Rule Britannia (13 page)

“I see,” said Mad. She waited a moment, and then she asked, “How did it happen? Did you mean to hit him?”

“Oh yes,” replied Andy. “I was crouching by the pile of wood at the lookout, and he came walking up the field. I knew it was Corporal Wagg, the marine who had been fighting Terry, and I guessed he was on his way to look for him, not knowing Terry was in hospital. So I thought, ‘I’ll settle you, my man,’ and I took aim and got him. He didn’t even cry out, he just fell.”

“H’m,” said Mad. She began to whistle softly under her breath. “The trouble is,” she went on after a moment, “the marines will realize he’s missing and may come and look for him, seeing that he knew his way about here.”

“Yes,” said Andy, “Sam and I thought of that. We’ve hidden the bow and the rest of the arrows up my hiding place in the chimney, so they’ll never find the weapon. It’s the body that’s the difficulty. We can’t just let it lie there.”

“I know,” Mad agreed. “Well, Em discussed it with Joe, who’s gone down to tell Mr. Trembath. We can trust him. They’ll think something out between them.”

“Oh, what a relief,” Andy sighed. “I was really rather worried. Of course, when one of the sheep dies Mr. Trembath digs a pit and buries it. I’ve watched him do it. He might do the same for the corporal.”

“He might,” said Mad, “we shall have to see what he says. Anyway, the little boys mustn’t know about it, and of course not Dottie.”

“Of course not.”

“And tell Sam not to say anything either… What did he do when you told him?”

“Sam? He said it was a very good shot, but a shame I couldn’t have got the marine who killed Spry, then it would have been real justice.”

“Yes… Well, darling, I’ll let you know in the morning what Joe and Mr. Trembath fix up. Oh, by the way, Dr. Summers rang up earlier to say Terry was all right and comfortable in hospital.”

“Oh, super. Poor old Terry, he’ll hate being stuck away there, out of everything. Still, he’s had his revenge. Goodnight, Madam, goodnight, Em.”

Andy went out of the room. There was silence. Granddaughter stared at grandmother.

“Do you realize,” said Emma slowly, “he doesn’t even know he’s done wrong?”

Mad picked up Emma’s glass, saw it was empty, then put it down again. “I do,” she replied, “and if you think this is the moment to impress the fact upon him then you don’t understand much about Andy.” She got up and walked over to the electric fire and switched it off. “If,” she said, “as a small child you are sole survivor of an air crash, and are found lying unhurt shielded by your father’s body, it has a traumatic effect. Some day you hit back. Unfortunately for the corporal, the opportunity came tonight.”

“But, Mad…” Emma stood up as well, the session was evidently over, “do you mean to say Andy would have killed someone anyway, that—well, he’s some sort of psychopath?”

Her grandmother looked at her compassionately. “Darling, of course not. Andy’s a perfectly ordinary child with a wound deep down that won’t easily heal. Normally he wouldn’t hurt a fly. What you forget is that these are not normal times. He looked upon that marine as an enemy, an invader, who had tried to beat up Terry. To be brutally frank, I agree with his point of view.”

She walked into the hall and through to the cloakroom, and began dragging on her boots.

“Where are you going?” asked Emma.

“To find out what Joe and Jack Trembath have decided. Do you want to come?”

They went out together to the lookout. The dark hump of the Land Rover was parked near to the hedge a little higher up the field. The two figures, the farmer and Joe, were standing beneath the wall, close to the ditch. Jack Trembath was bending down. They couldn’t see what he was doing, but Emma knew. He was trying to extract the arrow from its embedded position between the eyes. She wondered why she felt neither sick nor faint, yet earlier in the day, when Bevil Summers had given Terry the injection, she couldn’t take it. She supposed the reason was obvious. Terry was family. Corporal Wagg was not. Corporal Wagg was one of an invading force, as Mad had tried to insist, and by ill chance Corporal Wagg was dead. He might have a wife back in America, he might have children, parents, he had been coming to the house in all honesty to shake hands with Terry; instead, Andy had killed him. I don’t seem to mind anymore, she thought, I’m not shocked or even sickened. Perhaps I’m being trained for something… but for what?

“Ah! Got it…” Jack Trembath, with a grunt of satisfaction, had succeeded in pulling out the arrow. “Not broken neither,” he said to Joe. “Lucky job.” He reached out for a tussock of grass from the overhanging bank and wiped the barb and the shaft, letting the tussock fall to the ground afterwards.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Mad called softly. “There’ll be blood on it, won’t there?”

The farmer looked up and saw them both watching him from beyond the wall. “You’re right,” he said, “it won’t do to be careless.” He picked up the tussock, and going to the Land Rover came back with a sack, and put the tussock and arrow into it. “Easy enough to get rid of that. The body’s more of a problem. Don’t you think you and Emma had best go back to the house and leave us to it?”

“No,” said Mad, “I want to know what you decide.”

Jack Trembath looked over his shoulder and stared out to sea. “No use just heaving him to the cliff and letting them think he’s slipped over the edge. There’s this damned great wound between the eyes. You wouldn’t get that from falling.”

“We could carry him to the beach,” suggested Joe, “and let the tide get him.”

“What’s the tide doing, then?” asked the farmer. “It must have gone high water about an hour ago. Top of springs was yesterday, I believe. The tides will be taking off again tonight. No good just carrying him down and leaving him on the beach, it wouldn’t fool anyone.”

“There’s another thing,” put in Joe. “If they should trace the corporal as far as this—Emma suggested earlier, you never know, they might even bring tracker dogs—it would look odd if the scent suddenly stopped, and then the marks of your tires were just above. We can’t put him in the Land Rover. They could trace him to that, too, if they were doing a thorough job.”

Silence fell. Jack Trembath stroked his chin and stared down at the body. The wind began to freshen once more, and clouds scudded across the sky. A spot of rain fell.

“Watch out,” said Emma, “someone’s coming up the field.”

Joe and the farmer backed against the hedge. Instinctively Emma dragged her grandmother behind the shelter of an ilex tree nearby.

“Wait,” said Mad, “isn’t it the beachcomber?”

The figure plodded slowly up the plowed field. He was coming from the direction of the wood.

“Yes,” said Joe, “it’s Mr. Willis.”

Jack Trembath cursed under his breath. “Don’t worry. I’ll get rid of him somehow.”

Mad stood out from behind the ilex. “No,” she said, “he’s all right. He’s already helped us today, and if I’m any judge of character he’ll help us again.”

She climbed down into the field, assisted by the farmer, and then as the beachcomber approached, for he lifted his head and obviously perceived the little party beneath the wall, she raised her hand and beckoned.

“He’s a queer old cuss and gives no trouble,” murmured Jack Trembath, “but with the fix we’re in now… are you sure?”

Mad did not answer. She waited for the Welshman to close up on them, and allowed him to speak first. He was carrying Terry’s pullover.

“The boyo left this behind in all the excitement,” he said. “I thought he might need it in the hospital. I didn’t mean to intrude, just to drop it in at your back entrance. Evening, mister.” He nodded to the farmer. “One of your sheep strayed?” He glanced across at the Land Rover.

“No,” said Mad, “I’m afraid we’re in trouble again. Bad trouble, this time.”

She took the Welshman by the arm and led him to the body lying in the ditch. He stared down at it. Then gave a low whistle under his breath.

“Trouble it is,” he said. “How’d he come by the gash, then?”

“It was Andy,” said Mad. “He was up behind the wall here with his bow and a particularly deadly arrow, as the marine was coming down the field from the farm. He took aim, and the arrow found its mark.”

“It did that all right,” said the Welshman. “What became of the arrow?”

“I have it in a sack,” replied Jack Trembath. “No problem there. It’s the body, isn’t it?”

Mr. Willis did not answer. He walked round the dark form lying on the ground as though he wanted to view it from every angle, then bent down for a closer inspection.

“The blood’s caked,” he said. “Some of it on the soil, though. We can turn that in. What was he doing here anyway?” The events of the preceding hours were explained to him. He nodded, and did not interrupt. “No one knows of his visit to the farm excepting your daughter?” he asked Jack Trembath.

“Not as far as I know,” answered the farmer. “Mick and I were milking at the time. My wife was home. She never mentioned the corporal. I take it Myrtle saw him off pretty quick. She knew how we felt.”

“The difficulty is,” said Joe, “we don’t know if the corporal told his mates where he was going. He was off duty, you see. Myrtle knew that.”

“We have to make it seem as if the fellow came up here and altered his mind,” Mr. Willis said. “Turned off down the path in the center of the field, and then down to the cliffs and the beach. If they came looking for footprints they wouldn’t find them on the path anyway, the ground’s too hard despite the rain. There’d be scent, though.”

Jack Trembath was listening attentively, but he seemed puzzled all the same.

“I don’t follow your drift, mister,” he said.

The Welshman looked once again toward the Land Rover. “How many sacks have you got in there?”

“About half a dozen, could be more.”

“Very well then, fetch them, also some twine and a length of rope, if you have it.”

Mad moved back towards the wall and held up her hands to Emma, who leaned forward and pulled her up from the field.

“What did I tell you?” Mad whispered. “I knew he’d take charge.”

Jack Trembath came back from the Land Rover with the sacks, and some twine and rope. Mr. Willis knelt down and began wrapping the head, shoulders and trunk of the corporal’s body in the sacks, tying each part in turn with the twine. When he came to the feet he did not hesitate; he removed the boots from the dead man, and taking off his own seaboots, which he strung round his neck, he placed the corporal’s boots on his own feet.

He glanced up, winking at the farmer. “It’s not that I fancy them, but the scent will be on the ground, like the fellow was walking himself. Better be sure than sorry.”

The corporal’s body now looked like a package, and Mr. Willis looped the length of rope about it and hoisted it over his shoulders. His own boots were hanging in front of him, the long trussed package, from which protruded a pair of stockinged feet, was slung across his back. Then he looked up at the group watching him so intently.

“Last night,” he said, “I brought a living boy up from the shore on my back. Tonight I’ll take a dead boy down to it. Easier altogether, I shan’t have to worry about breaking bones.” He paused a moment, glancing from one to the other. “You get in the Land Rover,” he said to the farmer. “Circuit the field, I’ll see you presently.” Then he smiled at Mad standing beside Emma above the wall. “I’ve done many odd jobs in my time more unpleasant than this one. If a man can’t help his neighbor, and she a female, life wouldn’t be worth living, would it?”

He started walking back the way he had come, turning off by the path down the center of the plowed earth towards the grazing ground below and the cliffs beyond. As he walked the package bobbed on his back and the hanging legs dipped the ground. They stood there watching him until his figure vanished out of sight. Jack Trembath jerked his head at Joe and the pair of them moved towards the Land Rover. In a moment or two he had started the engine, and the Land Rover began to circuit the field, keeping close in to the edge. The lights from Mevagissey across the bay continued to flicker, with those of the warship steady and bright.

“That’s it,” said Mad, “we must leave it to them.”

She turned away from the wall, back through the garden to the house. They took off their boots in the cloakroom.

“I think,” said Mad, “I might have that brandy now. Only a splash, mostly soda.”

“Do you think,” said Emma, “I ought just to slip through and see if Andy is all right?”

Mad considered the matter. “He will be,” she said, “but go if you like. Just tell him everything is under control and give him a kiss from me.”

Emma went through the kitchen to reach the middle boys’ bedroom. Dottie was standing by the stove cooking supper.

“Everyone gone down like angels,” she said. “Peace be upon this house, that’s what I say. It’s not often like this.”

Emma softly opened the door of the boys’ room. It was in darkness. One of them stirred.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, “it’s only me.”

Andy sat up in his bunk and flashed his torch in her face. “Sam’s asleep,” he whispered back, “don’t wake him up.”

Sam with his eyes closed looked quite different, his expression calm and serene. The pigeon in the lair close to him was also roosting, feathers fluffed, head hunched. The squirrel had rolled itself into a ball.

“Everything’s all right,” said Emma. “Mad said to tell you. Under control. And I was to give you a kiss from her.”

She did this and Andy patted her shoulder. “Sorry I gave you a fright,” he said. “I hope you won’t have nightmares. Is Joe still with Mr. Trembath?”

“Yes. And the beachcomber turned up with Terry’s pullover. He took charge. Joe will tell you about it in the morning.”

“That was good. I’d trust Mr. Willis with anything. He’s really Sam’s friend, but now I shall make him mine too.”

He looked suddenly thoughtful, and Emma, anxious, wondered if possibly, deep down, the realization of what he had done was at last breaking through.

“You know,” he said, “I was thinking just now, before you came in, it’s very sad my father isn’t alive, so I could tell him about this.”

Emma took hold of his hand. “Why, darling?” she asked.