Word presently came to Blount and Hallam that two boys had been seen in a top-floor window on the south side of the house. Blount silently patted Nigel on the back: the hunch was vindicated. The two officers, after a short conference, agreed that no second attack should be made tonight. They had not enough men at their disposal to risk rushing the house, and the men were unfamiliar with the terrain.
“Thank God this isn’t London,” Blount remarked, “or we should have to be using three-quarters of them to hold back the sight-seers.”
The wounded men were returned to Ipswich by ambulance, and reinforcements sent for. Hallam ordered sniping from each side of the house (it was safe enough, now they knew which room the boys were in), to draw the gangsters’ fire and get some idea of their strength. The reply suggested to him that there were about half a dozen men in the house, all equipped with automatic weapons. He ordered cease-fire, and began redistributing his meager force so as to tighten the cordon. Apart from the foot patrols, one police car blocked the main drive, another the western exit, while two more crusied about the park to north and south, their headlights feeling this way and that like antennae, startling the owls and ruining the night’s sleep of a herd of deer.
At dawn, after they had had a cup of tea in the lodge, Nigel and Blount went on a reconnaissance. It was a bizzarre sight—the beautiful house taking shape out of the darkness and early morning mists. No sound, no smoke from the chimneys, no life at the shuttered windows. It seemed quite dead; or like a Sleeping Beauty’s palace, unreal, lapped in a cataleptic trance. But it was not dead, only deadly dangerous. A bullet clipped the trunk of an oak from behind which Blount was peering. The van had been moved, so that it blocked the entrance to the courtyard now; if the house was to be attacked from this quarter, either the van must be shifted or the police must scale the courtyard wall; either way, it would be suicide. Yet this north side was the only one which gave cover, in the wall and outbuildings, for the first stage of an assault. To east, south, and west the ground sloped gently away from the house, so that even the police in the ha-ha were pinned down. Even if they could rush the hundred yards between it and the south terrace, they would still be faced with the task of breaking through the shuttered windows, under fire.
Hallam wisely decided that the job was too big for him. He had only rifles and carbines, against automatic weapons. His men could probably rush the house, if they attacked from all sides, but at the cost of casualties he was not prepared to risk. Valuing his men’s lives higher than his pride, he drove off to get in touch with the military authorities. Events soon proved how right he was.
At seven-thirty Tom fetched his aunt to make breakfast for the defenders. In her absence, Bert and Foxy tried to break open the locked door; but it was stoutly built, and all they broke was the chair with which they battered it. They then went to the window, and yelled out to the police in the ha-ha. When they had attracted attention, Bert dropped the Noah’s ark with the message through the bars; it burst on the terrace below, and the paper fluttered through the stone balusters onto the lawn. A young policeman began scrambling out of the ha-ha to fetch it; he held an iron shield before him, which was some protection against Fred, shooting at him from the room above the French windows. But Mac, enfilading from the southern window of the turret, cut the policeman down as he started to make a dash for it. He writhed for a little, then lay still.
The gangsters were now committed. They had killed a man, and could expect no mercy. Bert, ashen-faced, lay sobbing on the bed; he felt it was he who had killed the man, and he almost welcomed the blows which Tom presently gave him and Foxy for trying to communicate with the rescuers. The boys were taken down to the cellars at pistol point, bound, and left there for what seemed hours.
And indeed, it was hours before the military machine could be set in motion. Hallam had to unwind a certain amount of red tape: the nearest army detachment could not be made available, and troops had to be sent from a distance of fifty miles. By the time they had been equipped and got under way, it was midday. The vehicles, carrying a company of infantry and headed by an armored car, rolled through the park gates a little before two P.M. There was then another delay, while the military commander conferred with the police officers. It was decided to engage three sides of the house with a platoon each, while the police withdrew to form an outer cordon; then the armored car would shoot a way for the remaining platoon to enter the main door at the east.
Mac, from his turret window, could see the armored car between the trees lining the drive. The military dispositions elsewhere were reported to him by Tom. Well, they’d had it now. There was little hope of holding out for the remaining six and a half hours till darkness fell. But Mac was fighting mad; he would not take any soft options now—not that they’d be offered. Would the others cave in, though? Even Fred? The only thing to do now was to play his last card, in the hope of gaining time. He dispatched Tom to fetch the hostages.
The loud-speaker on a police car crackled and uttered: “We give you two minutes to surrender. Two minutes to surrender. Walk out of the east door, with your hands up.”
Bert and Foxy heard it faintly, as they were hustled upstairs, into an attic. Tom went ahead, climbed a ladder, opened a skylight.
“Up you go, sonnies,” said Mac, behind them with a revolver.
They emerged onto a flat roof—quite a big expanse of it. The men drove them to the far end, thirty yards away, where there was a two-foot coping.
Bert shrank back with a moan. Foxy’s teeth were set in his sharp, white face. At the coping, the roof stopped, a precipice of gray stone, tree tops level with them; and far, far down, faces like white disks began to turn up toward them.
“Just sit down there, sonnies,” said Mac, “till I talk to the army of liberation.”
They sat down on the coping, with their feet supported by a ledge above vacancy. Mac was on his stomach behind them now, invisible to the soldiers and police. Nigel heard a fog-horn voice.
“Can you hear me, blue bottles and brown jobs?… If you start anything, we’ll shoot these two nippers off the edge of the roof. So b—— off home now with that little toy on wheels!”
Nigel, craning upward, saw one of the two tiny figures on the skyline—the red-haired one—put his arm round the other. Tears pricked his eyes, blurring those figures on the coping. The whole thing had been so fantastic: the steel-helmeted soldiers behind their Brens, the armored car throbbing amid the trees, the loud-speaker crackling—all in the summer afternoon, the gracious, derelict park. But now that voice from the rooftop had shattered the fantasy. And time was passing.
“Well, what’s the form now? Bit of an impasse, isn’t it?” The captain in command of the soldiers was talking to Blount and Hallam, behind his armored car. I suppose all warfare is like this, thought Nigel—brief oases of action in deserts of inactivity, of waiting, of conferences and post-mortems: but time is passing: how much more have we? a day? six hours? an hour?
His reverie was broken by the loud-speaker. “Surrender Jameson Elmer! Hand over Jameson Elmer to the police, my lads, and you may do yourselves a bit of good. You haven’t a hope otherwise. Surrender Jameson Elmer!”
“Surrender my Aunt Fanny!” boomed back the voice from the roof. And it’s just as well Jameson bleeding Elmer isn’t here, thought Mac, or the boys might begin to weaken.
“All right,” said the loud-speaker. “We can wait.”
But they couldn’t. Nigel knew that, and Blount knew it. The tiny figure up there, the boy huddled on the coping, possessed information which might affect the peace of the whole world. If they attacked, he would be shot; if they waited till the gangsters caved in, it would be too late, and this weird little action in a Suffolk park might beget, as its final issue, a world war. A third time, the loud-speaker blared.
“Calling Bert Hale. Calling Bert Hale. Keep your chins up, Bert and Foxy. You’ll be all right. You’re doing fine, both of you. Got a view up there? Grandstand seat?”
> It was Blount hailing them. Nigel felt a surge of affection for his friend; there were not many men who, under these desperate circumstances, would think about reassuring the terrified boys.
“Call out to us, Bert. We’ll hear you. What was written on the paper Dai Williams gave you?”
Bert opened his mouth. A voice from behind him said, “Shut your trap, kid. One sound from you, and I’ll shoot.”
In the police car, Blount mopped his brow. Well, that was that. Nigel saw a rook, unsettled by the loud-speaker’s brayings, come gliding down again into a tree top. The next minute he was talking urgently to Hallam and the Company Commander.
“I should think we can lay it on, old boy,” said the latter, “if the Brylcreem boys will play.”
Soon a message was being tapped out from the radio truck which stood further back in the drive. Half an hour passed. Three quarters. The radio set crackled again. A runner came to the Company Commander.
“At sixteen hours, sir.”
“We’ll get cracking at fifteen-fifty-eight,” said the Captain to Blount and Hallam. “This is going to be a shaky do.”
“It’s that, or nothing. We’ve just got to take the risk.”
“Poor little blighters. Hope someone gives them a medal.”
From the turret window, ten minutes later, Mac saw the movement starting. He had come down again, leaving Tom on the roof with orders to shoot Bert Hale if anything went wrong. Foxy could be spared—for the present, at any rate. Foxy had guts. Mac could do with people who had guts. Now, looking out, Mac saw the armored car turning, maneuvering off the drive, passing along the south side of the house and disappearing. What the hell were the bastards up to now? The droops were on the move, too, filing this way and that at the double, and the line of carriers had started up their engines. Could it be a withdrawal?
Tom, still covering the boys with his revolver, crawled to the southern edge of the roof and cautiously peered over. The armored car was approaching from the west, roaring along the lawn between terrace and ha-ha. Beyond the ha-ha, two police cars were bumping over the grass of the park land, their loud-speakers bellowing orders.
There was a great revving-up of engines, a tramping of feet, a shouting of commands; and in the midst of this pandemonium, it’s approach downed by the din, a helicopter came floating like thistledown from the east, almost brushing the tallest tree tops.
Foxy and Bert saw it at the same moment. Foxy gripped his friend’s wrist, muttering fiercely. “Ssh! Keep still!” Bert flinched away a little, almost fell back off the coping, for it looked as if the helicopter’s wheels were going to part his hair for him. But, like thistledown in an eddy of air, it lifted at that very instant, its vertical screw turning fast. And at that instant Tom heard its engine, looked up, saw the aircraft looming monstrously above him. He was just about to withdraw his eyes from it and take aim at Bert Hale’s back when the objects began falling from the helicopter toward him. Jesus! they were bombing. Tom lost his nerve, and with a yell of panic dashed for the skylight. The objects burst on the roof, one behind him and one in front, and Tom was caught between two rising walls of blinding, suffocating smoke.
The falling of the smoke bombs was the signal for a general assault. The Bren-gunners poured in their fire at the first-floor windows, concentrating particularly on those which covered the main drive. The armored car, which had now reached the point where the drive forked, made a sudden sweeping U-turn over turf borders and flower beds, accelerated hard, drove forward, bucking up the broad, shallow flight of steps which led to the great east door, and rammed it at an angle, then backed to allow the infantry file, following close behind, to enter. It had been beautifully synchronized—the whole operation. But what was happening up there amid the coiling smoke on the rooftop, Nigel wondered. Already the helicopter was making another approach; this time it would land on the flat roof, and its occupants leap out to occupy that strong point in case the gangsters should attempt to make a last stand there.
As the smoke bombs burst, Bert and Foxy had thrown themselves flat on the roof behind the coping. Foxy was up in a moment, dragging Bert by the hand, running full tilt for the cover of the smoke. They could hear Tom, coughing and gasping. They made a detour, eyes shut, holding their breath, and by great good luck stumbled upon the skylight. There was no time to fasten it behind them. They had only one thought—to get away from Tom and his revolver. Down the ladder they tumbled, into the attic, through the door, along a passage, down a flight of stairs. They heard Tom cursing as he blundered along, somewhere behind them. They heard the crash and rattle of firing; paused for a moment, uncertain what to do, at the foot of the stairs.
There was a shattering above them, a groan, and a body came bumping down the stairs at them—Tom, shot dead by a random bullet which had entered the landing window. The boys tore down the next flight, as though the body were still pursuing them. On the next landing they checked again. They could distantly hear the troops breaking through into the other side of the house, and were about to move in that direction when at the far end of the corridor a door cautiously opened, the muzzle of a weapon protruded, then a face; it was the face Bert most feared in the world—that of the man who had threatened him with a knuckle-duster in Kensington Gardens. Bert plunged through a door behind him, dragging Foxy. They locked it, and fled into the adjoining room.
“Quick, I know where to hide,” Bert gasped. His memories of the house served him well now. They darted in and out of rooms and corridors. Once a burst from Fred’s gun brought the plaster showering in their tracks. But soon they had reached the room Bert was making for; he pushed the acorns on the mantelpiece; the panel of the priest’s hole slid open, and Bert shoved Foxy in. He could just reach the secret spring from inside. He pressed it again, and the panel closed as he hastily withdrew his arm. There was a thudding explosion outside—Fred shooting out the lock of the door; a curse, as he found the room empty.
“They’ll never find us here,” said Bert exultantly. “Smashing hiding place, isn’t it, Foxy?”
He remembered, the next moment, that the panel could not be opened from inside, and that the only person who knew its secret had just been killed. Well, it didn’t matter. The police would search for them, and they could bang at the panel. But quarter of an hour passed, no searchers had come, and the boys began to notice a faint, frightening smell—the smell of smoke, of a house on fire.
17
The Object of the Exercise
NIGEL AND BLOUNT had gone in shortly after the first wave of the assault, but there was nothing much they could do till the gangsters were mopped up. Two surrendered at once. Fred was shot down by a party he ran into while still hunting for the boys. But Mac, in his turret room, firing round the door which commanded a passage, proved difficult to dislodge. The passage was too long for him to be rushed, as the attackers discovered at the cost of several casualties. Finally one of them—a National Service man who played cricket for a first-class county—fast-bowled a hand grenade down the corridor first bounce into the turret room, and Mac was mortally wounded.
Meanwhile troops were scouring the rest of the house. They discovered P.C. Hogg and the old nurse locked in a cellar. Then they moved up to the ground floor, hurrying from room to room, calling out. The three men who had disembarked from the helicopter found no one on the roof: the boys had evidently got clear away, and must be in the house somewhere. One of the surrendered mobsters told Superintendent Blount that Jameson Elmer had left the house the previous evening. It was a bitter blow, and made it all the more urgent to find Bert Hale. Moreover, during the fighting, the oldest part of the house had caught fire, and its paneled room walls were beginning to blaze dangerously before the fire was noticed.
“Where the devil have those boys got to?” said Blount.
Nigel set off for the room Hesione had told him about. From her description, he knew it was on the first floor, in the original part of the house. There was just a chance that the gangsters mig
ht have caught the boys escaping from the roof, and locked them in the priest’s hole. Soldiers were running upstairs with buckets of water, looking vainly for fire extinguishers on the stripped walls. Smoke was seeping and creeping along the passage, as Nigel flung open door after door, looking for the room whose photograph Hesione had shown him. The fourth door he opened showed him,’ through the smoke, what he wanted: the noble proportions, the exquisite molding, the mantelpiece with its carved bosses and medallions; and fire was climbing its panels in angry waves and darts. From behind one panel came shouting, banging. Nigel hurled himself through the smoke, pressed the acorn clump.
Bert and Foxy scrambled out. Nigel led them through the door, one last tentacle of smoke coiling round their ankles and falling away. Blount hailed them from the end of the corridor.
“Well done, my lads. Vairy nice, vairy nice.” He clapped the two bedraggled figures on the shoulders. “We’re proud of you. Damn this smoke—it’s got in my eyes now.”
Blount produced an enormous bandanna, and mopped vigorously at the tears which might or might not have been caused by smoke.
Two minutes later, out on the lawn in the sweet air, Bert was saying, “When I was kidnaped the man asked me to write down the message—the one I found in my boat—he was dressed as a policeman, so I thought it was all right. So I wrote down ‘Bert Hale 12’; and just as I was writing—it was in the car—my hand jogged, and it became ‘Bert Hall 12,’ and I remembered the bit of paper had been torn off very close to the B—it might have been a capital letter or an ordinary one, you see, because it was scrawly writing—and I saw what the whole message was—I mean, what it could have been. Albert Hall 12. Then I thought, perhaps 12 was a time, or a date. Today’s the 12th. Is anything happening at the Albert Hall today?”
Superintendent Blount removed his spectacles, breathed over them, rubbed them, and put them on again.
“A concert,” he said gently. “A very grand concert, old son.” Then to Nigel and Hallam, “In honor of the Soviet Foreign Minister. Starting at eight P.M.”