The Day of Disaster Read online

  Then he found himself thinking of Nurse Caroll, and smiled a little grimly.

  When the car stopped he said: ‘You get out, Bob, will you? I don’t feel like moving.’

  ‘Of course,’ Kerr said. He moved off with the policeman to the Platoon Commander’s office, going through for the third time the rigmarole of asking for Emile’s boot.

  Five minutes later he returned to the Bentley; by then it was quite dark. Loftus leaned towards the window.

  ‘Any luck?’

  ‘They don’t know anything about them here,’ said Kerr, ‘but the patrol which found him is somewhere in the country—Welton knows where to get hold of the men.’

  ‘Good,’ said Loftus.

  He was not feeling good. The aching in his thigh was worrying, while the continued failure of the boots to appear was strangely reminiscent of some nightmarish fairy-tale. Legarde, alias Langham, had sent a message through Emile; the fact that Langham had given away that simple ‘spell it backwards’ code to a French youth was evidence enough that Langham knew the message to be of vital importance, and one which must be sent through at all costs. Loftus wondered why he, himself, had been so casual about it until then, so blind to the urgency of it.

  He saw it now all right. He was obsessed with the need for finding the letter, was on tenterhooks lest the boots had been destroyed or lost. He tried once or twice to tell himself that he was getting worked up unnecessarily, but knew that was not true. In him there had grown a conviction that this thing mattered, that it was indeed an affair of urgent importance.

  It was as if a sixth sense lurked in him, warning him of what was to come, of the issues which depended on the discovery of the letter. That was the first stage; without it he could do nothing, and it was vital to do a great deal.

  As the car went through the narrow country roads, the two masked headlights giving a fair light, he found himself perspiring although the night was cold. Suddenly the figures of men showed in the beams of light, and Loftus saw a barrier half-way across the road. He cursed it, surmising it would prove to be an inspection of registration cards, and another delay when delay was intolerable. He stopped himself from snapping at the uniformed man who spoke through the open window.

  ‘I’d like to see your registration card, sir, please.’

  Loftus had it ready. Apparently they were to make a detour, since operations on the main road were in progress, and would last for some hours.

  Kerr said: ‘We haven’t time to waste.’ He spoke shortly.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ began the Home Guard, but the policeman said quietly: ‘We’re on police business, and it’s urgent. If you can’t let us through, bring an officer.’ This, however, was not easily done, and when the Home Guard Captain finally arrived he was annoyed.

  ‘In the middle of exercises we’ve been planning for a month!’ he exclaimed irritably. He examined the police warrant, and seemed prepared to submit, although reluctantly. ‘Who do you want to see?’

  ‘The patrol who found a Frenchman near here last week,’ said Kerr.

  ‘Oh, I remember. Let me think, now—Bott and Anderson brought the man in——’

  ‘Do you know where he was first taken?’ interpolated Loftus.

  ‘No, you’ll have to see them. They’re at Hern. But as you’re in a hurry you’d better go straight through. I’ll send a man with you.’

  A Home Guard clambered in beside them. Without him they would have been stopped half a dozen times, and several times they were challenged. Loftus felt impatience growing within him, and yet logic told him that this thing was necessary, that it was good to know that the Home Guard was so thorough in its training.

  They passed the scene of operations at last, and then the car gathered speed. Finally the headlights shone on a wayside cottage.

  ‘I think this is a Home Guard post,’ said Welton. ‘I’ll slip out and see.’ He hurried along the narrow path. Kerr was muttering something under his breath.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Loftus.

  ‘I was saying they’ve probably given them away for a rummage sale,’ said Kerr. ‘Of all the lousy delays this is the lousiest. Why didn’t you show your card? They wouldn’t have been so awkward if you had.’

  Loftus said slowly: ‘I don’t know that it’s wise to let ‘em know just how important it is.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Kerr, a little blankly, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Call it a hunch,’ said Loftus. ‘I’m worried about those boots. I want to know why they weren’t sent to the police, if not to the hospital.’

  Kerr said: ‘You’re not thinking they might have been kept back deliberately?’

  ‘I’m thinking it’s possible,’ said Loftus. He did not speak of his fears again, although across his mind there had flashed the possibility that Emile had been followed to England, or discovered in England by people who did not want his message to get through.

  On the surface the idea was fantastic. He did not know how Emile had made the journey, but if he had been followed the second man would surely have been caught by the Home Guard patrols. He remembered then that he had very few details of how Emile had been found; at the time they had not seemed necessary. Now he wished he had obtained every item of information possible.

  He looked up to see Welton returning.

  ‘I don’t know whether you would like to see the old lady, sir. She says the kid was brought here, and she took off his boots because one of his legs was bleeding. But——’

  ‘Go on,’ said Loftus quickly.

  ‘She says the boots were stolen, sir.’

  ‘Stolen!’ snapped Loftus. ‘Open the door for me, will you.’ He would have climbed down too swiftly had Kerr not been out of the car by then, standing by to lend a hand. The trio walked up the narrow path, and were admitted to the tiny parlour of the cottage. There were photographs and pictures on all the walls, while bric-à-brac lay everywhere, even to white china spaniels on the floor.

  ‘Be keerful, now, be keerful!’ a high-pitched voice admonished from the gloom. ‘Mind me dogs, if you please, m’boy gi’ em to me when he stayed in Margit.’ A very old woman with a lined, nut-cracker face stood protectively before the dogs.

  Loftus drew a deep breath; he was not in the mood for being tactful, but it would be folly, now, to rush developments.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ he said.

  ‘Well, what is it ye want, worrying an old woman at this time o’ night? Me boy’s out on duty, an’ his wife’s in village, doing some flummery wi’ nursing at the Red Cross.’

  ‘Your son’s in the Home Guard?’ asked Loftus.

  ‘Aye, an’ a better soldier than any.’

  ‘I’m sure of that,’ said Loftus. ‘He brought a fugitive here last Wednesday, you say?’

  ‘His friends did,’ snapped the old woman waspishly, ‘my Teddy would’ve knowed better. But I did all I could for the boy, an’ no one can say other!’

  ‘I’m sure,’ repeated Loftus stonily. ‘But we want to find his boots.’

  ‘Boots!’ She spat the word. ‘Wore right out, they were, and not worth anyone’s taking, but they went from the rubbish heap at the back, an’ any man’s a liar who said they didn’t. Cheap, worthless things they were, not worth anyone’s trouble.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Loftus. He felt a sudden wave of relief, although he had no real reason for it. ‘You’re sure they weren’t worth anything?’

  ‘I wouldn’t gi’ ye sixpence at a jumble sale!’

  ‘That’s odd,’ said Loftus, lying deliberately. ‘The man says they were a new pair.’

  The woman raised her voice to one of near-frenzy.

  ‘He’s a liar, then. Green you be if you believe a Frenchie. Put ‘em on th’ waste heap I did, and——’

  Loftus said: ‘And you took them off again. They were good boots. If you didn’t sell them, who did you give them to?’

  There was a moment of silence; and then the high-pitched voice sank to a whining note of injury. She had not thou
ght, she sniffed, anyone would mind. She’d given them to Teddy. The coupons, that was the trouble, it wasn’t the money it was the coupons. Waste not want not, gov’ment dinned in from morn till night-fall. Blame them.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said Loftus sharply. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Teddy’s got ‘em on,’ said the woman with another sniff. ‘He won’t like having to gi’ them up, mister, and that’s a fac’.’ The little eyes grew sharp.

  ‘Where’s your son?’ demanded Loftus.

  ‘On dooty, up at spinney.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Loftus to Welton. ‘Do you know where the spinney is?’

  ‘Let Welton go and fetch the man,’ suggested Kerr. ‘We can wait for him here.’

  ‘If ye’d like a cup of tea,’ began the old woman.

  Loftus said: ‘That’s an idea.’

  The woman shuffled out with Kerr, who saw Welton off, their voices loud in the silence.

  Back in the room Kerr said thoughtfully: ‘So you were worried about those boots?’

  Loftus grinned in relief.

  ‘You could call it that.’

  Kerr, took out his cigarette case. ‘You even had me wondering. They shouldn’t be long—there goes the car.’

  ‘It’ll be midnight before we’re back home,’ said Loftus, ‘but when I’ve got the letter I can ‘phone Craigie. It’s an odd show. It’s got under my skin.’

  ‘And mine,’ said Kerr.

  They lapsed into silence as the sound of the Bentley’s engine faded into the distance. Another car passed almost immediately, but they thought nothing of it; they would have thought more, had they known the driver wanted Emile’s boots as urgently as they did.

  4

  Urgent Errand

  The man in the second car had received a telephone order a little more than an hour before. It had been brief and to the point: he was to follow the two men who were looking for Emile’s boots, and get the boots.

  Put like that, it sounded easy.

  The driver had no doubt of its difficulty, however, and as he drove he was not only cold and worried, but desperate; he had to obey the order, for refusal would bring about personal disaster. He had been threatened with that several times, and knew what it was like to imagine a firing-squad in front of him, to hear the officer’s final word of command. He could almost hear the crash of shots, and feel the pain as the bullets entered his chest.

  He hated pain, although he lived by it. That was why he had first taken a bribe for a trivial piece of information, long before the war had started. Others had followed, until the money was accompanied by orders, not requests.

  He shied from the word ‘spy’.

  He convinced himself that no information he gave away was important, that it did not cost lives or money or material, that he was only passing information which a hundred others had probably obtained. It was the only way he could ease his conscience, although there were times like this, when he knew that he was lying to himself and felt the shame of it.

  But he went on; failure meant disclosure, and he could not face that.

  He had told the man on the telephone many small things. The name of the regiment stationed at such-and-such a village or town, their approximate numbers, their apparent amount of equipment. He had talked of the cargo ships waiting in south coast harbours, given names and number of British ships that he could see. He had passed on information about the aeroplanes hidden at certain aerodromes in the south-west, where he lived and worked.

  All this information was easy for him to come across.

  Finding the boots was another matter. Only once before had he been given such a task, and then he had carried an automatic in his pocket, knowing that if things went badly he must use it if he was to escape. The telephone-man had assured him that if ever he was forced into difficulties he would be given prompt and efficient help. He believed it, not from any reasonable conviction, but because he wanted to, refusing to admit even a chance that he might be found out and put on trial.

  He had stopped some distance behind the Bentley, having managed to pass the Home Guards with even less delay than Loftus and the others.

  He was within earshot of Detective Welton when the latter had come out of the cottage, and had overheard most of the instructions. He was thus able to follow Welton fairly easily. Knowing the country, he had no fear that he would lose his quarry. He stopped his car when the Bentley stopped, and hurried along on foot to the spinney. There was light from the headlamps of the parked Bentley.

  It showed a game-keeper’s hut, and outside it three men. Welton was one; the others were in Home Guard uniform. The man with the automatic drew close enough to hear the old woman’s son cursing the newcomer. At first he flatly refused to take off the boots, but Welton was persuasive, and presently ‘Teddy’ gave way. ‘Oh, all right, ‘ave the ruddy boots. ‘Oo the ‘ell wants ‘em, anyway.’ He began to untie the laces while Welton tactfully placed another pair beside him.

  The man with the automatic drew within ten yards. He was trembling, and his hand was clammy about the steel of his gun. He knew that if he were to get the boots from the three men he must shoot, or convince them that he proposed to do so; and he was not sure that he could carry such a bluff through.

  He moved another yard forward, and then he felt a hand on his shoulder. His lips opened but the cry he was about to utter was stillborn, for a hand covered his mouth.

  A voice whispered: ‘Stay where you are Brice. When both boots are off, let them know you’re here. Tell them to put their hands up.’

  The man out of the night knew him; he was a friend. Brice’s throat was dry and rasping. He swallowed painfully as the man left him. A shadowy figure moved to the right; he thought he saw another, to his left.

  He focussed his eyes on the trio by the game-keeper’s hut. Teddy had removed the other boot, and Welton was stooping down to pick them both up. Teddy was still muttering oaths when Brice forced himself to go forward. He would not have succeeded but for the knowledge of the man or men watching him.

  His voice, when it came, was pitched several notes too high.

  ‘Put your hands up!’ He stepped just inside the beam of light, his automatic pointing towards Welton. He saw the way the two Home Guards stared at him, gaping in their surprise. He saw Welton stiffen. ‘Put them up! Put them up I tell you!’

  They ignored him, hardly thinking he could be serious.

  The two Home Guards, Teddy without his boots, leapt at the same time, and he squeezed the trigger of the automatic, blindly. He saw Teddy fall forward, as the gun was sent flying from his hand.

  Brice crashed backwards.

  Welton stood quite still, holding the boots. The whole thing had happened so quickly that he had not time to think. But he realised that Teddy had been hurt, and he began to move forward, uttering a sharp exclamation as he did so.

  Then he saw the other two men.

  They were converging on him from the right and the left, no more than vague, distorted shapes, as yet. He saw the gun in one man’s hand, caught in the shaft from the masked headlamps. He did not know whether the other was armed, but he did know that they wanted the boots; there could be no other explanation.

  He began to run.

  He heard the sneeze of a bullet from a silenced automatic as it missed him, the thump as it buried itself in the trunk of a nearby tree. He heard another shot, and felt a red-hot pain in his left leg. It made him stagger but did not stop him altogether.

  He heard a cursing, milling group not far behind him; but he had only one pursuer. The man fired again and Welton felt a sharp tug at the boots in his hand. There were many trees and saplings, and he was by then in darkness, beyond the range of the light. He thought, with a gasp of relief, that he could get through safely, until he saw the flash of flame from another shot near him, and a second in front of him.

  There was someone there too.

  He stood quite still, then turned to the right. He could hear footsteps following
him and knew that more than two men were in his wake; the spinney seemed alive with them. He knew then that he could not get away safely, but that he might be able to dispose of the boots.

  He was in a comparatively clear patch; and he did the only thing he could. He hurled one boot and then the other high above the close scrub into the over-hanging trees. He did not see them soaring upwards, but he heard them crashing through the branches.

  He heard another shot, and plunged face downwards, he saw a torch light shine about him, and then gasped as a man kicked him heavily in the ribs.

  ‘Where are they?’ The voice was rough, but it was an Englishman’s.

  Welton said nothing, feigning unconsciousness.

  ‘I’ll kick your ruddy ribs in. Where are they?’

  Welton kept quite still, until a boot crashed into his ribs with such sickening force that he heard the bones crack. He gasped: ‘Away. I threw them away.’

  He heard an oath, and as yet another blow fell agonisingly on him, he lost consciousness. He did not know that the second Home Guard had managed to crawl away after being wounded, and was staggering along the side of the road, just alert enough to know he must throw himself into the ditch if he heard a car behind him.

  Loftus, looking at his wrist-watch, compared it with the clock on the mantelshelf, and frowned. In front of him, and between him and Kerr, was a small table on which was a wedge of fruit cake, a teapot and two empty cups and saucers.

  The teapot was cold.

  ‘One hour and five minutes,’ Loftus said sharply. ‘I don’t like it, Bob.’

  ‘You’re too jittery,’ Kerr said lazily. He was smoking a pipe, both looking and feeling more content than he had been for a long time. ‘No one else knows about those boots, old man, you’re working yourself up over nothing.’

  ‘I may be,’ Loftus admitted without conviction. ‘But even so, I don’t like it, and if I had two sound legs I’d be on the way to that spinney. What about it?’