Читать книгу The Black Mole - George E. Rochester - Страница 8

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Constable Peabody, the fat policeman of Little Muttering, had a soft job.

There were never any thieves or burglars around Little Muttering, and, apart from having an occasional offender up in front of the beaks for riding without a light, or for not having a dog licence, Constable Peabody found life very uninteresting.

On this particular night he was pacing slowly along the road, enjoying the moon, and wondering if it would be safe to have a quiet smoke.

You never knew what nosy parkers were snooping about, and if he was reported for smoking on duty he’d get into a row. Deciding to risk it, Constable Peabody leaned against the gate of a field and drew a packet of fags from a pocket beneath his tunic.

Then suddenly the half-opened packet dropped from his nerveless hand, and he stood gaping in open-mouthed astonishment. For to his ears had come a dull, whirring noise, and a large black cone of whirling steel shot up through the ground in the centre of the field, sending earth and turf flying.

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” gasped Constable Peabody.

A huge, black monster of steel heaved itself up from out of the ground, and came to rest in the middle of the field. The constable stared in awed astonishment, then suddenly let out a strangled ejaculation and dropped on his knees behind the gate.

For he knew now what this queer monster was. He had been warned to look out for it, as had every policeman and civilian in the country, by means of a police message broadcast that very evening.

It was the Black Mole—the infamous earth crawler with which Zworge had raided the Tower of London, and carried away his accomplice, Robert Kenyon.

Kenyon wasn’t Zworge’s accomplice, but the whole country thought he was.

Kneeling there behind the gate, peering stupidly through the bars, the fat constable’s brain worked at lightning-like speed. At least, it was lightning-like speed for him, which isn’t saying much really.

One thing was quite certain to him. He couldn’t tackle and capture the whole gang single-handed, for he hadn’t the slightest doubt that Zworge and his gangsters were inside the earth crawler.

What was it the broadcast message had said? “Anyone sighting the earth crawler, or discovering its whereabouts, should communicate with Scotland Yard without delay.”

Right! That’s what he’d do!

Crawling away until the hedge hid him from the view of anyone emerging from the earth crawler, Constable Peabody got to his feet. Then with elbows tucked in, his helmet bobbing on the back of his head, and his face as red as a Dutch cheese, he tore along the road, burst into his cottage, and grabbed the telephone receiver.

“Scotland Yard! Hallo! Is that Scotland Yard?” he babbled. “This is Constable Peabody, of Little Muttering, in Kent. The earth crawler’s here. Yes, in a field near here. What? Get every able-bodied man and try to capture it? All right. What’s that? Detective-Inspector Carter’s leaving right away by fast car? All right. Tell him to come quick!”

Replacing the receiver, Peabody leaned against the wall, puffing and panting and mopping, with his handkerchief, at his perspiring face.

But there was no time to lose. Quitting the cottage, he went hastily in search of all the able-bodied men in the place, and within a remarkable short space of time Constable Peabody found himself in command of a posse numbering fifteen all told.

Some were armed with sticks, some with scythes, one or two with old-fashioned fowling-pieces, and Mark Mattley, the poacher, turned out with a smart, double-barrelled sporting gun.

“Now what we’ve got to do,” said Peabody, “is to creep up on ’em unawares and rush ’em. There’s a wood on the other side of that field, so we’ll go across the fields, sneak up on ’em through the wood, and rush ’em before they know where they are. Are you ready?”

“Ay!” quavered the posse.

“Come on, then!” said Constable Peabody. “And remember the Government’s offered ten thousand pounds for the capture of Zworge and his earth crawler.”

Meanwhile, the door in the hull of the Black Mole had slid open, and Kenyon and Bert had cautiously emerged. Kenyon had emptied his guns back there at Zworge’s house, and Bert didn’t possess one.

“I wonder where we are?” said Bert, staring around the sleeping and moon-bathed countryside.

“I’m going to find out,” said Kenyon grimly. “Yonder’s a road. There may be a signpost or something. You stay here and keep your eyes open.”

Left to himself, Bert watched Kenyon’s well-knit figure striding swiftly away across the moonlit field. Bert was uneasy. It was taking a terrible risk, coming to the surface of the ground like this, but they had to do it if they were to get their bearings.

Bert fervently hoped Kenyon wouldn’t be long. He saw him vault the gate and disappear from view. Bert started to walk round the Mole. Suddenly he halted, tense and rigid, staring at the dark wood less than thirty paces away.

Was he mistaken, or had something moved in the black shadow of that wood? With hands clenched and face grim and set, Bert listened with straining ears.

He could hear rustlings—faint whisperings. There was someone there—men!

Bert slid to the end of the Mole and peered desperately towards the gate. There was no sign of Kenyon. Bert dare not call to him; to do so might start a rush by the unseen watchers.

Not knowing what to do, and with heart thumping painfully, Bert glared back towards the trees. Then he caught his breath. The men were coming. He could see their vague and shadowy forms moving cautiously from cover, making towards the Mole.

Then they came with a rush—a swift and silent rush which would have caught Bert napping had he not already spotted them.

Bert let out a yell:

“We’re attacked, sir!”

Far through the still night air rang that desperate, warning shout, and with it sounded the heavy roar of the fowling-pieces and the vicious crack of Mark Mattley’s gun.

Small shot thudded and whanged against the outer casing of the Black Mole, and the night was rent by the land, stabbing flashes of the guns.

Bert leapt fractically for the door in the hull, but realising now that they had few to deal with, the attacking party came on with a frenzied rush.

Before Bert could slide the door shut, three men were clamouring at it, their pushing, jostling bodies preventing it from closing.

Bert could see the white blur of their faces, and he lashed out savagely with his fists. One man staggered back, spitting broken teeth and curses, but another took his place.

They were fighting desperately to get into the Mole, and Bert was fighting desperately to keep them out. As he drove his fists again and again into their faces he was thanking his lucky stars that the lights in the hull had been switched off before he and Kenyon had emerged.

The attackers couldn’t see him as he could see them against the background of moonlight, and, knowing that his very life depended on it, Bert fought like a madman.

A scythe blade stabbed wickedly at him, the curved and gleaming steel tearing cruelly down his arm. Blind to the pain, oblivious to the gashes in his hands, Bert seized the scythe and tore it from the hands of his assailant. But that manœuvre looked like costing him dear, for he was borne back into the black interior of the Mole by a sudden concerted rush.

Leaping clear, Bert whirled the scythe with deadly intent. Men screamed and shrieked in agony and terror as that dreadful, cleaving blade cut through the inky darkness. Those with guns dare not fire in case they shot their own comrades. Panic seized them, spread like wildfire, and with yells of fear and panic they fell back.

Out into the field they poured, and, with a sobbing gasp of relief, Bert pressed home the switch which controlled the door. It slid shut, locked into place, and next instant the interior of the Mole was flooded with brilliant illumination as Bert switched on the lights.

Where Kenyon was, Bert did not know; but he knew enough about his guv’nor to know that he would find some way of getting back to the Mole if it was humanly possible. At the moment, the first thing to be done was to scatter this bunch of fellows outside.

Sinking into the control seat, Bert switched on the motors of the caterpillar treads and pressed the switch which controlled the headlights.

Sliding back the steel shutters and the glass windows of the look-out ports, Bert whirled the control wheel. Then, like a live thing, the earth crawler drove straight at the frantic Peabody and his posse.

They broke and fled with shouts of terror, and with a tight-lipped grin, Bert swung the Mole towards the gate over which Kenyon had vaulted.

As he approached it, he saw Kenyon come running towards him; and in that same moment he saw the headlights of two powerful cars approaching along the road at terrific speed. Behind Kenyon, also, were racing the remnants of Peabody’s posse, eager to capture at least one of the gang.

Bert was in a quandary, wondering what to do. If he stopped and opened the door of the Mole, Kenyon would be caught before he could get inside. In desperation Bert slowed down, and Kenyon leapt for the small look-out port, hanging on to it with his hands.

“Keep going!” he bawled at Bert. “I’m getting on top!”

As Kenyon swung himself up and slithered on to the smooth, curved top of the earth crawler, the two cars pulled up with a screaming of brakes at the gate of the field, and from them came spurts of orange flame as Inspector Carter and his men opened fire with revolvers at the strange, black monster.

“So that’s your game, is it?” grated Bert, scared stiff in case Kenyon should be hit by that deadly fire.

As far as Bert could see, there was only one thing to be done. Giving the motors every ounce of power, he drove the earth crawler straight at the cars.

The gate of the field splintered into fragments as the Black Mole charged through it, with Kenyon sprawled on top. Then, as the plainclothes police leapt for their lives, the earth crawler smashed into the nearer car, crushing it into a wrecked and twisted mass of metal.

Wheeling, the Mole lumbered its way over the second car, crushing it like the foot of an adult flattening a child’s tin toy, then crashing its way through the hedge, the earth crawler drove back across the field, travelling at a speed which hopelessly outdistanced the frantic men pursuing it.

Bert put four fields between the Mole and its pursuers before he slowed down to a crawl. Then, leaving the controls, he slid open the door.

“Are you there, guv’nor?” he called anxiously.

“Yes, here!” panted Kenyon, leaping to the ground and running for the door. “Phew! that was a near go, Bert! We’ve got to take her under again. The whole countryside’ll be roused now!”

“We can’t take her down,” said Bert grimly. “We’ve got no oxygen left!”

Kenyon sprang to the instrument board. The oxygen gauge was standing at zero. The cylinders were empty.

“It can’t be helped, Bert!” said Kenyon desperately. “We’ve got to go underground. If we stay up here we’ll be caught!”

“And if we go down we’ll be suffocated!” retorted Bert.

“The hull’s full of air,” cried Kenyon. “There’s oxygen in that. I know where we are, and Hogberry Woods are less than three miles from here. If we can reach them we can come up in the middle of the woods, and that’ll give us a breather!”

“O.K., guv’nor, you set the course!” said Bert. “Gosh! I wonder how them fellers got on to us?”

“Because the whole country’s looking for us, that’s how!” said Kenyon, switching on the gyro-motors. “That sort of thing will happen wherever we show our nose!”

“Cheerful, ain’t it?” grinned Bert, as the Mole tilted and the whirling blades of her outer casing drove her down into the earth. “But we’ll win through, guv’nor, don’t you worry!”

“We’ve got one chance in a million of doing it, Bert,” replied Kenyon grimly, as the Mole bored her way easily through the chalk which lay twenty feet below the surface.

“What’s the plan of campaign, guv’nor?”

“First, to get proof of my innocence,” replied Kenyon. “When we’ve got this oxygen plant fixed, I’m going to find Zworge’s stronghold and raid it. There’s bound to be papers of some description there. I’ll let the world know the truth somehow!”

He passed a hand wearily across his brow. He was beginning to feel dull and sleepy. It was the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere, for the motors were using up a lot of it.

“All right, Bert?” he asked.

“Y-yes!” mumbled Bert.

Kenyon glanced over his shoulder at him. Bert was seated on a locker, his head sunk on his chest.

“Getting kind of warm in ’ere, ain’t it?” he mumbled.

Kenyon made no response, but turned again to the controls. He was thankful that the earth crawler had only soft chalk to bore through, and not solid rock.

She was moving fast, and, with his eyes on the compass and speedometer, Kenyon suddenly pulled the lever which controlled the gyro-motor.

The whirling, conical nose of the Mole lifted, boring its way up through solid whiteness from a distance of eighty feet below the ground.

Kenyon’s eyes were now on the depth indicator, watching the pointer slide back to sixty feet—thirty feet—ten feet——

He pulled over the motor switch, and, with blades slowly revolving, the Mole gently thrust its nose up out of the ground.

Stopping the motors, Kenyon slid back the steel shutters of the look-out ports and peered out. He did not dare switch on his headlights, but through the thick glass he caught a glimpse of moonlight sky through the leafy branches of trees.

He had judged the course correctly. The Mole had come up somewhere in Hogberry Woods, and as her blades began to revolve again, she heaved her glistening, black hull out of the ground and came to rest in a dense thicket.

From then until dawn, Kenyon worked on the oxygen plant, whilst Bert patrolled the undergrowth, keeping his ears strained for anyone approaching.

“It was the generating motor that was giving the trouble,” said Kenyon, as Bert returned to the Mole with the first faint light of dawn. “I’ve fixed it and adjusted the vent valves, but we’ve got no oxygen, Bert!”

“And we can’t go underground without any,” said Bert. “What’s to be done, guv’nor?”

“Just this,” said Kenyon. “Zworge’s house is within a ten miles radius of here. I’m convinced of that. I’m going to have a look for it on foot, and you’re going to stay here with the Mole. If you hear anyone coming, take her under. When I’ve located Zworge’s stronghold we’ll raid it under cover of night, keeping the Mole above ground as far as possible——”

Abruptly he broke off as there came to his and Bert’s ears the sound of a powerful aero-engine approaching in their direction.

“That fellow’s flying low!” exclaimed Kenyon sharply.

The noise was growing swiftly in volume, and a few moments later a black monoplane roared low overhead. They could see the helmeted head of the pilot as he peered down, then a black cylindrical object dropped from his bomb-rack.

It hurtled down into the wood near where Kenyon and Bert were standing, and there came a deafening explosion. A tree fell with a crash, and, as Kenyon and Bert dived for the Mole, another bomb dropped and exploded with a terrifying roar.

“It’s Zworge!” panted Kenyon, sliding shut the door of the Mole and leaping for the controls. “He’d know we had no oxygen and would have to come up. It’s not an Air Force machine!”

The words were drowned in another deafening roar of high-explosive. The Mole rocked and almost overturned as the ground near her was blown into a flaming crater. An uprooted tree fell on her with a sickening crash.

“We’ve got to go down!” grated Kenyon, switching on the motor. “Gosh, that one nearly had us!”

There was another nerve-shattering roar, and again the Mole lurched as another tree crashed down upon her, filling the hull with thunderous echoes.

But under the pull of her gyro-motor she already had her nose down, and as her whirling blades cut through the trees like paper and bit deep into the earth, she bored down into the depths, a hunted, fugitive monster of solid steel.

“And wot now?” demanded Bert. “Looks as if Mister Perishin’ Zworge’s holding all the trumps. We ain’t got no oxygen, so we can’t stay down, and if we come up he’ll blow us to blazes!”

“We’ll keep going!” said Kenyon grimly, driving the Mole deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth.

He knew only too well their deadly peril. They could not stay down long—half an hour at the most—and they dare not come up, for apart from Zworge’s bombs there was the danger of the Mole breaking surface near some village, or even in the main street of some town.

Exactly where she did come up depended entirely on just how long the oxygen in the air inside the hull lasted. Kenyon knew the countryside well enough to know that apart from Hogberry Woods there was no other cover for them at all. When they did come up they must come up in the open. And if he was seen he would be promptly arrested and thrown into prison. Or most likely he would be hanged after what had happened in the court-room of the Tower of London.

“There’s one thing, Bert,” he said suddenly. “Apart from that fight in the field, the police have nothing against you!”

“And ain’t that enough?” demanded Bert. “I outed a few of ’em good and proper. I’ll get it properly in the neck for that. Not that I cares, guv’nor. I’d rather go to prison with you than be on my own outside!”

“Well, it’s either prison or death,” said Kenyon grimly. “We can’t stay down much longer, Bert!”

Bert knew the truth of that. Already the air in the Mole was becoming exhausted.

If only they could get hold of a few cylinders of oxygen they would be safe. The precious, life-giving gas would enable them to travel miles underground before breaking surface. And there was oxygen at Zworge’s house.

But it was hopeless to think of that. Although they knew that Zworge’s stronghold was somewhere near, they hadn’t the faintest idea in which direction it lay.

Seated on a locker, his hands in his pockets, Bert felt himself drifting off into the sleep from which there would be no awaking.

Kenyon’s voice came to him, faint and far away, it seemed to Bert:

“I’m going to surface, Bert!”

Bert mumbled something unintelligible. Vaguely he wondered how Kenyon could keep the Mole going as he himself was about all in. Even the sound of the motors was deadened; he couldn’t hear them now.

Bert’s eyes jerked open, and he blinked up at Kenyon. He hadn’t seen Kenyon approach him, but Kenyon was standing over him and shaking him savagely.

“Eh?” grunted Bert, his head lolling.

“Pull yourself together, man!” gasped Kenyon, swaying on his feet. “Something’s happened. We’re a thousand feet under the ground, and I’ve either gone mad and am seeing things, or—or there’s men out there!”

Bert stared at him uncomprehendingly. Exerting all his remaining strength, Kenyon hauled him to his feet. Obeying Kenyon’s tug at his arm, Bert stumbled towards the look-out ports.

Then he halted, staring in bewildered amaze. For outside the Mole was an eerie, fiery glow, and in its lurid illumination Bert could see the frenzied, contorted faces pressed against the glass of the look-out windows.

“What—what are they, guv’nor?” he mumbled.

“They’re men!” gasped Kenyon. “Men—and fire down here in the bowels of the earth!”