Читать книгу Among Those Absent - Cyril Henry Coles - Страница 5

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Cobden stopped, panting, in a tangle of dead bracken up to his thighs, Hambledon came up behind him and instantly sat down. Cobden looked at him and grinned.

“That’s right,” he said, undoing his coat to get at the precious tin box which was inside his shirt, “take it easy while you may. I must say you can run.”

“Had to,” gasped Tommy. “ ’Fraid of losing you.”

“I’m glad to get this box off my chest, the corners have been digging holes in my ribs every day since I had it. Now then.”

He opened the box, turned a switch, drew out the single earphone on its length of flex and held it to his ear while Tommy watched him anxiously.

“I hope it works,” he said.

“So do I. Brooks said he’d tried it out and it was all right.” He sat down beside Hambledon, made a small adjustment and swivelled slowly on his axis. “Wait a minute—what’s that? That’s him and that’s the direction,” he said, pointing the way he was facing. “Come on, we’d better not hang about or somebody might come to look for us. Mutt and Jeff must have put up a good scrap,” he added, as they hurried across the rough moorland, “we haven’t been reported missing yet.”

“How do you know?” asked Hambledon, tearing himself free from some affectionate brambles.

“No bell,” explained Cobden. “That big bell on the top of the main block.”

“Should we hear it up here?”

“Lord, yes. Hear it for miles, especially down-wind. Listen, what’s that?”

There came a dull booming sound which seemed to Tommy to make the fog quiver; again and again repeated, not very regular but persistent, ringing on and on.

“Not a very expert campanologist,” said Hambledon, but he quickened his pace and Cobden kept level with him.

“Better not talk,” he said in a low voice, “every soul within a three-mile radius is listening now. Left a bit, we’re getting off the line.”

“What are we going to find when we get to the transmitter?” murmured Hambledon. “Any idea?”

“None. Car of some kind, I suppose.”

They plodded steadily on in a silence broken only by an occasional direction from Cobden till they found themselves walking on a road; a rough road, stony and pot-holed but still a road.

“I don’t like this,” said Hambledon.

“Nor I, but I think he’s very near now. Walk on the grass at the side. We’re pretty well on top of whatever it is. This fog’s getting thicker. Look, what’s that?”

Something large loomed up ahead, looking enormous in the fog, a big covered lorry painted grey. Cobden dropped the wireless set inside his shirt and advanced boldly towards the lorry. A man came forward at the sound of their footsteps and peered at them, or rather, as Hambledon noticed with relief, at their clothes. This, evidently and happily, was someone who did not know Messrs. Bishop and Brooks by sight, though the escapers were not very likely to be the wrong convicts. Even in a dense fog escaped prisoners are not dispersed over all the countryside like spilt ball-bearings on the workshop floor.

“Come on,” said the man, and led the way to the back of the lorry. As they passed along the side Hambledon glanced up and recognised a familiar monogram made up from the letters I.G.A.

“Industrial Gas Association,” he said thoughtfully.

“Don’t you go writin’ them no letters of thanks,” said the man swiftly. “We ’ad to put I.G.A. on it so’s nobody should arst questions about the cylinders.”

“Cylinders?”

There was a second man inside the lorry who put his head out between the rear curtains and said: “Is that you? Good. Take your boots off.”

Hambledon was so surprised that he said: “Boots? Why?” but Cobden was already untying his laces.

“Boots,” said the man in an impatient voice. “Boots, nails, sparks, hydrogen, bang. What did you expect? Bastinado? Get a move on.”

“That accounts for the cylinders,” said Tommy, and tore off his boots. A hydrogen fire was a thing he had learned to respect years before.

“Got any matches?” asked the same man. When they said they had not he told them to get into the lorry. “Clothes,” he said, pointing to two neat piles, “yours,” to Hambledon, “and yours,” to Cobden. “Change. Quick. There are three sets of underclothes each, put them all on.” He swung himself up to where the roof of the lorry should have been, and Hambledon noticed that the cover had been rolled back. The man disappeared upwards and there were creaking sounds as of ropes in tension. The escaped convicts changed into the clothes provided as quickly as possible under the circumstances; it was growing dark, they stumbled and slipped because the floor was covered with heavy tubular objects with a tendency to roll and pinch their toes, and hurry made them fumble-fisted.

“What is all this, do you think?” asked Cobden in a low tone. “And why three sets of underwear?”

“Indian rope trick,” said Tommy instantly. “We climb up it and disappear, and it will be cold up there.”

A voice overhead said something to the man outside about “pressure nearly O.K.,” and the man outside opened the car bonnet and appeared to be brooding over it, for they did not hear him doing anything. Hambledon and Cobden were changing their dark grey socks with the tell-tale red lines at toe and calf for the subdued stripes of civilian life, and there was a silence in which a quiet hissing sound made itself heard. Cobden said: “What’s that?”

“Nothing,” said Hambledon. “Only the characteristic hiss of a king cobra about to attack us.”

Cobden leapt to his feet, staring about him, and Tommy apologised. “It’s only gas passing up that tube from one of these cylinders.”

“Sorry,” said Cobden awkwardly, “but I do hate snakes. Where’s the gas going?”

“I don’t really know, but I imagine it’s filling a balloon.”

“Is that what you meant just now when you talked about the Indian Rope trick?”

Tommy nodded. Creaking sounds from overhead announced the return of the man who had gone aloft, a pair of long legs waved between them and he dropped silently to the floor. He looked critically from one to the other and went out without speaking. Outside in the road they could hear him ask his mate some question about “the Met. report,” the answer was inaudible and a murmured conversation followed. In a few minutes he returned.

“Ready? Here,” to Hambledon, “here’s a wrist-watch for you, put it on. This is a pocket altimeter, don’t believe all it says but it will at least tell you whether you’re going up or down. Put it in your pocket. Here is a wallet for each of you, they contain your identity cards, ration books, money, a few letters addressed to you and so forth. Don’t lose them. Here is also an electric torch, don’t drop it. Now these are parachute packs, I’ll put them on you to make sure they’re on the right way up.” He fitted them on, adjusting the harness with some care. “This is the release-cord, pull it after you jump, not before. Got that? Ever made a parachute jump before? No, well, you’re going to to-night. Now listen carefully. Ten hours after the moment when you start, that will be at about 4 a.m., climb over the side of the basket and let yourself fall. Count five and pull the release-cord. Repeat that.”

They repeated it unwillingly.

“Don’t jump both together, you may get tangled up. I don’t care which jumps first, the second must wait ten seconds. Got that? Don’t forget it. You should then be just north of London. Endeavour not to break your ankles when you land, let yourself roll. Pick yourselves up, roll up your parachutes—having first divested yourselves of the harness—and hide them. Then go to the address which you will find written in pencil on the back—the back, mind—of one of the letters in your wallets. You have the wallets in an inside pocket, have you not? That’s right. Otherwise you may lose it when you jump. Now, have you taken all that in or shall I repeat it again?”

“You do take us for idiots, don’t you?” said Cobden angrily.

“You got yourselves jailed, didn’t you?” He paused for a reply but there was none. “Now come up this way. Once you’re on the roof there’s a rope ladder.”

He climbed up the side of the lorry, Hambledon and Cobden followed. They were urged and pushed up a rope ladder, at the top there was a round basket, bobbing and tilting as they climbed in. Their adviser followed them up far enough to put his head over the edge.

“What’s the time?” he asked, and Hambledon told him.

“Right. Add on ten hours and that’s when you jump.” He climbed down without another word and they saw him drop off the end and disappear into the lorry.

“How old would you reckon that man to be?” asked Cobden.

“How old? Oh, about thirty-five. Why?”

“It says a lot for human nature that he’s lived on earth for thirty-five years and nobody’s hit him on the head with a blunt instrument.”

“Contemptuous blighter,” agreed Tommy. “Irritating manner, very. Now I suppose he cuts us loose.”

There was a pause during which nothing happened.

“Are you enjoying this?” said Cobden suddenly.

“Not particularly. Are you?”

“No. You know, there was one thing to be said for my private room over there”—he jerked his head towards Northern Moor Prison—“my old ‘flowery dell’——”

“What’s that?”

“Nobody threw me out of the window at 4 a.m. with an umbrella tied to my shoulder-blades. I rather—gosh!”

The basket appeared to kick the soles of their feet with such violence that Tommy staggered and sat down abruptly. There was for a short time the sensation of rising in a lift, but even that eased off and ceased and only a faint rocking suggested that they were airborne. There was nothing to see but fog. It was some time before Cobden exclaimed and pointed. There before them hung the rising moon.

“How long have we been—been here?” asked Cobden.

Tommy looked at the watch, it had a luminous dial.

“Seventeen minutes.”

“Is that all?”

“It does, doesn’t it?” said Hambledon, answering the thought behind the words. “If we had a pack of cards we could play solo or animal grab.”

“If we had a piece of string,” said Cobden, “we could play at cat’s cradle.”

“If we had a few mailbags, we could——”

“Shut up! Do you know what we’re missing?”

“Supper,” said Tommy without hesitation. “And to-night’s dripping night, too.”

The moon, which had remained steadily in one place as is customary, suddenly began to move. It slid very slowly round them horizontally till it returned to its starting point and began another circuit. As they were not conscious of motion the effect was eerie.

“We are spinning,” said Hambledon.

“I didn’t really believe the moon had broken loose,” said Cobden, “but—d’you know, if this keeps on I shall be sick.”

“Come and sit down where you can’t see it, on the floor. There isn’t much room, but if I curl my legs round one side you can have the other. That’s better, isn’t it?”

Cobden sat down, coiling his long legs into little space, and said: “What will you do when we get out of this?”

“I shall have my hands full keeping out of the way of the police, I think. What about you?”

“Like you, lie low for a bit and then get a little place in the country somewhere and go in for dog-breeding. At least, that’s what I think now. But I suppose some mug will come along with more money than sense and I shan’t be able to resist it. The things people will believe! Even the Spanish Prisoner trick that’s as old as the Napoleonic Wars works just as well with Franco. Well, I ought not to talk, I was a mug once myself.”

“And now you’re the bitten biting, eh?” said Tommy. “What bit you, if it’s not an intrusion?”

“I came out of the Army with over a thousand pounds in the bank; gratuity, pay saved up and so on. You don’t spend money in the desert. I met such a nice man with a keen sense of what he personally owed to the Service Man who had saved him from etc., etc., etc. Lord, I was green. He said it would be a mere repayment of a debt if I would allow him to make my fortune. He introduced me to some friends of his, they were going to let me in on the ground floor in a new company that was going to make us all rich men in two or three years. You can guess the rest. I put in all the money I’d got plus a mortgage on my mother’s house—she had just died. So then they got out from under and left me with the lot to carry, and of course I lost every bean and the house was sold and that was that. Sure you’re not bored?”

“Not a bit. We have another eight hours and fifty minutes.”

“Sure the watch hasn’t stopped? No, I was afraid not. Well, I said to myself that what man had done man could do. I sat down and thought out a few simple schemes. As everybody knows, the con man’s standby is the violent objection people feel to admitting they’ve been stung, and the simpler the trick the less they wish to admit it. Especially the hard-headed business man, so-called. I went for the City guinea-pig type, like the one who’d stung me, and did very well out of it till I was silly enough to tackle a Yorkshireman. He didn’t mind what he looked like in court. I’d gotten t’brass and he wasn’t going to stand for it. He went to the police and then some of the others plucked up courage and joined in the chase. I was sunk. Northern Moor. End of anecdote.”

“Pity,” said Hambledon thoughtfully. “An awful pity.”

“Yes, wasn’t it?” said Cobden brightly. “Well, that’s the story of my young life. Now it’s your turn. Not that I really expect you to unroll the pageant of your days for my benefit, but I should like to know what you’re doing in this balloon.”

“Escaping,” said Tommy innocently.

“All right,” said Cobden amiably. “Funny thing, isn’t it, I wish I had a cigarette. I thought the craving had passed, it must be the air of freedom acting upon me.”

“Listen,” said Hambledon. “I see no reason why you should go through with this. I mean, wait the specified time, jump at the appointed spot or as near it as this heavenly chariot takes us, and present yourself at the address on the back of the envelope whatever it is. Why don’t you hop over earlier and make yourself scarce? I suppose you’ve got somewhere to go.”

“Why don’t you?”

Hambledon hesitated. “Yes, why not? If we dropped out separately we should stand a better chance——”

“Look here,” said Cobden. “I don’t know what you’re doing here but you’re no convict. You were far too new, you’d never done the six week’s trial trip in a local jail, let alone a year at wherever-it-was. I really thought you were serving somebody else’s term for him, but if that’s so, why are you escaping?”

Hambledon did not answer at once and Cobden went on: “Listen, if you’ll jump first, I’ll jump later. That’s a fair offer.”

Hambledon made up his mind. “I can’t do that,” he said. “You are quite right, I’m not quite a convict. I went there to try to get to the bottom of all this escape business. So I must go through with it, go to that address and all. I’m rather ashamed you saw through me so easily.”

“So that’s it,” said Cobden softly. “Now I’ll tell you something. I was transferred to Northern Moor from Portland because two men escaped from there and one of them was a friend of mine. He was a good chap, he clouted a man who’d been running round with his wife, only he hit him rather too hard. I heard later what had happened, news does filter even into prisons, you know. He had been approached by this organisation you’re looking for and asked to help a forger to get out, an oldish man, not very active. He agreed and they got out. Then this crowd, whoever they are, wanted him to do some job for them, don’t know what it was. Something pretty foul, presumably, because Ted dug his toes in and refused. Apparently they said in effect, ‘Do what you’re bid or we’ll put the police on to you,’ and he told them not to bother, he’d go to the police himself.”

“Rather unwise, to be so frank,” murmured Hambledon.

“Yes, but he was like that. Then he was found dead in a lane a few miles out of Southampton, he’d been shot. I imagine he was going that way with some idea of getting on a ship and going abroad, but they got him first. No arrest was made.”

“That’s not to say that none ever will be,” said Hambledon quietly. “How long ago was this?”

“About six months. Oh, the police may get ’em for it yet, but I doubt it. Anyway, what I was going to say was that if you’re after this crowd, so am I. No doubt yours is business, but my share will be a pleasure.”

“I shall be very glad of your help,” said Tommy frankly. “I think you’ll be very useful. There’s a certain amount of risk, of course, but I doubt if you’d be any safer trying to dodge them. I much prefer having a partner,” he added, “it’s always so difficult when one has to be in two places at once.”

Cobden laughed. “That’s what people come up against when they try to establish an alibi, isn’t it? I must move, I’m getting so cramped. Let’s see if the moon is behaving itself.” He stood up and stretched, holding on to the guy-ropes. “I think the moon’s gone home again, it’s very dark now.”

“Overcast, I expect,” said Tommy, struggling to his feet. “I don’t know anything about ballooning, but don’t you think the wind’s getting up? I feel more as though we were being pulled along instead of floating. Any lighted cities below?”

“There’s a sort of glow over there, but it’s still foggy at ground level, we’ve got into a higher current of air. I hope those blighters who set us off knew their job, they ought to have told us what altitude to keep,” said Cobden, rather anxiously. “We don’t want to drift out to sea, there’s no future in that.”

“What an unspeakably repulsive prospect. We have now been airborne for just over three hours.”

“If only we could see the stars we could get some idea of which way we’re going. Listen. I thought so, aircraft. Sounds like a Dakota.”

“Oh dear,” said Tommy Hambledon. “Which way’s he going? You know, I don’t like this particularly.”

“He’s not coming straight at us, I think—is he? No, I don’t think so. We must wait, that’s all.”

The Dakota passed by upon its lawful occasions and Hambledon looked at it enviously.

“I wish I were there instead of here,” he said. “ ‘Lights are burnin’ brightly, sir, an’ all’s well.’ Warmed, steered, powered and under control, how lovely.”

“ ‘How different from us, Miss Beale and Miss Buss,’ ” quoted Cobden. “It’s getting frightfully cold, too.” He flapped his arms to warm himself.

“You know, this was a very brilliant idea,” said Hambledon. “This balloon would pack down on its basket in the lorry and nobody would see anything. When they reached their destination all they had to do was to roll back the roof cover, connect a tube or tubes from the hydrogen cylinders to the appointed spot on this blister above us, and the specific gravity of hydrogen would do the rest.”

“Suppose somebody’d come along just when the egg was rising from the nest. A bit of a risk, wasn’t it?”

“I expect they chose a pretty lonely spot, and as soon as the balloon rose it would disappear into the fog, leaving only connecting ropes and the afore-mentioned tube. Besides, people don’t look up as a rule, especially if they’re afraid of losing their way. An Industrial Gas Association’s lorry is not such a novelty, I wonder whether they stole a real one or faked one up.”

“Very interesting,” said Cobden absently. “Where’s that pocket altimeter he gave you? I think we’re dropping.”

Hambledon confirmed this. “We are, slowly but steadily. Why is that? The increasing cold?”

“I don’t know. There may be ice forming on the envelope, or she may be leaking. It doesn’t look as though we’ll stay up for ten hours, does it? What’s the time?”

“A quarter-past ten—nearly. The fog’s getting thicker.”

“Yes,” said Cobden. “We’re getting down into it again. How high are we according to that gadget?”

“Eleven hundred feet, but he said it wasn’t reliable.”

“Margin of error unknown. I wish we could see something.”

The time dragged on as they drifted helplessly. Half-past ten, a quarter to eleven. Just as Hambledon said: “Eleven o’clock. Seven hundred feet,” Cobden said: “Hush!” There drifted up to them through the murk the distant sound of a church clock chiming the hour.

“Did you say seven hundred feet?” asked Cobden.

“The church may be on a hill.”

“There is that, yes.”

Tommy Hambledon turned his torch upon the balloon envelope above his head, examined it carefully and then laid his hand upon a thin cord tied to one of the guy-ropes.

“This is it.”

“What?”

“The rip-cord. When you pull it it rips out that panel and we descend.”

“You don’t want to do that too high up, do you? I mean, she won’t turn into a parachute for two?”

“I wish I’d studied aeronautics, if that’s the right term for ballooning,” said Tommy. “Even a short correspondence course would have been a help. I do know you mustn’t bail out with a parachute from too low down or you’ll break your bones. Or get spiked on a church steeple as in the comic pictures.”

“Too high, too low,” said Cobden, “which are we?”

“You know,” said Hambledon thoughtfully, “I can’t help feeling that our well-intentioned rescuers didn’t think out this scheme carefully enough. Too many adverse possibilities.”

Just before twelve another sound floated up to them, a familiar sound near to the kindly earth, it was the bark of a dog.

“That makes me feel homesick,” said Hambledon. “If I were sitting firmly on the ground within ten yards of him I’d be so happy I’d bark back. Do you think—Good Lord, look at that!”

Something loomed up out of the fog so close that it seemed they must brush against it—it was a factory chimney. Tommy turned his torch on it and they could even distinguish the brickwork.

“This won’t do,” he said, and leaped at the rip-cord. “Hang on, Cobden, I’m going to bring her down.”

There was a tearing sound as he pulled with all his strength, and a long narrow strip tore out of the fabric of the balloon. The envelope tilted and swung them, the basket dropped beneath their feet with a sickening sensation of weakness. Tree branches slewed them round and released them, spinning. They dropped again and were dragged, clinging like monkeys, through a screen of thin trees and then, with a sound of breaking sticks, through a rose pergola and across a lawn. The balloon ahead of them settled, sank and billowed to rest as Tommy rolled out among vegetables.

“I always did like brussels sprouts,” he said.