The Death of Grass

SIX

Saxon Court stood on a small rise; the nearest approach to a hill in this part of the county. Like many similar preparatory schools, it was a converted country house, and from a distance still had elegance. A well-kept drive—its maintenance, Davey had confided, was employed as a disciplinary measure by masters and prefects—led through a brown desert that had been playing-fields to the two Georgian wings flanking a centre both earlier and uglier.

Since three cars in convoy presented a suspicious appearance, it had been decided that only John’s car should go up to the school, the others being discreetly parked on the road from which the drive diverged. Steve, however, had insisted on being present when Davey was collected, and Olivia had decided to come along with him. Apart from John, there were also Ann and Mary.

The headmaster was not in his study. His study door stood open, looking out, like a vacant throne-room, on to a disordered palace. There was a traffic of small boys in the hall and up and down the main staircase; their chatter was loud and excited and, John thought, unsure. From one room leading off the hall came the murmur of Latin verbs, but there were others which yielded only uproar.

John was on the point of asking one of the boys where he might find the headmaster, when he appeared, hurrying down the stairs. He saw the small group waiting for him, and came down the last few steps more decorously.

Dr Cassop was a young headmaster, comfortably under forty, and had always seemed elegant. He retained the elegance today, but the handsome gown and neatly balanced mortar-board only served to point up the fact that he was a worried and unhappy man. He recognized John.

“Mr Custance, of course—and Mrs Custance. But I thought you lived in London? How did you get out?”

“We had been spending a few days in the country,” John said, “with friends. This is Mrs Buckley, and her son. We’ve come to collect David. I should like to take him away for a little while—until things settle down.”

Dr Cassop showed none of the reluctance Miss Errington had at the thought of losing a pupil. He said eagerly:

“Oh yes. Of course. I think it’s a good idea.”

“Have any other parents taken their children?” John asked.

“A couple. You see, most of them are Londoners.” He shook his head. “I should be most relieved if it were possible to send all the boys home, and close the school for the time being. The news…”

John nodded. They had heard, on the car radios, a guarded bulletin which spoke of some disturbances in Central London and in certain unspecified provincial cities. This information had clearly only been given as an accompaniment to the warning that any breach of public order would be put down severely.

“At least, things are quiet enough here,” John said. The din all round them increased as a classroom-door opened to release a batch of boys, presumably at the close of a lesson. “In a noisy kind of way,” he added.

Dr Cassop took the remark neither as a joke nor as a reflection on his school’s discipline. He looked round at the boys in a distracted unseeing fashion that made John realize that there was more to his strangeness than either worry or unhappiness. There was fear.

“You haven’t heard any other news, I suppose?” Dr Cassop asked. “Anything not on the radio? I have an impression… there was no mail this morning.”

“I shouldn’t think there would be any mail,” John said, “until the situation has improved.”

“Improved?” He looked at John nakedly. “When? How?”

John was sure of something else; it would not be long before he deserted his charges. His immediate reaction to this intuition was an angry one, but anger died as the memory rose in his mind of the quiet, bloody young face in the ditch.

He wanted only to get away. He said briefly:

“If we can take David…”

“Yes, of course. I’ll… Why, there he is.”

Davey had seen them simultaneously. He dashed along the corridor and hurled himself, with a cry of delight, at John.

“You will be taking David to stay with your friends?” Dr Cassop asked,”—with Mrs Buckley, perhaps?”

John felt the boy’s brown hair under his hand. There would very likely be more killings ahead; that for which he would kill was worth the killing. He looked at the headmaster.

“Our plans are not certain.” He paused. “We mustn’t detain you, Dr Cassop. I imagine you will have a lot to do—with all these boys to look after.”

The headmaster responded to the accession of brutality in John’s voice. He nodded, and his fear and misery were so apparent that John saw Ann start at the perception of them.

He said: “Yes. Of course. I hope… in better times… Goodbye, then.”

He performed a stiff little half-bow to the ladies, and turned from them and went into his study, closing the door behind him. Davey watched him with interest.

“The fellows were saying old Cassop’s got the wind-up^{84}. Do you think he has, Daddy?”

They would know, of course, and he would be aware of their knowledge. That would make things worse all round. It would not be long, John thought, before Cassop broke and made his run for it He said to Davey:

“Maybe. So should I have, if I had a mob like you to contend with. Are you ready to leave, as you are?”

“Blimey!” Davey said, “Mary here? Is it like end of term? Where are we going?”

Ann said: “You must not say ‘Blimey’, Davey.”

Davey said: “Yes, Mummy. Where are we going? How did you get out of London—we heard about all the roads being closed. Did you fight your way through?”

“We’re going up to the valley for a holiday,” John said. The point is—are you ready? Mary packed some of your things for you. You might as well come as you are, if you haven’t any special things to get.”

“There’s Spooks,” Davey said. “Hiya, Spooks!”

Spooks proved to be a boy considerably taller than Davey; lanky of figure, with a withdrawn, rather helpless expression of face. He came up to the group and mumbled his way through Davey’s hasty and excited introductions. John recalled that Spooks, whose real name was Andrew Skelton, had featured prominently in Davey’s letters for some months. It was difficult to see what had drawn the two boys together, for boys do not generally seek out and befriend their opposites.

Davey said: “Can Spooks come with us, Daddy? That would be terrific.”

“His parents might have some objection,” John said.

“Oh, no, that’s all right, isn’t it, Spooks? His father is in France on business, and he hasn’t got a mother. She’s divorced, or something. It would be all right.”

John began: “Well…”

It was Ann who cut in sharply: “It’s quite impossible, Davey. You know very well one can’t do things like that, and especially at times like this.”

Spooks stared at them silently; he looked like a child unused to hoping.

Davey said: “But old Cassop wouldn’t mind!”

“Go and get whatever you want to bring with you, Davey,” John said. “Perhaps Spooks would like to go along and lend you a hand. Run along now.”

The two boys went off together. Mary and Steve had wandered off out of earshot.

John said: “I think we might take him.”

Something in Ann’s expression reminded him of what he had seen in the headmaster’s; not the fear, but the guilt.

She said: “No, it’s ridiculous.”

“You know,” John said, “Cassop is going to clear out That’s certain. I don’t know whether any of the junior masters will stay with the boys, but if they did, it would only be postponing the evil. Whatever happens to London, this place is likely to be a wilderness in a few weeks. I don’t like the idea of leaving Spooks behind when we go.”

Ann said angrily: “Why not take the whole school with us, then?”

“Not the whole school,” John said gently. “Just one boy—Davey’s best friend here.”

Bewilderment replaced anger in her tone. “I think I’ve just begun to understand what we may be in for. It may not be easy, getting to the valley. We’ve got two children to look after already.”

“If things do break up completely,” John said, “some of these boys may survive it, young as they are. The Spooks kind wouldn’t though. If we leave him, it’s a good chance we are leaving him to die.”

“How many boys did we leave behind to die in London?” Ann asked. “A million?”

John did not answer at once. His gaze took in the hall, invaded now by a new rush of boys from another class-room. When he turned back to Ann, he said:

“You do know what you’re doing, don’t you, darling? I suppose we’re all changing, but in different ways.”

She said defensively: “I shall have the children to cope with, you know, while you’re being the gallant warrior with Roger and Mr Pirrie.”

“I can’t insist, can I?” John asked.

Ann looked at him. “When you told me—about Miss Errington, I thought it was dreadful. But I still hadn’t realized what was happening. I do now. We’ve got to get to the valley, and get the children there as well. We can’t afford any extras, even this boy.”

John shrugged. Davey came back, carrying a small attaché case; he had a brisk and happy look and resembled a small-scale Government official. Spooks trailed behind him.

Davey said: “I’ve got the important things, like my stamp-album. I put my spare socks in, too.” He looked at his mother for approval. “Spooks has promised to look after my mice until I get back. One of my does is pregnant, and I’ve told him he can sell the litter when they arrive.”

John said: “Well, we’d better be getting along to the car.” He avoided looking at the gangling Spooks.

Olivia, who had taken no previous part in the conversation, broke her silence. She said:

“I think Spooks could come along. Would you like to come with us, Spooks?”

Ann said: “Olivia! You know…”

Olivia said apologetically: “I meant, in our car. We only have the one child, after all. It would only be a matter of evening things up.”

The two women stared briefly at each other. On Ann’s side there was guilt again, and anger moved by that guilt. Olivia showed only shy embarrassment. Had there been the least trace of moral condescension, John thought, it would have meant a rift that the safety of the party could not afford. As it was, Ann’s anger faded.

She said: “Do as you like. Don’t you think you ought to consult Roger, though?”

Davey, who had been following the interchange with interest but without understanding said:

“Is Uncle Roger here, too? I’m sure he’d like Spooks. Spooks is ferociously witty, like he is. Say something witty, Spooks.”

Spooks stared at them, in agonized helplessness. Olivia smiled at him.

“Never mind, Spooks. You would like to come with us?”

He nodded his head slowly up and down. Davey grabbed him by the arm. “Just the job^{85}!” he exclaimed. “Come on, Spooks, I’ll go and help you pack now.” For a moment he looked thoughtful. “What about the mice?”

“The mice,” John ordered, “remain behind. Give them away to someone.”

Davey turned to Spooks. “Do you think we could get sixpence each for them, off Bannister?”

John looked at Ann over their son’s head; after a moment, she also smiled. John said:

“We’re leaving in five minutes. That’s all the time you have for Spooks’s packing and your joint commercial transactions.”

The two boys prepared to turn away. Davey said thoughtfully: “We should get a bob at least for the one that’s pregnant.”

They had expected to be stopped on the roads by the military, and with that possibility in view had devised three different stories to account for the northward journeys of the three cars; the important thing, John felt, was to avoid the impression of a convoy. But in fact there was no attempt at inquisition. The considerable number of military vehicles on the roads was interspersed with private cars in a normal and mutually tolerant traffic. After leaving Saxon Court, they made for the Great North Road again, and drove northwards uneventfully throughout the morning.

In the late afternoon, they stopped for a meal in a lane, a little north of Newark. The day had been cloudy, but was now brilliantly blue and sunlit, with a mass of cloud, rolling away to the west, poised in white billows and turrets. The fields on either side of them were potato fields planted for the hopeful second crop; apart from the bareness of hedge-rows empty of grass, there was nothing to distinguish the scene from any country landscape in a thriving fruitful world.

The three boys had found a bank and were sliding down it, using for a sleigh an old panel of wood, discarded probably from some gipsy caravan years before. Mary watched them, half envious, half scornful. She had developed a lot since the hill climbing in the valley of fourteen months before.

The men, sitting in Pirrie’s Ford, discussed things.

John said: “If we can get north of Ripon today, we should be all right for the run to the valley tomorrow.”

“We could get farther than that,” Roger said.

“I suppose we could. I doubt if it would be worth it, though. The main thing is to get clear of population centres. Once we’re away from the West Riding, we should be safe enough from anything that happens.”

Pirrie said: “I am not objecting, mind you, nor regretting having joined you on this little trip, but does it not seem possible that the dangers of violence may have been over-estimated? We have had a very smooth progress. Neither Grantham nor Newark showed any signs of imminent breakdown.”

“Peterborough was sealed off,” Roger said. “I think those towns that still have free passage are too busy congratulating themselves on being missed to begin worrying about what else may be happening. You saw those queues outside the bakeries?”

“Very orderly queues,” observed Pirrie.

“The trouble is,” said John, “that we don’t know just when Welling is going to take his drastic action. It’s nearly twenty-four hours since the cities and large towns were sealed off. When the bombs drop, the whole country is going to erupt in panic. Welling hopes to be able to control things, but he won’t expect to have any degree of control for the first few days. I still think that, providing we can get clear of the major centres of population by that time, we should be all right.”

“Atom bombs, and hydrogen bombs,” Pirrie said thoughtfully. “I really wonder.”

Roger said shortly: “I don’t. I know Haggerty. He wasn’t lying.”

“It is not on the score of morality that I find them unlikely,” said Pirrie, “but on that of temperament. The English, being sluggish in the imagination, would find no difficulty in acquiescing in measures which—their common sense would tell them—must lead to the death by starvation of millions. But direct action—murder for self-preservation—is a different matter. I find it difficult to believe they could ever bring themselves to the sticking-point.”

“We haven’t done so badly,” Roger said. He grinned. “You, particularly.”

“My mother,” Pirrie said simply, “was French. But you fail to take my point. I had not meant that the English are inhibited from violence. Under the right circumstances, they will murder with a will, and more cheerfully than most But they are sluggish in logic as well as imagination. They will preserve illusions to the very end. It is only after that that they will fight like particularly savage tigers.”

“And when did you reach the end?” Roger asked.

Pirrie smiled. “A long time ago. I came to the understanding that all men are friends by convenience and enemies by choice.”

Roger looked at him curiously. “I follow you part of the way. There are some real ties.”

“Some alliances,” said Pirrie, “last longer than others. But they remain alliances. Our own is a particularly valuable one.”

The women were in the Buckleys’ car. Millicent now put her head out of the window, and called out to them:

“News!”

One of the two car radios was kept permanently in operation. The men walked back to see what it was.

Ann said, as they approached: “It sounds like trouble.”

The announcer’s voice was still suave, but grave as well.

“… further emergency bulletins will be issued as they are deemed necessary, in addition to the normal news readings.

“There has been further rioting in Central London, and troops have moved in from the outskirts to control this and to maintain order. In South London, an attempt has been made by an organized mob to break through the military barriers set up yesterday following the temporary ban on travel. The situation here is confused; fresh military forces are moving up to deal with it.”

“Now that we’re clear,” Roger said, “I don’t mind them having the guts to break out. Good for them.”

The announcer continued: “There are reports of even more serious outbreaks of disorder in the North of England. Riots are reported to have occurred in several major cities, notably Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds, and in the case of Leeds official contact has been lost.”

“Leeds!” John said. “That’s less good.”

The Government,” the voice went on, “has issued the following statement: ‘In view of disturbances in certain areas, members of the public are warned that severe counter-measures may have to be taken. There is a real danger, if mob violence were to continue, that the country might lapse into anarchy, and the Government is determined to avoid this at all costs. The duty of the individual citizen is to go about his business quietly and to cooperate with the police and military authorities who are concerned with maintaining order.’ That is the end of the present bulletin.”

A cinema organ began to play “The Teddy-Bears’ Picnic”^{86}; Ann switched the volume down until it was only just audible.

Roger said: “If we drove all night, we could reach the valley by the morning. I don’t like the sound of all this. It looks as though Leeds has broken loose. I think we’d better travel while the travelling’s good.”

“We didn’t get much sleep last night,” John said. “A night run across Mossdale isn’t a picnic at the best of times.”

“Ann and Millicent can both take a spell at the wheel,” Roger pointed out.

Ann said: “But Olivia can’t drive, can she?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Roger said. “I’ve brought my benzedrine^{87} with me. I can keep awake for two or three days if necessary.”

Pirrie said: “May I suggest that we concentrate immediately on getting clear of the West Riding? When we have done that, we can decide whether to carry right on or not.”

“Yes,” John said, “we’ll do that.”

From the top of the bank, the boys called down to them, waving their arms towards the sky. Listening, they heard the hum of aircraft engines approaching. Their eyes searched the clear sky. The planes came into view over the hedge which topped the bank. They were heavy bombers, flying north, at not more than three or four thousand feet.

They watched, in a silence that seemed to shiver, until they had passed right over. They could hear the engines, and the excited chatter of the boys, but neither of these affected the sharp-edged silence of their own thoughts.

“Leeds?” Ann whispered, when they had gone.

Nobody answered at first. It was Pirrie who spoke finally, his voice as calm and precisely modulated as ever:

“Possibly. There are the other explanations, of course. But in any case, I think we ought to move, don’t you?”

When they set off, Davey had joined Steve and Spooks in the Citroen, which was leading the way at this point. The Ford came second, and John’s Vauxhall, carrying now only Mary and Ann in addition to himself, brought up the rear.

Doncaster was sealed off, but the detour roads had been well posted^{88}. Meshed in with an increasing military traffic, they went round to the north-east, through a series of little peaceful villages. They were in the Vale of York; the land was very flat and the villages straggling and prosperous. It was not until they had got back to the North Road that they were halted at a military checkpoint.

There was a sergeant in charge. He was a Yorkshireman, possibly a native of these parts. He looked down at Roger benevolently:

“A.1 closed except to military vehicles, sir.”

Roger asked him: “What’s the idea?”

“Trouble in Leeds. Where were you wanting to get to?”

“Westmorland.”

He shook his head, but in appreciation of their problem rather than negation. “I should back-track on to the York road, if I was you. If you cut off just before Selby, you can go through Thorpe Willoughby to Tadcaster. I should steer well clear of Leeds though.”

Roger said: “There are some funny rumours about.”

“I reckon there are, too,” said the sergeant.

“We saw planes flying up this way a couple of hours back,” Roger added. “Bombing planes.”

“Yes,” the sergeant said. “They went right over. I always feel ’appier being out in the country when things like that are up aloft. Funny, isn’t it—being uneasy when your own planes go over? That lot went right over, but I should stay clear of Leeds, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Roger said, “we will.”

The convoy reversed itself and headed back. The road by which they had come would have taken them south; instead they turned north-east and found themselves, with the military vehicles left behind, travelling deserted lanes.

Ann said: “Our minds can’t grasp it properly, can they? The news bulletins, the military check-points—they’re one kind of thing. This is another. A summer evening in the country—the same country that’s always been here.”

“A bit bare,” John said. He pointed to the grassless hedgerows.

“It doesn’t seem enough,” Ann said, “to account for famine, flight, murder, atom bombs…’ she hesitated; he glanced at her, “… or refusing to take a boy with us to safety.”

John said: “Motives are naked now. We shall have to learn to live with them.”

Ann said passionately: “I wish we were there! I wish we could get into the valley and shut David’s gate behind us.”

“Tomorrow, I hope.”

The lane they were in wound awkwardly through high-hedge country. They dropped back behind the others’ cars—Pirrie’s Ford, with a surprising degree of manoeuvrability, hung right on to the Citroen’s heels. As the Vauxhall approached a gatehouse^{89}, standing back from the road, the crossing gates slowly began to close.

Braking, John said: “Damn! And a ten-minute wait before the train even comes in sight, if I know country crossings. I wonder if they might be persuaded to let us through for five bob.”

He slipped out of the car, and walked round it. To the right, a gap in the hedge showed the barren symmetrical range of hills which were the tip for a nearby colliery. He put his head over the gate and looked along the line. There was no sign of smoke, and the line ran straight for miles in either direction. He walked up to the gate-house, and called:

“Hello, there!”

There was no immediate reply. He called again, and this time he heard something, but too indistinct to be an answer. It was a gasping, sobbing noise, from somewhere inside the house.

The window on to the road showed him nothing. He went round on to the line, to the window that looked across it. It was easy enough to see, as he looked in, where the noise had come from. A woman lay in the middle of the floor. Her clothes were torn and there was blood on her face; one leg was doubled underneath her. About her, the room was in confusion—drawers pulled out, a wall clock splintered.

It was the first time he had seen it in England, but in Italy, during the war, he had observed not dissimilar scenes. The trail of the looter… but here, in rural England. The casual reality of this horror in so remote a spot showed more clearly than the military check-points or the winging bombers that the break-up had come, irrevocably.

He was still looking through the window when memory gripped and tightened on him. The gates… With the woman lying here, perhaps dying, who had closed the gates? And why? From here the road, and the car, were invisible. He turned quickly, and as he did heard Ann cry out.

He ran round the side of the gate-house. The car doors were open and a struggle was taking place inside. He could see Ann fighting with a man in front; there was another man in the back, and he could not see Mary.

He had some hope, he thought, of surprising them. The guns were in the car. He looked quickly for a weapon of some kind, and saw a piece of rough wood lying beside the porch of the gatehouse. He bent down to pick it up. As he did, he heard a man’s laugh from close beside him. He straightened up again, and looked into the eyes of the man who was waiting in the shadow of the porch, just as the length of pit-prop crashed down against the side of his head.

He tried to cry out, but the words caught in his throat, and he stumbled and fell.

Someone was bathing his head. He saw first a handkerchief and saw that it was dark with clotted blood; then he looked up into Olivia’s face.

She said: “Johnny, are you better now?”

“Ann?” he said. “Mary?”

“Lie quiet.” She called: “Roger, he’s come round.”

The crossing gates were open. The Citroen and the Ford stood in the road. The three boys were in the back of the Citroen, looking out, but shocked out of their usual chatter. Roger and the Pirries came out of the gate-house. Roger’s face was grim; Pirrie’s wore its customary blandness.

Roger said: “What happened, Johnny?”

He told them. His head was aching; he had a physical urge to lie down and go to sleep.

Roger said: “You’ve probably been out about half an hour. We were the other side of the Leeds road before we missed you.”

Pirrie said: “Half an hour is, I should estimate, twenty miles for looters in this kind of country. That opens up rather a wide circle. And, of course, a widening circle. These parts are honeycombed with roads.”

Olivia was bandaging the side of his head; the pressure, gentle as it was, made the pain worse.

Roger looked down at him: “Well, Johnny—what’s it to be? It will have to be a rush decision.”

He tried to collect his rambling thoughts.

He said: “Will you take Davey? That’s the important thing. You know the way, don’t you?”

Roger asked: “And you?”

John was silent. The implications of what Pirrie had said were coming home to him. The odds were fantastically high against his finding them. And even when he did find them…

“If you could let me have a gun,” he said, “—they got away with the guns as well.”

Roger said gently: “Look, Johnny, you’re in charge of the expedition. You’re not just planning for yourself; you’re planning for all of us.”

He shook his head. “If you don’t get through into the North Riding, at least tonight, you may not be able to get clear at all. I’ll manage.”

Pirrie had moved a little way off; he was looking at the sky in an abstract fashion.

“Yes,” Roger said, “you’ll manage. What the hell do you think you are—a combination of Napoleon^{90} and Superman^{91}? What are you going to use for wings?”

John said: “I don’t know whether you could all crowd in the Citroen… if you could spare me the Ford…”

“We’re travelling as a party,” Roger said. “If you go back, you take us with you.” He paused. “That woman’s dead in there—you might as well know that.”

“Take Davey,” John said. “That’s all.”

“You damned fool!” Roger said. “Do you think Olivia would let me carry on even if I wanted to? We’ll find them. To hell with the odds.”

Pirrie looked round, blinking mildly. “Have you reached a decision?” he inquired.

John said: “It seems to have been reached for me. I suppose this is where the alliance ceases to be valuable, Mr Pirrie? You’ve got the valley marked on your road map. I’ll give you a note for my brother, if you like. You can tell him we’ve been held up.”

“I have been examining the situation,” Pirrie said, “If you will forgive my putting things bluntly, I am rather surprised that they should have left the scene so quickly.”

Roger said sharply: “Why?”

Pirrie nodded towards the gatehouse. They spent more than half an hour there.”

John said dully: “You mean—rape?”

“Yes. The explanation would seem to be that they guessed our three cars were together, and cut off the straggler deliberately. They would therefore be anxious to clear out of the immediate vicinity in case the other two cars should come back in search of the third.”

“Does that help us?” Roger asked.

“I think so,” Pirrie said. They would leave the immediate vicinity. We know they turned the car back towards the North Road because they left the gates shut against traffic. But I do not think they would go as far as the North Road without stopping again.”

“Stopping again?” John asked.

Looking at Roger’s impassive face, he saw that he had taken Pirrie’s meaning. Then he himself understood. He struggled to his feet.

Roger said: There are still some things to work out. There are well over half a dozen side roads between here and A.1. And you’ve got to remember that they will be listening for the noise of engines. We shall have to explore them one by one—and on foot.”

Despair climbing back on his shoulders, John said:

“By the time we’ve done that…”

“If we rush the cars down the first side road,” Roger said, “it might be giving them just the chance they need to get away.”

As they walked back, in silence, to where the two cars stood, Spooks put his head out of the back of the Citroen. His voice was thin and very high-pitched. He said:

“Has someone kidnapped Davey’s mother, and Mary?”

“Yes,” Roger said. “We’re going to get them back.”

“And they’ve taken the Vauxhall?”

Roger said: “Yes. Keep quiet, Spooks. We’ve got to work things out.”

“Then we can find them easily!” Spooks said.

“Yes, we’ll find them,” Roger said. He got into the driving seat, and prepared to turn the car round. John was still dazed. It was Pirrie who asked Spooks:

“Easily? How?”

Spooks pointed down the road along which they had come. “By the oil trail.”

The three men stared at the tarmac. Trail was a high term^{92} for it, but there were spots of oil in places along the road.

“Blind!” Roger said. “Why didn’t we see that? But it might not be the Vauxhall. More likely the Ford.”

“No,” Spooks insisted. “It must be the Vauxhall. It’s left a bit bigger stain where it was standing.”

“My God!” Roger said. “What were you at school—Chief Boy Scout?”

Spooks shook his head. “I wasn’t in the Scouts. I didn’t like the camping.”

Roger said exultantly: “We’ve got them! We’ve got the bastards! Ignore that last expression, Spooks.”

“All right,” Spooks said amiably. “But I did know it already.”

At each junction they stopped the cars, and searched for the oil trail. It was far too inconspicuous to be seen without getting out of the cars. The third side road was on the outskirts of a village; there the trail turned right. A sign-post said: Norton 1½ m.

“I think this is our stretch,” Roger said. “We could try blazing right along in one of the cars. If we got past them with one car, we could make a neat sandwich. I think they would be between here and the next village. They sheered off sharply enough from this one.”

“It would work,” Pirrie said thoughtfully. “On the other hand, they would probably fight it out. They’ve got an automatic and a rifle and revolver in that car. It might prove difficult to get at them without hurting the women.”

“Any other ideas?”

John tried to think, but his mind was too full of sick hatred, poised between some kind of hope and despair.

Pirrie said: “This country is very flat. If one of us were to shin up that oak, he might get a glimpse of them with the glasses.”

The oak stood in the angle of the road. Roger surveyed it carefully. “Give me a bunk-up^{93} to the first branch, and I reckon I shall be all right.”

He climbed the tree easily; he had to go high to find a gap in the leaves to give him a view. They could barely see him from below. He called suddenly:

“Yes!”

John cried: “Where are they?”

“About three-quarters of a mile along. Pulled into a field on the left hand side of the road. I’m coming down.”

John said: “And Ann—and Mary?”

Roger scrambled down and dropped from the lowest branch. He avoided John’s eyes.

“Yes, they’re there.”

Pirrie said thoughtfully: “On the left of the road. Are they pulled far in?”

“Clear of the opening—behind the hedge. If we went at them from the front we should be going in blind.”

Pirrie went across to the Ford. He came back with the heavy sporting rifle which was his weapon of choice.

He said: “Three-quarters of a mile—give me ten minutes. Then take the Citroen along there fast, and pull up a few hundred yards past them. Fire a few shots—not at them, but back along the lane. I fancy that will put them into the sort of position I want.”

Ten minutes!” John said.

“You want to get them out alive,” Pirrie said.

“They may—be ready to clear off before then.”

“You will hear them if they do. It will be noisy—backing out of a field. If you do, chase them with the Citroen and don’t hesitate to let them have it.” Pirrie hesitated. “You see, it will be unlikely that they will still have your wife and daughter with them in that case.”

And with a small indefinite nod, Pirrie started off along the road. A little way along he found a gap in the hedge, and ducked through it.

Roger looked at his watch. “We’d better be ready,” he said. “Olivia, Millicent—take the boys in the Ford. Come on, Johnny.”

John sat beside him in the front of the Citroen. He grinned painfully.

“I’m leading this well, aren’t I?”

Roger glanced at him. “Take it easy. You’re lucky to be conscious.”

John felt his nails tighten against the seat of the car.

“Every minute…’ he said. “The bloody swines! God knows, it’s bad enough for Ann, but Mary…”

Roger repeated: “Take it easy.” He looked at his watch again. “With luck, our friends along the road have got just over nine minutes to live.”

The thought crossed his other thoughts, irrelevantly, surprisingly; so much that he voiced it:

“We passed a telephone box just now. Nobody thought of getting the police.”

“Why should we?” Roger said. “There’s no such thing as public safety any longer. It’s all private now.” His fingernails tapped the steering-wheel. “So is vengeance.”

Neither spoke for the remainder of the waiting time. Still without a word, Roger started the car off and accelerated rapidly through the gears. They roared at the limit of the Citroen’s speed and noisiness along the narrow lane. In less than a minute, they had passed the opening to the field, and glimpsed the Vauxhall standing behind the hedge. The road ran straight for a further fifty yards. Roger braked sharply at the bend, and skidded the car across to take up the full width of the road.

John whipped open the door at his side. He had the automatic from Roger’s car; leaning across the bonnet of the Citroen, he fired a short burst. The shots rattled like darts against the shield of the placid summer afternoon. Then, in the distance, there were three more shots. Silence followed them.

Roger was still in the car. John said:

“I’m going through the hedge. You’d better stay here.”

Roger nodded. The hedge was thick, but John crashed his way through it, the blackthorn^{94} spikes ripping his skin as he did so. He looked back along the field. There were bodies on the ground. From the far end of the field, Pirrie was sedately advancing, his rifle tucked neatly under his arm. Listening, John heard groans. He began to run, his feet slipping and twisting on the ploughed ground.

Ann held Mary cradled in her lap, on the ground beside the car. They were both alive. The groans he had heard were coming from the three men who lay nearby. As John approached, one of them—small and wiry, with a narrow face covered with a stubble of ginger beard—began to get up. One arm hung loosely, but he had a revolver in the other.

John saw Pirrie lift his rifle, swiftly but without hurry. He heard the faint phutting noise of the silenced report, and the man fell, with a cry of pain. A bird which had settled on the hedge since the first disturbance, rose again and flapped away into the clear sky.

He brought rugs from the car, and covered Ann and Mary where they lay. He said, speaking in a whisper, as though even the sound of speech might hurt them further:

“Ann darling—Mary—it’s all right now.”

They did not answer. Mary was sobbing quietly. Ann looked at him, and looked away.

Pirrie covered the last few yards. He kicked the man who lay nearest to him, dispassionately but with precision. The man shrieked, and then subsided again into moaning.

At that moment, Roger came through the gap from the road, revolver in hand. He examined the scene, his gaze passing quickly from the huddled woman and the girl to the three wounded men. He looked at Pirrie.

“Not as tidy a job as last time,” he observed.

“It occurred to me,” said Pirrie—his voice sounded as out of place in the calm summer countryside as did the scene of misery and blood in which he had played his part—“that the guilty do not have the right to die as quickly as the innocent. It was a strange thought, was it not?” He stared at John. “I believe you have the right of execution.”

One of the three men had been wounded in the thigh. He lay in a curious twisted posture, with his hands pressed against the wound. His face was crumpled, as a child’s might be, in lines of misery and pain. But he had been attending to what Pirrie said. He looked at John now, with animal supplication.

John turned away. He said: “You finish them off.”

With flat unhappy wonder, he thought: in the past, there was always due process of law. Now law itself is a casual word in a ploughed field, backed by guns.

His words had not been directed to anyone in particular. Looking down at Ann and Mary, he heard Roger’s revolver crack once, and again, and heard the gasp of breath forced out by the last agony. Then Ann cried out:

“Roger!”

Roger said in a soft voice: “Yes, Ann.”

Ann released Mary gently, and got to her feet. She clenched her teeth against pain, and John went to help her. He still had the automatic strapped on his shoulder. He tried to stop her when she reached for it, but she pulled it from him.

Two of the men were dead. The third was the one who had been wounded in the thigh. Ann limped over to stand beside him. He looked up at her, and John saw behind the twisted tormented fear of his face the beginning of hope.

He said: “I’m sorry, Missus. I’m sorry.”

He spoke in a thick Yorkshire accent. There had been a driver, John remembered, in his old platoon in North Africa who had had that sort of voice, a cheerful fat little fellow who had been blown up just outside Bizerta^{95}.

Ann pointed the rifle. The man cried:

“No, Missus, no! I’ve got kids…”

Ann’s voice was flat. “This is not because of me,” she said. “It’s because of my daughter. When you were… I swore to myself that I would kill you if I got the chance.”

“No! You can’t It’s murder!”

She found some difficulty in releasing the safety catch. He stared up at her, incredulously, while she did so, and was still staring when the bullets began tearing through his body. He shrieked once or twice, and then was quiet. She went on firing until the magazine was exhausted. There was comparative silence after that, broken only by Mary’s sobbing.

Pirrie said calmly: “That was very well done, Mrs Custance. Now you had better rest again, until we can get the car out of here.”

Roger said: “I’ll move her.”

He got in the Vauxhall, and reversed sharply. A back wheel went over the body of one of the men. He drove the car through the gap, and out on to the road. He called:

“Bring them, will you?”

John lifted his daughter and carried her out of the car. Pirrie helped to support Ann. When they were both in the car, Roger sounded the horn several times. Then he slipped out He said to John:

“Take over. We’ll get clear of here before we do anything else—just in case the shots have attracted anyone. Then Olivia can look after them.”

John pointed to the field. “And those?”

Through the gap the three bodies were still visible, sprawled against the brown earth. Flies were beginning to settle on them.

Roger showed genuine surprise. “What about them?”

“We aren’t going to bury them?”

Pirrie chuckled drily. “We have no time, I fear, for that corporal work of mercy.”

The Ford drove up, and Olivia got out and hurried to join Ann and Mary. Pirrie walked back to take her place at the wheel.

Roger said: “No point in burying them. We’ve lost time, Johnny. Pull up just beyond Tadcaster—O.K.?”

John nodded. Pirrie called:

“I’ll take over as tail-end Charlie^{96}.”

“Fair enough,” Roger said. “Let’s get moving.”