away up the far slope.

She had followed enough of Cattermole's speech to gather their intention, but she had little thought to spare for Shingle Street; Gregory would deal with an attack by such a rabble with horrible efficiency. Kenyon was all that mattered and she must keep as near to him as possible. With that one central fact dominating her distraught mind she crept after the farm people and, seeking all the cover she could from the sides of the road, followed them down to the coast.

At the turn of the road where it debouched from the trees and curved across the marsh, she remembered an old concrete pill box and, finding it without difficulty, slipped inside. The long slit in the front of the musty little circular chamber commanded the village and its approach, so, from it, although the whole scene was shrouded in darkness, she was able to watch for the crisis which she felt was imminent.

The Redoubt was a quarter of a mile away but she heard Kenyon's shout that gave warning of the attack and next moment the rapid tattoo that heralded the butchery. Stray bullets ripped through the branches overhead and a couple thudded on the little concrete fort, then the firing ceased abruptly. The stricken field was mercifully covered by night, but the dark curls clung damp about her temples at the thought that Kenyon must be somewhere among those panic stricken, shouting people. Then there was a dull boom to seaward and in the flash of the following explosion she caught a glimpse of the Martello Tower.

For what seemed an interminable time she watched the shelling and then the silhouette of the village, black and sharp against the revealing searchlight, while little running figures gesticulated to one another. One by one the houses seemed to leap into a blinding sheet of flame as the projectiles struck them, and then disappear, so that the remnant of the burning hamlet began to take on the appearance of a row of black and jagged teeth which were being steadily extracted.

The gun took a new angle, and the shells fell nearer to the fields where Ann believed Kenyon to be dead or wounded. She wrung her hands helplessly together, and at every fresh detonation a shudder shook her from head to toe. For hours it seemed she had been crouching there, sending up little muttered prayers that the holocaust should cease, but there was no indication of its speedy termination. The searchlight shifted to the north but, owing to the shelving beach, she was spared the sight of that last desperate attempt of the survivors to seek safety; she only heard the renewed rattle of rifle and machine gun fire and then a sudden silence.

For another quarter of an hour she watched, fearful that at any moment the fighting might break out again, then by the dancing light of the flames she saw figures moving freely about the wreck of the village and crawled from her shelter.

If Kenyon was dead she felt that it mattered little what happened any more, but if he was still alive she might yet be able to aid him so, taking a deep breath of fresh night air, she set off towards the Redoubt.

The going was not easy in the darkness; deep ditches half filled with water and stinking mud intersected the fields of long coarse grass and, having fallen once, cutting her hand badly on a rusty nail, she did the last hundred yards on hands and knees until she was among the victims of the fighting.

Someone stumbled near her and she realised that others were seeking friends among the more seriously wounded who had been unable to crawl away. Then lights appeared a little distance to her left and she saw that a group of men were carrying those still living in rough stretchers towards the village. She stood up suddenly with fresh hope, feeling how senseless it was to stay there listening to those pathetic voices calling for the missing. In the darkness she would stand little chance of finding Kenyon, but if he was still alive he would be carried down to the beach with the others.

Trailing a group of stretcher bearers she made her way down to the foreshore, and saw that two camps had already been formed. The farmers and the fisher people were now mingled together and, a little apart, stood some fifty sailors from the ship. At the sight of the mutineers she drew back quickly with a sudden horrible memory of Crowder and Brisket, but they were busy about the bonfire that they had lit across which they were hoisting a spitted pig. Then she caught sight of Gregory hunched on the shingle, his arms tied behind his back.

Veronica was kneeling by him adjusting a rough bandage to his head, and a little way behind them sat Silas, also bound. Rudd was there too, some way away and half obscured by the fringe of shadow. His hands were free, she noticed, but the bulging pistol holster which had always decorated his hip was missing, and as the flame flickered for a second, lighting his face, she saw a miserable and hopeless expression upon it.

For a moment Ann thought of going to them, but her fears for Kenyon overcame every other impulse and she turned away towards the larger gathering. They too had heaped a fire and by it some men were busy dismembering a horse. Although she knew little of the situation Ann judged from this that the sailors were the masters in this partnership, and to placate their unsought allies had parted with this indifferent portion of their spoil rather then be compelled to drive them off.

Mud stained and bedraggled as she was there was little chance of her being recognised as Kenyon's companion of earlier in the evening, so she threaded her way in among the men to a spot some distance from the fire where the long line of wounded were being deposited. Some lay unnaturally still and silent, others were twisting and groaning in their pain, but she peered furtively at, each in turn and came to the end of the row without finding Kenyon among them.

'Happen you're looken' for a friend?' As the man behind her spoke she started guiltily, but his voice was sympathetic and kind, so recovering herself quickly she replied:

'Not not exactly but I was wondering what happened to the tall man they caught up on the heath.'

'Happen you be meanen' him that give the alarm. The officer chap; 'ooldn't that be him they're a setten' down now?'

He pointed a grimy finger towards the other end of the row and Ann recognised at once the long limbed body which was being laid beside the others. The firelight caught the auburn curls, no longer smoothly brushed but rumpled now and clotted with dried blood.

She hastened over to him, her new acquaintance following. 'Is he is he dead, d'you think?' she managed to stammer.

The man peered down at him. 'It fare to me he'll live all right. They 'ooldn't trouble to bring him in else, but anyways these fellers be shooten' all the officers come mornen'.'

'Are you certain; how do you know?' Ann's voice held a sudden sharp note, half fear, half challenging refusal to accept the statement.

'Waren't you here ten minutes agone?' the man looked at her curiously. 'The furrin' looken' sailor who fare to be the boss told all of us we they meant to sail again come sun up, and after that us 'ooldn't have no more trouble with any o' they thievin' soldiers hereabouts.'

'I see; then that settles it.' Ann hardly recognised her own voice; it came so strange and harsh although she strove to make it sound as natural as possible.'

'I be rare vexed for they,' said the man slowly, 'but I reckon they'd have done the same to the others, come to that.'

Ann nodded, she was past all speech and could only visualise her wounded Kenyon, kindly Silas and the ever defiant Gregory, being massacred upon the beach in the cold morning light.

As the man moved away she looked furtively after him and then stooped to Kenyon. Despite the blood she could find no wound upon his head, perhaps he had been thrown against another casualty; his arm had fallen from a sling and she replaced it quickly, noting the flesh wound in the shoulder that Veronica had bandaged. Apart from that he seemed to be unhurt and he was breathing regularly, so she guessed that the explosion from a shell burst had knocked him out.

Another man paused near to her, it was Rush, and suddenly fearful of being recognised she hastened away into the darkness of the beach, but a gruff voice brought her to a standstill: 'Not this way, Missie; your supper's a- cookin' on the beach.'

A broad shouldered sailor leaning on a rifle barrel barred her passage, so she turned away without protest, veering off towards the still smouldering houses, but another sentry farther along also turned her back and then she realised that they were posted in a circle guarding the approaches to the corral that held Gregory's fine collection of poultry and live stock, about which Kenyon had told her on the way from Orford. The idea flashed into her mind and out again, for it mattered little to her who secured this wretched provender. Her whole anxiety was centred in the prisoners, so she struggled across the now deserted fortifications and, gaining the open marsh, sat down to think.

As she rocked backwards and forwards, torn with a terrible distress, her natural urge was to risk discovery, but get back to Kenyon and remain with him, to face whatever the dawn should bring, yet all her sound practical common sense revolted at the thought of final surrender. Alone among the little band that had set out from London she remained free. Surely she could use her freedom in some way to help the others.

For half an hour she sat, her head in her hands, her brain absolutely incapable of coherent thought, tired, miserable, dejected, unable to think of a single way in which she might bring them succour or relief, then like a thunderclap the words of the agitator in the dell: 'Already the towns are organising,' came back to her.

She recalled the ensuing conversation, with its mention of the Mayor being back in Ipswich and the issuing of rations by the Greyshirts, word for word. If only she could get to Ipswich they would be sure to help her, and she might yet be able to save her friends.

No sooner had the thought come to her than she was on her feet, angry with herself for the time that she had already lost by not having grasped the full implication of the news before, yet moving cautiously, terrified that she might be stopped and questioned; for now she was quite convinced that upon the retention of her freedom hung their only hope.

Every shadow seemed a menace and every sound a threat. Even the grounding of a rifle butt or the calling of the sentries to each other caused her fresh alarm. With quick stealthy steps she headed inland until she had passed from the lingering glow into the darkness of the marshes.

The ground soon began to give her trouble. Uneven, boggy in places, or sown with Gregory's man traps for the protection of the Martello Tower, which lay in ruins to seaward. Then, clear of the defensive belt at last, she ran up the slight incline only to pause breathlessly at the top visualising suddenly the tremendous task she had set herself.

Ipswich was sixteen miles away, she would never be able to do it after her journey with Kenyon and the strain to which she had been subject the previous night; yet she hurried on, assessing the chances as she went.

They had left Orford at seven thirty, two hours at least must have been spent upon the way, another hour between their capture and the first attack on Shingle Street; that then would have been somewhere about ten thirty. How long had it lasted, from start to finish? an hour perhaps. Then she had waited in the pill box for a bit, hung about the bonfire on the shore looking for Kenyon among the wounded and then wasted more time stupidly doing nothing. It must be twelve thirty at the least, and sixteen miles would take her a good five hours. She could not hope to arrive in Ipswich before six o'clock.

Too late, she decided. Aeroplanes and cars could hardly be running again yet, so soldiers or police would have to rely on horses and bicycles. By such means it would take them a good two hours to get to Shingle Street and the sunrise would be about' six. Unless she could reach Ipswich by four o'clock they would arrive too late.

Suddenly a new plan came to her, the cross country route. If she took that it would save her at least four miles, but it meant crossing the River Deben.

In normal times there was a ferry boat at Ramsholt and in an emergency the ferryman could be dragged out of bed, but would he still be at his house, Ann wondered. Perhaps, starving like the rest, he had wandered farther towards the coast or back into some town. She would never be able to swim the Deben a quarter of a mile of water with treacherous muddy banks.

She paused for a moment by a solitary farmhouse, leaning against the low stone wall, breathless already from the pace at which she had come, and miserably undecided which road to take the track leading north to Melton and Woodbridge or the lane to the left through Alderton to Ramsholt. Then, with the swift realisation that her only hope lay in taking a chance on being able to cross the river, she turned down the lane; to go by Woodbridge meant certain failure on account of time.

With that vital factor of time pressing upon her brain she broke into a run and covered the next half mile in seven minutes. Then she slackened into a breathless, shambling trot.

All question of what reception she was likely to meet with when she got to Ipswich, and if the authorities would be willing to undertake her friends' relief, had passed from her mind. The one thing that mattered was to get there at the earliest possible moment, for she had already convinced herself that, if she could only stay the course troops, police and Greyshirts would be sent dashing to the rescue.

A voice hailed her out of the darkness. With swift fear, no longer for herself, but that she might be held up or stopped altogether, she burst into a fresh spurt and ran again as fast as her short sturdy legs could carry her.

The houses of Alderton came into sight and she checked, approaching them at a quick cautious walk, fearful that she might be set upon, but her alarm had no foundation; the village was silent, ghost like and untenanted, for all its inhabitants were congregated on the beach at Shingle Street tearing lumps of fresh roast horse between their teeth.

Two more miles yet to the ferry and even that was only a little over a third of the distance she had to cover. If she was ever to reach Ipswich she must conserve her strength so she moderated her pace and settled down into a steady dogged trudge.

Another mile and the road sloped upward toward the hills that held the Deben to its banks. The pebbled surface, rarely used except for motor traffic in the summer, was rough and tiring to her feet. Grass grew on either side, creeping towards the centre of the track, so Ann abandoned the road for the grass and found it better going. At length she breasted the rise and, stumbling slightly, slithered down the steep descent, the broad bosom of the river plain before her in the starlight.

There lay the ferry, an old broad bottom punt, and on the right the tall bleak house, an inn where trippers came in the summer time, filling the small tea garden with their noise and clamour. Now it was silent, dark, apparently unoccupied.

Panting a little she regained her breath and shouted. There was no reply. Again she called, then, desperate, picked up a pebble from the road and flung it at one of the first floor windows. The glass splintered under the impact, and the pieces tinkled to the unseen floor with a melancholy sound, then silence descended on the little cove once more.

The landlord, his family, and the ferryman were gone, where, heaven knew. Impatiently for a moment the small agitated figure on the foreshore waited, and then abruptly turned away.

With quick steps she hastened on to the short broad 'hard' that jutted out into the river. Great posts of wood, rotting under the pressure of time and sea, held the banked earth together, except in one corner where the mass had crumbled and a gap showed plain between the surface, beaten down by generations of trampling feet, and the decaying pillars at which the tide sucked and gurgled.

The river being in flood it occurred to Ann for one moment to swim it, but she knew the treacherous mud banks on the farther side that the night concealed. She would be trapped for certain in the slimy ooze.

The ferry lay there in the starlight but Ann knew that her slender arms would never be able to cope with the great heavy pole, or steer the ancient barge safely to the other side; once she got out into the stream she would be swept seaward by the tide.

In desperate haste she began to scan the other boats for one that might be suitable. Most of them were inaccessible, being moored out in the river. Yachts and motor launches rocked gently in the tide, lonely and forgotten now in the stress of terrible events, but kept there for the week enders who, in happier times, forgot their business worries during the hours they sailed, or chugged gently, down river, along the coast, and up the reaches of the Orwell or the Stour. A dinghy swung at the stern of all the larger boats but not one of them was within Ann's reach.

She stamped with impatience at the thought that in such a place there must be something in which she could get over if only she could find it, and hurriedly retraced her steps to the landward end of the hard. Her eye lit on a battered rowing boat half sunk in the mud. She paused by it a moment and hastened on, its planks were rotting even if she could prise it from its sticky bed. Then on a shelving beach of pebbles above the mud she saw a dinghy, queerly lopsided but lying high and dry. Next moment she had seized the painter and was dragging it towards the water. Her sense of flying time, upon every moment of which Kenyon's life might hang, lent her added strength, and with a superhuman effort she managed to get it launched.

The sculls had been left beneath the thwarts, and the boat was hardly rocking in the water before she had them out and in the crutches. With a sharp left handed stroke, she swung the nose towards the opposite shore, and then with all the weight of her strong shoulders pulled towards it.

Five minutes later she had shipped her sculls and was scrambling out into the ooze that fringed the farther bank. It sucked and plopped as she struggled through it but she was on to the coarse grass a minute after landing, leaving the dinghy to drift out on the tide.

With renewed courage she ploughed her way up the rising ground and over the thick heather. The brief respite on the hard and the use of different muscles in rowing had eased her legs and rested her feet a little. The river too had been her principal anxiety, now she had succeeded in crossing it the remainder of the journey depended only upon sheer dogged endurance.

At last, with infinite thankfulness she struck a road and, leaving the uneven ground, turned north along it for half a mile until she came to a cross roads that she recognised. There she turned left but with a sinking heart, for she knew that she had barely accomplished half her journey, and that a solid seven mile tramp still lay before her.

It seemed hours and hours since she had left Shingle Street and her head was burning with fatigue. As she trudged on she became half delirious and began to sing, strange breathless snatches of half forgotten tunes, hymns, choruses and nursery songs that she had learnt in Orford when she was a little girl.

She broke off suddenly, impelled from sheer fatigue to sit down and rest by the wayside. Slipping to her knees, she leaned against a bank and lay there for a few moments panting heavily, while she tasted the supreme pleasure of relaxing all her limbs. Instantly a great drowsiness came over her, with a little flicker her heavy eyelids closed, and the great weight of sleep bringing relief to her utter weariness, pressed down upon her.

That would have been the end of her pilgrimage had not a sudden picture blazed in her half conscious brain. Kenyon, with the burning brand pressed against his chest! She started up with a muffled scream, those devils were going to hang him no, he was to be shot tomorrow today when the light came in the morning. Wide awake again now she struggled to her feet, and pressed on down the road, running a few paces and then dropping back into a staggering walk.

She wondered vaguely how much farther she had to go and, knowing the country well, she would easily have recognised any bend or turning in the daylight; but now that she could only see hedged fields on one side of her and heath on the other, her brain would no longer take in the significance of the gradients and dark coppices. At last another cross road loomed up out of the darkness, and the place was unmistakable even in her weariness. It was a little north of Brightwell and on one corner of it stood a signpost, but she did not trouble to peer at it for she knew its legend; it read, 5 miles to Ipswich.

Five and a quarter miles still to go. She felt that she would never be able to do it. Her feet were aching, galled and blistered about the heels. The road seemed to waver in front of her, closing up then broadening out before her with a horrible sickening motion. She swayed as she walked, lurching from one side of the road to the other, and failed to see the faces of the starving prowlers who peered at her from the hedgerows every now and then. Furtive, soundless, they watched her pass and then slipped back into the shadows for she carried nothing, not even the smallest packet that might contain food, and seemed to be as destitute as themselves.

It was not until he was actually upon her that she saw the man who sprang from the roadside and seized her arm.

What could have urged him to attack her is past conjecture. She obviously had no food about her and even less of beauty. Her dark hair hung in matted locks; her face was puffed and swollen. The mud of the Deben clung about her feet and blackened her arms up to the elbows; smears of it disfigured her face where she had sought to wipe away the perspiration and her mouth hung open in an ugly contour, but as she swung terrified to face him she saw that his eyes were glowing bright in the darkness with the horrible glare of insanity.