I could not see that side of the house, but I imagined that two of the men entered in a swift rush, because the sounds of banging were followed by a minute of silence. A torch went on inside. Thirty seconds later, a head stuck out of the bedroom window and a beam played through the orchard, not quite reaching my tree. The head pulled back. A voice reported, “They’re gone.”
Three torches immediately went on, one of them barely ten feet from me, and bounced over the ground as the men went to the front. The lamp went on inside. Wary of others lingering in the dark, I crept forward until I was directly underneath the open window. I could hear their words: five men.
“—paper, it’s open at the obituaries,” said a deep London voice.
“The lamp was still warm,” said another.
“Any sign of the girl?”
Did he mean Estelle, or me? Could Brothers have summoned the means to direct five violent men here, to retrieve the child he was determined to keep?
“There’s two chairs pulled out from the table.”
“Could mean nothing.”
“Is this the kind of food a man on his own would have?” a new voice wondered.
I was startled when the next voice came inches from me: “Someone’s been sleeping on the floor in here.”
“This is the place, all right. Where do you suppose they’ve got to?”
“Ten feet away, they’d disappear,” said the first voice.
“Want to sit and wait?”
“No point, I shouldn’t think. Let’s have a look at that out-house. Then we can leave a little thank-you for the hermit.”
I did not at all care for the sound of that. I backed away from the house to consider my options.
Taken one at a time, I might be able to overcome them, and I would very much like to take at least one of them captive for questioning, but five men together? With at least some of them—I had no doubt—armed?
I am, I should say, very good at throwing things—darts, knives, cricket balls, chunks of stone. People tend to over-look the advantages of an accurate throwing arm, when it comes to weaponry.
No doubt if the men before me had witnessed me grubbing around my feet for large rocks, they would have thought it funny.
They made it easier by bunching together and shining all of their torches: I could hardly miss. The phrase shooting fish in a barrel came to mind, as my arm calculated the trajectory required, and let go, launching a couple of the missiles high into the air so as not to betray my position.
Seven fist-sized stones rained down on them; all seven hit flesh. Before they had the sense to shut off their lights and scatter, I saw two of them fall to the ground and one hunch down with his arms around his head. I also saw three handguns, and made haste to step back behind the old apple tree.
In the darkness, I heard groans and curses along with furiously whispered queries and commands. What I did not hear was gunshots. Which told me without a doubt that the men were experienced enough not to blaze into the darkness at an unseen assailant, wasting bullets and giving away their positions.
I’d have been far happier had they been amateurs. Reluctantly, I let go the possibility that I might get one alone.
They fell back to the house with their wounded. There they drew the curtains, closed the front door, and lit the lamp. To my satisfaction, in the muddle of this house-of-many-structures, although they closed the bedroom curtains, the connecting door remained half-open.
I walked silently up to the window and eased the curtain join apart, which allowed me a glimpse of the men gathered around the table.
They were assessing their injuries. One man went past with a white flash of dishtowel in his hand, and I heard a sound of ripping. All of a sudden the bedroom door flew fully open and a man came straight at me. I bolted sideways down the house, but no torch beam shot out of the window, and the tiny thread of light from the crack in the curtains remained as it was. Gingerly, I eased back to the window-sill, then held my eye to the crack again: This time, the bedroom door had been left open far enough to reveal several men, one of whom was ripping a large sheet of fabric—he’d been after the bed-sheet.
They bound wounds, washed bashes, cursed fluently. One man groaned. The others argued. Their faces were not distinct, because of the uncertain light and the number of shadows cast, but the accents told me that they were far from home, and they spoke more like criminals, or hardened soldiers, than police.
One man, the deep-voiced Londoner whom I had first heard speak, was adamant that they needed to stay until morning. The others objected loudly. Back and forth they went, until the voice that had been swearing pointed out that they’d be no safer during the day, once among those trees.
Even the Londoner fell silent at that reminder.
“Fine,” he said after a moment. “We’ll go as soon as Mack here can walk, but we’ll set fire to the place before we go. Pour out the bastard’s lamp on the floor and—”
I did not stop to think, I simply moved. Burning down the household of this poor man whose only sin had been to help a trio of strangers? Absolutely not. My right hand reached forward to yank one of the curtains from its rod, while the other snatched the knife from my boot, snapping it through the air. The sliver of steel left my fingers, passing through two rooms to plant itself in the man’s upper arm. He bellowed and disappeared, and I made haste to vanish, as well—it was not a serious injury, the angle and the limited target had guaranteed that, but it would serve to frighten them. With luck it might also deliver the warning that the woods held a corporeal sylvan who disliked this talk of burning.
Five minutes later, motion in the darkness materialised into the Green Man of the woods. “Come,” he said.
“One moment,” I responded.
He hunkered down beside me. The night was quiet again, and I was braced for the beginning crackle of flames. Instead, the torches appeared at the front of the house, and five shadows limped away, across the clearing to the path down which they had come.
I stood. “I need to see if they left my knife behind,” I told him.
“Why do they have your knife?”
“One of them was talking about torching your house. I wished to discourage him.”
He held my arm back with his hand. In a moment, I heard the same crackle of loosed branches I’d heard before, followed by shouts of pain and outrage.
Robert Goodman, hermit and Robin Goodfellow look-alike, chortled in pleasure. “Wait here,” he said. I heard him trot away. The window gave a dim light for perhaps two seconds, then went dark. Seconds later, I heard a faint squeak—the hen-house door. But why …?
Before he pressed the handle of my knife against my palm, I had worked out the meaning of that squeak: Goodman anticipated being gone long enough that his chickens would starve.
He grasped my hand, and pulled me away into the black expanse of his woods.
Chapter 34
Do you wish a motorcar?” Goodman’s enquiry was polite, as if offering me one lump or two in my tea.
“Do you have one?” I asked in astonishment. Puck with a motorcar?
“Theirs is on the road. We could reach it before they do.”
“Mr Goodman,” I said in admiration, “you have a definite aptitude for low trickery.”
He chuckled, then shifted course and sped up.
I was blind. Only the wordless eloquence of his hand in mine kept me from injury, if not coma: His fingers told me when to go left and when right; a slight lift of the hand warned me of uneven footing; a pull down presaged the brush of a bough against my head. In twenty minutes, I sensed the trees retreating and knew that we were on the cleared soil of a forest track.
Now he broke into a fast trot, pulling me along in childish companionship. It was terrifying at first, then strangely exhilarating, to run at darkness, trustingly hand in hand with a wood sprite. I could only pray that his attentive guidance would not waver. In eight or nine minutes, he slowed, and I became aware of the smell of burnt petrol
: the crash site.
He stopped to listen to the night, then said, “We have three or four minutes. If I push the motor, there is a slope in half a mile that should be sufficient to start it.”
“Wait—can we risk a light?” I asked.
“Briefly.”
“I may be able to circumvent the ignition lock.” His footsteps went around to the passenger side while I felt my way in behind the wheel—groping first for the keys, but finding them gone—then contorted myself sideways until my head rested against Goodman’s knee, half under the instrument panel. He lit a match, shielding it as best he could with his body, and I saw that the motorcar was my old friend the Austin 7, which must have been a tight fit for five men and their local guide, but made my task easier. If only my mind hadn’t been taken up by the rapid approach of five angry men with guns … I pulled at the wires, followed their leads, and let him light another match when the first one burnt to his fingers. At the third one, I had it: A yank and three quick twists, and the car would be mine.
I touched the wires together: The starter spun into life. I jerked upright, slammed my door, turned on the head-lamps, and slapped it into gear. We jolted forward, and the woods exploded in a fury of gunfire.
Had it not been for the trees, the bullets might have hit us, but we were safely away long before the shooters reached the track. I eased my foot back on the pedal, and let out a nervous laugh. “A bit closer than I’d have wished.”
“Driving like that, we could have used you on the Front,” he said.
“I do hope Javitz and Estelle are in this direction? It might not be a good idea to turn around.”
“Two miles north,” he agreed, “then ten minutes’ walk.”
“Is that all? If those men come after us, they’ll catch us up.”
“Why should they? We could be making for Carlisle, or Newcastle. They’ll turn back to the village.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said uneasily.
“Do you know what they want?”
In truth, I did not. “One of them said something about ‘the girl,’ but I don’t know if that meant Estelle, or me.”
Two miles up the track he had me stop. The head-lamps dimmed, then went dark as I separated the wires; the silence was loud over the tick of cooling metal. Had we come far enough that the men would not notice the sudden cease of motor noise, and renew their pursuit?
Goodman got out, and I quickly whispered, “Don’t slam the door.”
“No,” he said. I was again blind. His feet rounded the motorcar’s bonnet towards me; the door creaked open. “You can’t see?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If we wait a—”
His hand found mine, to lead me again into rough ground; leaves brushed my legs and arms. It required an intense commitment of trust that this man was not leading me off a cliff or into a tree. The earlier run through the dark had been terrifying, but my brief return to control and capability—to say nothing of vision—brought a strong impulse to freeze. Every step was a decision: to trust, or rebel? In the end, the only way I could continue to follow him was by imagining that the hand in mine belonged to Holmes, whom I had followed blindly into circumstances worse than this.
Once I had half-convinced myself of that, the going became easier.
It was probably not much more than the ten minutes he had suggested before we found Javitz and Estelle, although it seemed like an hour. Judging by the relief in his voice, Javitz had felt the press of time, as well, sitting alone in the darkness—thankfully, Estelle was fast asleep. I relieved him of the bundle of child and fur, and heard him struggle to his feet.
“I’ll support you when I can,” Goodman told Javitz in a low voice, “but the path is narrow. Use the crutch and put your free hand on my shoulder. Miss Russell, you follow. Yes?”
“Let’s go,” Javitz said. I shifted Estelle into my left arm and inched forward until my fingers encountered his shoulder, and we moved off.
We walked like a platoon of gas-blinded soldiers. It might have been easier had we been on flat ground and able to march in step, but between the unevenness of the terrain and our various impediments, we stumbled at a turtle’s pace, and made so much noise I could feel Goodman’s disapproval, even with Javitz between us. An entire night passed, longer, a nightmare of stumbling, cursing, tangling, and growing fear.
Finally, our guide could stand it no longer. He stopped, causing us to pile up into him, and spoke. “I will come back for you.”
Before either of us could speak, he was gone. Gratefully, I sank to the ground and let the weight go off my arms. Javitz stayed upright, propped on his stick. Neither of us spoke.
Five minutes went by; eight. Javitz stirred, and said, “He will come back.”
“Yes.” In truth, I did not much care: I was quite prepared to sit here, warm under the fur and the small body, until light dawned.
But Goodman did return, without so much as a rustle before his voice whispered, “All clear. Just a hundred yards more.”
I struggled upright, hushed Estelle’s sleepy protest, and laid my hand on the pilot’s shoulder.
Never have I been more grateful to feel a rustic track underfoot.
With some effort, we folded Javitz into the back of the motorcar, and I deposited Estelle in his lap. I whispered, “You are all right, holding her?”
“I can’t do the driving,” came his voice in my ear, “so I might as well hang on to her. She’s a good kid,” he added.
“Isn’t she just?” I replied gratefully, and resumed my place behind the wheel.
I went less than a mile, then stopped, leaving the engine running.
“Mr Goodman, I appreciate all you’ve done for us, but there’s no reason to take you any farther. I’d suggest you be very cautious about your house for a time, since there’s no knowing if they mightn’t come back, but I think you could manage that.”
“I will c-come with you.”
“There’s no need for—”
“Go!” he roared.
We went.
With our five pursuers to the south, we were forced to motor north, eventually to circle around. The forest track thinned and nearly died altogether, but eventually grew more confident, giving way to a wider track, which led to a more-or-less metalled stretch, until eventually our tyres hit a surface recognisable as roadway. I was grateful that our villains had thought to fill the petrol tank before they had ventured into the wooded places. Their thoughtfulness meant that we had fuel sufficient to reach civilisation.
Or if not civilisation, at least a crossroads with two buildings. One was a neat stone house, darkened at this hour. The other appeared to have been a smithy from time immemorial, converted now to the Twentieth-Century equivalent: a garage. A shiny petrol pump stood in the forecourt, illuminated from above by a hanging lamp, an altar light over a shrine to modernity.
It was still well before dawn and none of the shrine’s attendants were stirring. However, I for one needed to stretch my legs, step into the bushes, and consider our next move.
I pulled into the station’s forecourt and put on the hand-brake, then fumbled to separate the ignition wires. They spat and the motor died. Instantly, a small sleepy voice piped, “Where are we?”
Good question.
We climbed from the motor and took turns paying visits to the shrubbery. I gave Estelle some biscuits and a cup of water from a tap behind the petrol station, which woke the dog tied behind the dark house, which in turn roused the owner. The man stuck his head out of the upstairs window, shouted the dog to silence, then demanded what we thought we were doing.
I launched into speech before any of my companions could respond, a tumble of apology in a cut-glass accent with words designed to soften the heart of the hardest working man: took a wrong turning came in early, and ill mother and emergency summons and child, followed by desperate and terribly sorry and frightened and hungry, but it wasn’t until I hit plenty of money that the window slammed down and a light went o
n inside.
“Look hopeless, you two,” I suggested, at which Javitz leant heavily on his stick while Goodman did him one better by stepping away into the night. Clutching Estelle, who by this time was fully awake and curious about it all, I waited beneath the light for the man above to tug on his trousers and come down.
By the breadth of his shoulders, he had been the smith before the petrol engine took over his occupation—his hands were permanently stained with the grease of engines, but they showed signs of regular use of an anvil and hammer as well. The rôle of the smith in the mythic landscape of England required that the man be addressed with considerable respect, and more than a little care: A smith answered only to himself.
However, silver placates the most irascible of gods. A display of our tribute soon had him working the pump, but it was my air of respect and Javitz’s of interest that led to the grudging admission, once the tank was filled, that he generally woke near to now anyway. I glanced at the sky, and noticed the faint fading of stars to the east. I gave him a wide smile and asked brightly, “If you’re about to make yourself some tea, I don’t suppose you’d like to sell us a cup?”
He grimaced, but then went into the house, which I took for agreement.
While he was away, I took advantage of the light over the pumps to go through the motor’s various pockets.
It was, as I’d expected, a hire car, from a garage in Lancaster—the size alone promised they hadn’t come from far away in it. This suggested that the men had come up from the south on a train, having got news of an aeroplane crash followed by the odd purchases made by one of the more colourful local residents. They’d either been remarkably efficient or damnably lucky, to find us so quickly.