Death of a Burrowing Mole

2

Castle in the Sand

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From the keep there were views of the sea. To the north-east were the shallow waters of the wide estuary beyond which Laura had seen the castle. To the south-west was the open sea in the direction of Holdy Bay, although the town itself was tucked away behind its hills.

Between the castle and these two wastes of water were the moors. The village at the foot of the castle hill had begun as a collection of huts for the Saxons who had toiled to build the Norman castle. It now lived by tourism. There were no farms in the immediate neighbourhood, for there was neither agricultural land nor pasture. In fact, it was difficult to understand why the village had survived into the twentieth century to enjoy the benefits of the tourist trade and the invasion and almost total takeover by retired people of rather more than average means.

Malpas Veryan and his companion, Nicholas Tynant, had taken rooms in the slightly larger of the two hotels, and Edward and Lilian Saltergate had booked in at the other. Both parties were old acquaintances and, although they could hardly be called close friends, a mild tolerance existed between them, although they were not attached to the same university. Dr Susannah Lochlure had joined the staff at Edward Saltergate’s college and the two girls mentioned in Bonamy’s letter to his godmother were nominally in her charge and shared a hired caravan with her for what was anticipated to be the time which would be spent on the work on the castle ruins.

On this first full morning at Holdy, however, nobody felt any inclination to begin labouring on the hill, so, having fraternised over dinner at Veryan’s hotel on the previous evening, the whole company, including Bonamy and Tom, was now a few miles from the castle at a quiet strip of the coast about halfway between Holdy village and the town of Holdy Bay.

Malpas Veryan, a long, lean man with a talent for complete relaxation when he was not feverishly working, was sprawled on the cliff-top, his eyes closed against the almost intolerable blue of the sky. Beside him sat Nicholas Tynant, a more compact, athletic figure, pipe between his teeth and his arms round his knees while he watched the scene below him. Edward Saltergate, squatting on the firm sand, was using a bit of pointed stick to mark out a plan of what he thought Holdy Castle would have looked like before Cromwell’s artillery got at it, and the four women and the two young men, Bonamy and Tom, were disporting themselves in the ocean.

There were sea-pinks, the hardy tufts of thrift, in the little hollows and on the ledges of the cliff. On the cliff-top where the two dons were taking their ease, the short but untrimmed grass was scented with thyme. Occasionally Nicholas looked down at the painstaking cartographer below him, but for the most part he watched his Aphrodite as she challenged the waves.

Now and again a seagull flew past, but all the wading-birds, the ringed plovers, dunlin, sandpipers and sanderlings, had disappeared from the flat, wet shore, frightened away first by the bathers as these ran across the sands and into the sea, and then too deeply suspicious of the crouching figure of Edward to return for the molluscs, the small Crustacea, the marine worms and the rest of their natural food.

After a lapse of time which had been registered by nobody, Edward straightened himself and walked slowly round his sand-map. Then he walked to the edge of the water and called out to the bathers that he was ready.

Malpas Veryan sat up, Nicholas Tynant put his long-cold pipe in his pocket, and then both men got to their feet and, by means of a flight of wooden steps, descended the cliffs. In the sea, Susannah, with a flash of white arms, sculled shorewards on an incoming wave and the others soon joined her on the beach, splashing through the last of the ripples as the long, lazy, incoming tide followed them on to the sand as though reluctant to let them go.

The bathers picked up towels and began drying their hair and their arms as they followed one another up the beach, an incongruous quartet of women and two golden-armed Iollans, the graceful, straight-limbed youths.

‘The Spartans, on the sea-wet rocks,

Sat down and combed their hair.’

said Veryan.

‘ “I saw a frieze on whitest marble drawn,” ’ said Nicholas, looking at the white limbs of his so-far unattainable beloved. The swimmers formed themselves into a semicircle around the sand-map. They continued rubbing their hair and arms, but the actions were automatic. Their interest was in what lay at their feet. Edward Saltergate expounded. He still held the sharpened stick with which he had been working and he used it now as a pointer.

‘Of course, this rough plan is on the flat,’ he said. ‘You may find it rather different when you tackle the real thing on the slopes of the hill. Here at the top is the keep. There is still quite a lot of it standing, as you saw yesterday afternoon. At the foot of my sketch-plan are the remains of the outer gatehouse, still rather impressive, and the remains of the walls of the outer bailey lie between these two buildings and enclose a large space of a very unusual shape.

‘In my survey last week, I made out the remains of the flanking-towers in this outer wall. I think there would have been ten of them altogether, and I do hope that we shall locate them all. The most important (and enough of it remains for identification) is this one at the end of the middle bailey. It would have been circular and, except for its entrance, enclosed. The other towers were semicircular and were merely lookouts and defence posts to prevent enemies from climbing over the walls.

‘There may have been a postern gate between the keep and the nearest lookout tower, but now there is nothing but a gap in the wall. On the opposite side there are some remains which may have been the old hall before a larger castle hall was built in the small enclosed inner bailey which also contains the keep.

‘There is a long, deep ditch, still plainly to be seen, between the outer bailey and the middle bailey, and we may be able to find the remains of the secondary gatehouse which would have been approached by a drawbridge, for the ditch acted as a dry moat. There would have been no direct access to the inner bailey from this direction. The entry from the middle bailey would have been round to the side in accordance with the strategy of the times, which tried to ensure that an attacker had to walk as far as possible and under constant threat from the besieged garrison before he was able to attempt to storm the last entrance to the castle. Any questions?’

‘No,’ said Veryan, ‘but your ditch is interesting.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Tom Hassocks. ‘What about the water supply?’

‘That’s a good question,’ said Edward. ‘In a place of this size, there would have been two, or possibly three, wells. A small stream runs past the foot of the hill, and there must be a spring or springs somewhere on the hillside as well. The builders of the Middle Ages were more knowledgeable about feats of engineering than is sometimes thought. They understood the use of water-towers and they knew how to pipe water from the source of supply up to their buildings. They used oak, elm and often lead for their pipes and my secondary interest is to see whether we can locate any of these underground conduits. They still should be in existence.’

‘Two or three wells, I think you said, sir,’ said Bonamy.

‘Choked with rubble by now, I fear, Mr Monkswood. One of our tasks will be to locate and partly clear them. Are you volunteering for what may prove to be a thankless task?’

‘You mean we are unlikely to locate them, sir?’

‘Oh, I have every hope of finding them. One was probably in the outer bailey near what I think was another postern gate guarded by its flanking-tower, and there was probably another in the keep itself, where there is a good chance that we shall locate it when we have cleared the interior of the building. Clearing the wells themselves will be a different and more difficult matter.’

‘Would there still be water in the wells?’ asked Tom.

‘I don’t see why not. Anyway, I have made a large plan in Indian ink of the site, and Dr Lochlure has said she is prepared to pin it up in her caravan in case anybody wishes to consult it, as the next tide will wash away this ephemeral picture we have here.’

‘Do you want us any longer, Edward?’ asked his wife, as he paused.

‘No, Lilian. There is only one more thing. My concern is with the castle buildings, or what remains of them. The interior of the large outer bailey, which, as we have seen, is the flat expanse between the slope which leads up from the main gatehouse to the defensive ditch, is the province of Professor Veryan and we shall not encroach upon it. Away with you, then. Get some lunch and then everybody should be at the foot of the castle mound by half-past two.’

The group broke up and dispersed. As they walked back to where the party had left their cars, Tom said to Bonamy, ‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s scour the neighbourhood for a pub outside the village. Veryan and the other overlords will make for the Barbican. We’ve got until two-thirty, so there’s plenty of time for a reconnaissance.’

There had been a discussion between the two young men concerning cars. Bonamy had suggested that they rely only on his, for Tom had been staying with him the night before the two of them were due to begin the survey of the castle, but Tom dismissed the idea. If the group was to include girls, a party of four in one car might be all right on some occasions, but there would be other occasions when, as he expressed it, a man could work better on his own. There were more important things in life, he pointed out, than sharing the price of a few gallons of petrol, and one of these was that a man must have scope if he wanted to get action.

The girls, except for Susannah, however, had proved something of a disappointment, and Susannah was as tantalisingly beyond reach as the grapes were to the fox, so the young men had no option but to resign themselves and endeavour to imitate the fox’s bitter attempt at self-consolation by surmising that the grapes were sour.

‘She’s probably frigid,’ said Tom. ‘These brainy, beautiful women often are. She must be nearly thirty, anyway. Well, now,’ he went on, ‘our problem, as I see it, is to keep all knowledge of our private activities from the others until we have something to report. It’s a nuisance having the girls’ caravan parked right at the foot of the hill. They will want to know what we’re up to.’

‘There isn’t anywhere else near at hand where they can possibly leave it. We’ll have to put our cars there, too. I wonder the gypsies haven’t taken over that verge before this. It’s wide and it’s flat and it’s grassy,’ said Bonamy.

‘Well, let’s hope the girls are heavy sleepers.’

‘I wouldn’t put it past that young Priscilla to rise before dawn and gather a nosegay while the dew is still on it. She looks a chronic Gawdelpus to me. I suspect her of being a secret folk-dancer and Fiona is probably an early-morning jogger.’

‘Well, so long as she jogs away from our mound and not up it, that won’t affect us. What about Susannah? I don’t see her as part of the dawn chorus.’

‘Well, it seems as though she will stick to the caravan, anyway. Perhaps she thinks the girls need a chaperone with types like us about.’

‘That blest pair of sirens wouldn’t need a chaperone even if you set them down with Brigham Young in Salt Lake City. Never mind the girls. Let us thank goodness for the sybaritic tendencies of the Senior Common Room. At least we shan’t have Veryan, Tynant and the Saltergates breathing down our necks at crack of dawn.’

‘True, but I’m not too happy about young Priscilla. The trouble with girls who don’t have a sex life to contend with is that they need an outlet in other directions. Priscilla has all the earmarks of perpetual spinsterhood. That being so, her nose will always be into other people’s business and that’s the last thing we want. I have a hunch that she doesn’t lack brains, either.’

‘I wouldn’t worry about Priscilla. If she did get up early, she wouldn’t trouble about what we were up to. She would probably be saying her prayers to the sun or meditating on mutability. She’s the Yoga type. Any danger, as I see it, would come from Fiona. She is, I suspect, beetle-brained, and probably full of innocent, childish curiosity.’

‘If anybody does notice us, let’s hope they will put our activities down to excess of zeal. What about the evenings? I should think we could knock off at five or half-past. We could get dinner at the Barbican at six-thirty, and that would give us a nice bit of time before dark to push on with our search.’

‘Perish such an unworthy idea! No, Tommy lad, I’ll get up with the lark, but by the time we’ve done our personal and private stint before breakfast and then put in a nine to one and then a two-thirty to (probably) five-thirty labourer’s day on Saltergate’s account, I shall be ready for beer, skittles and bed.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. No sense in running ourselves into the ground.’

‘Besides, I expect Fiona has brought her guitar and will sit on the steps of the caravan after dinner and sing plaintive love songs in a throaty contralto which will start all the village dogs howling. We shall be much better off in a pub. Come on! I’ve got the thirst of Tantalus upon me after all that salt-water bathing.’

‘There is one more thing. I don’t see why we need to pitch a tent down there by our cars and the caravan. If we’re planning to start work before breakfast, what’s wrong with carting the folding camp-beds and our sleeping-bags up to the keep and camping out there so long as the weather keeps fine? We shan’t need a roof over our heads unless it rains and there is plenty of shelter from the wind up there. What do you say?’

‘Pub first, plans later.’

They drove inland and found a hostelry in a small inland village called Stint Magna where the moors ended and a river wound through water meadows. They drank their beer and bought sandwiches at the bar and, fortified, returned to Holdy. Finding themselves first in the field (for service at the Barbican for Veryan and Tynant, and at the Horse and Cart, where the Saltergates were staying, was willing but slow), Tom and Bonamy transferred camp-beds and sleeping-bags from their cars up to the keep and cleared one side of it of rubble.

‘Young Monkswood is the godson of Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley, he tells me,’ said Lilian Saltergate to her husband, as they walked from the Horse and Cart alongside the little river which curved round the foot of the castle mound. ‘I hope that it means he is going to take his work here seriously. The other young man, Mr Hassocks, strikes me as a somewhat frivolous individual.’

‘I am not sure that Dame Beatrice herself has not a frivolous side to her nature,’ said Edward. ‘I remember offering her a cocktail on one occasion and she was guilty of responding with what I imagine is a rather well-worn pun.’

‘Oh? What did she say?’

‘She quoted from the Rubaiyat.’

‘A cocktail, you say? Oh, well, there are certainly lines there which would be apposite. Which did she choose?’

‘Oh, thou who didst with pitfall and with gin

Beset the road I was to wander in.’

‘How naughty of her! Poor Edward Fitzgerald never dreamed of such levity. Did she accept your offer of a cocktail after all that?’

‘No. She said she preferred dry sherry.’

‘If we co-opt those two lads to help with the digging,’ said Malpas Veryan, ‘I think we ought to stake them to daily breakfast and dinner with us. Lunch they can get for themselves. The Saltergates and Dr Lochlure are making similar arrangements for the two women students. The idea emanates, of course, from the motherly Lilian. A kind and thoughtful woman, that, and practical, withal. She spoke to Saltergate and asked him to speak to me.’

‘About giving the lads breakfast and dinner?’

‘She only mentioned that they were providing for the caravanners. She spoke about toilet facilities for the two boys.’

‘Oh, I expect they will dig a trench in some convenient spot. The Scouts do it when they camp, I believe.’

‘There will be quite enough trenches on the hillside when we begin our work, without one which has a purpose of its own. Besides, there is the question of baths. This is going to be dirty work and sweated (literally) labour. I thought that, if we fixed up a regular breakfast and dinner routine for the two lads, the landlord would not be averse to their using the facilities at the hotel.’

‘There is a public convenience in the village square.’

‘But no facilities for washing, let alone baths. The girls will be all right. Their caravan is well equipped, but Lilian Saltergate was concerned for the two youths, so I felt I had to reassure her.’

‘Very well. Mind you, I expect young fellows like Tom and Bonamy eat like horses and will order two of everything.’

‘I would not be surprised if we found you yourself ordering two of everything when you have spent a week or so on that hill.’

Edward mustered his forces.

‘This afternoon,’ he said, ‘we shall walk round the site and then I shall assign specific tasks for tomorrow. I must stress that it is important we keep clear of the work Professor Veryan will be doing. Nominally, Tom and Bonamy are attached to that party, but theirs is to be a divided allegiance. After all, they came here to survey the castle on their own account, so we must be grateful for any assistance they are willing to give. Well, now, when we have finished our survey, which should take about an hour, the rest of the afternoon is free. We begin work in earnest tomorrow, but it is necessary for us first to relate what we have seen on the plan to what we shall now see on the ground.’

‘Which is most of the castle,’ said Fiona, looking disparagingly at a large block of Purbeck stone which was near where she was standing. She turned to Priscilla. ‘What shall we do when we’ve finished walking round these ruins?’ she asked almost in a whisper. They loitered a little as their seniors moved off, and held a short colloquy. Then they tailed in behind the rest of their party.

Meanwhile Malpas and Nicholas appeared to be doing nothing but converse while they looked at the broad, oddly shaped expanse of the outer bailey. Then, as Edward’s party approached a kind of slag-heap which had once been the castle stables, Veryan went over to Bonamy and drew him out of Edward’s circle. At this, Fiona took the opportunity of taking his place beside Tom, halting him for a moment or two while the others, following Edward, made their way towards the gatehouse.

‘Look here,’ she said, ‘you two don’t need both your cars while you’re here, do you?’

‘Probably not.’

‘I’d like to hire the rather smaller one.’

‘Hire it? Well, it’s mine, but why?’

‘If our labours end each day at a reasonable hour, Priscilla and I could do with some form of transport. The evenings are long, the caravan is boring and we’ve got money to burn now that the Saltergates are paying for our meals and Dr Lochlure is shouldering the cost of the caravan. I’m taking an advanced School of Motoring course and have a clean licence, so how’s about it? We’ll be immensely chuffed if you agree.’

‘Tynant and I,’ said Professor Veryan to Bonamy, ‘would like to make ourselves responsible for you two fellows while you’re working with us.’

‘Thank you very much, sir, but we have reached years of discretion and are entitled to vote and to leave home without our parents’ consent.’

‘Of course. I meant responsible so far as providing you with your breakfasts and dinners at the Barbican. It’s the least we can do in exchange for your help.’

‘It’s very kind indeed of you and Mr Tynant to bother about us,’ said Bonamy.

‘Not at all. As I always say, the labourer is worthy of his hire. Oh, I’ve had a word with Saltergate. At least, it originated with him because of the women. The weather is unusually hot and the work is trying, not only because of the manual labour involved, but because of the dust we shall be stirring up. I don’t know whether you two got my message, but we shall all be knocking off at each midday. No work will be done after lunch, so every afternoon is free.’