Redfalcon, page 5
‘What in God’s name is this?’ Barralty wondered. ‘A new Jacobite rebellion?’
One of the young men was a burly, red-haired fellow, the other dark-haired and wiry. I recognised them both at once as my old friends from the Gorbals Die-Hards – Dougal Crombie and John ‘Jaikie’ Galt.
Dougal, a journalist by trade, was now an army officer on special assignment to the Ministry of Information. Jaikie had followed a number of adventurous occupations around the globe before becoming an agent of the National Antiquities Council, for whom he gathered a range of valuable intelligence while acting as a guide to various archeological expeditions.
Barralty was drawing aim on the two Scots, but I laid the flat of my hand on the barrel of his pistol and eased it down. ‘Don’t worry. They’re on our side.’
‘If that’s true, then you’ve got some dashed queer allies, old bean,’ he remarked with a baffled shake of the head.
‘I’ve no idea why they’ve come dressed for a ceilidh,’ I conceded, ‘but believe me, you couldn’t have two better men at your side.’
7
THE JACOBITE RISING
We came out from behind the cover of the car to meet the two Scots.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ Jaikie asked me with a mistrustful glance at my companion’s lowered gun.
‘I’m afraid when we saw we were being followed, we assumed the worst,’ I explained. ‘But I’m very glad to see you, Jaikie. You too, Dougal.’
‘And we’re right relieved to see you, sir,’ said Dougal. ‘We were told to get to that Chaffly Fields cottage and join up with you as soon as possible. We’d stopped just in sight of the place and were checking it out through field glasses before moving in – just to be canny, you see.’
‘That’s when we saw you and this chappy jump into a car and speed off,’ said Jaikie. ‘We thought we’d better catch up and let you know we were here.’
I introduced my young friends to Barralty as he slipped his gun back in his pocket. He cast a quizzical eye over the colourful pair. ‘I suppose you’re on your way to London to stick the Young Pretender on the throne and that’s why you’re decked out like Harry Lauder.’
‘Not exactly,’ said Jaikie. ‘We’ve hot-footed it here straight from my wedding. That’s what we were dressed up for.’
I was delighted to hear the news. ‘So you’ve married the splendid Miss Alison Westwater at last. No more shilly-shallying.’
Jaikie had the grace to look abashed. ‘Yes, sir. I finally took your advice about not waiting until the war was over.’
‘And mine,’ Dougal interjected. ‘I’ve been telling him for years to wife that woman.’
‘But surely your honeymoon . . .’
‘Will just have to wait,’ Jaikie stated firmly. ‘Alison understands. She’s that sort of girl.’
‘I’ll wager this isn’t the first time you’ve been torn away from her side at short notice,’ I guessed.
‘That’s true, sir,’ Jaikie acknowledged, ‘though never before under circumstances quite so extreme.’
‘You be sure to bring her back a right bonnie present,’ Dougal suggested. ‘That will make things up fine.’
‘I expect seeing her husband safe and sound again will be present enough for the new Mrs Galt,’ I said.
‘I hate to interrupt this nuptial chit-chat,’ said Barralty, ‘but don’t we have business to attend to?’
‘Right,’ I agreed. I explained the situation to the two Die-Hards as briefly as possible.
‘It looks like your car’s done for,’ Jaikie observed.
‘Aye, we’d better use ours and get after that baker’s van of yours,’ said Dougal.
Barralty slumped over the hood of the Bentley and moaned, more from pain than the sad condition of his car.
‘I’m all in,’ he grunted. ‘The crash wrecked my shoulder and I can barely stand on this wounded leg. I reckon I should have let you drive after all, Hannay.’
‘You’d best stay here and flag down some help,’ I advised. ‘If we don’t move now, they might have Owen out of the country by nightfall.’
Barralty took out his pistol and handed it to me. ‘Here, you’d better have this.’
I tucked it inside my jacket. ‘Thanks for your help, Barralty. I can see that against all the odds you really are on the side of the angels now.’
‘Don’t spread that ugly rumour around,’ he groaned. ‘I do have my rascally reputation to think of, you know.’
I was following my two young friends to the Daimler when a farm lorry loaded with potatoes came rumbling down the road. I flagged it down and spoke to the ruddy-faced driver.
‘We’ve had a bit of an accident here. Can you get my friend there to a doctor?’
‘There be an infirmary at Eccleford,’ the farmer offered. ‘I could drop him thar for you. He’s been through the wars proper from the looks of him.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen a bakery van anywhere around here?’ I asked without much hope.
‘Happen I have,’ he replied. ‘She were flying along at a right snort back tha-ra-ways on the Westerhock road.’
I could hardly believe my luck. The trail wasn’t cold after all. ‘Back that way, you say?’
‘That be right. She were rushing it on down to Fellbone’s old mill. I can’t reckon as why. The place has bin empty for years now excepting for the mice.’
He gave me directions which I managed to follow in spite of his thick Devon accent. I thanked him for the information and scrambled into the back of the Daimler behind Jaikie and Dougal. ‘I’ve got a lead on our baker’s gang. Let’s go.’
As we pulled away I relayed the farmer’s directions to Jaikie, who was at the wheel. As we motored along the narrow country roads, I couldn’t help remarking, ‘I’m delighted to have you on board, of course, but you aren’t exactly inconspicuous in your wedding finery.’
‘The message from Mr Stannix emphasised the importance of joining you as soon as possible,’ he said.
‘So we dashed out as soon as the last speech was over,’ said Dougal.
‘Dougal was supposed to grab the bag with a change of clothing—’
‘But in the rush I clean forgot about it.’ Dougal’s face was flushed with embarrassment.
‘If you think we’re dressed up to the nines,’ Jaikie went on, ‘you should have seen old McCunn. With his feathered bonnet and his basket-handled sword, he looked like the war chief of all the clans.’
‘If Hitler caught a glimpse of him,’ Dougal declared with confidence, ‘he’d be shaking in his jackboots seeing what he was up against.’
Dickson McCunn, I knew, was the retired Glasgow grocer who had taken the band of street boys under his wing and become a surrogate father to them all. As well as sharing some of their adventures, he had seen to their education, opening doors of opportunity to them they would otherwise have been denied. To this day all the Die-Hards idolised him as a figure of epic stature, a man whose character and wisdom were worth more than gold, and I hoped that one day I would have the opportunity to meet this legend and tell him what a magnificent band of heroes he had created.
Peering forward, Dougal tapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Here, that must be what we’re looking for.’
Jaikie pulled over and we stared out to where Dougal was pointing. In the distance, at the end of a long dirt track, was the distinctive outline of a windmill with a copse of beech trees beyond it. We could just make out that there were two vehicles parked next to the mill on a sward of dry grass.
‘Better not get spotted,’ Jaikie muttered. He reversed to the edge of a hollow in the ground, which was clearly used by the locals as a place to tip their rubbish. It was filled to the brim with old mattresses, rusted cans, broken chairs and other debris.
We got out and climbed a wooded rise from which we could observe our target while remaining concealed. Through a pair of field glasses which the lads had brought along I could see that the motionless vanes were weather-worn and riddled with holes. While the building itself was intact, the door and windows were empty holes and the walls overgrown with brambles and ivy.
One man was stationed outside, making a slow, leisurely circuit of the mill. I watched as he paused by the entrance to light a cigarette before resuming his patrol. There was no way to approach without being spotted by him, and there was no telling exactly how many other men Ravenstein might have inside. I reasoned that for the sake of secrecy he was likely to have kept his group to a minimum. The odds were good that there was only one other besides the sentry and Ravenstein himself.
‘If they do have Professor Owen in there, we’ll have the devil of a time getting him out,’ I said.
I passed the glasses to Dougal, who gazed through them and grimaced. ‘Well, sneaking up on them is right off the table. In these outfits they’ll see us coming a mile off.’
Jaikie rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Maybe we can use that to our advantage.’
‘How do you mean?’ I asked.
‘I mean that instead of trying to be stealthy we make as big an uproar as possible. Make a real stramash of it.’
‘This sounds like one of Yowney’s plans,’ Dougal grinned. ‘They’re always about raising a racket.’
Thomas Yowney, now an army chaplain, had since boyhood been regarded by his fellow Die-Hards as the strategic genius of the group. During our mission in Paris, I had seen how the others all turned to him when some clever scheme was required to effect a rescue. In his absence this role had fallen to Jaikie, whose wits were no less sharp.
‘I think I’ve spotted the very thing we need,’ he said, trotting down the slope to the hollow and its trove of discarded rubbish. He returned with an old bucket that was pitted with rust.
‘I think I see what you’re getting at,’ said Dougal, with a glint in his eye.
‘That’s more than I do,’ I confessed. ‘That bucket isn’t much of a weapon.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Jaikie. ‘Do you remember when we were on our way to Paris, Peter told us a story about a soldier with a bucket?’
Peter Paterson was the fourth of the Die-Hards. I cast my mind back, trying to recall the anecdote he had related. ‘Wasn’t it something about a soldier wanting to milk a cow in the middle of a battle?’
‘That’s right,’ Jaikie confirmed. ‘That story’s given me an idea that might be half daft, but might just work.’
After a quick discussion we formed a plan which depended on a good deal of stealth on my part, and quite the opposite from my two young friends.
8
GLASGOW BELONGS TO ME
The man on guard outside the windmill was royally bored. He made a circuit of the building every few minutes as he had been ordered to, but he’d rather be inside to see what they were doing to the old codger they’d taken prisoner. His pale, hollow-cheeked face crumpled in displeasure as he thrust his hands into the pockets of his shabby grey jacket and kicked a stone away with the toe of one scuffed brogue.
All at once his tedium was broken by a raucous singing in the distance. He squinted up the rough track to where two colourfully garbed figures were weaving their unsteady way in his direction while caterwauling some guttural gibberish. Another man emerged from the windmill with a jaunty step. His round florid face lit up in amusement.
‘Here, Gilson, what’s that godawful row?’ he enquired.
Both men had the hard-eyed look of professional criminals. They had been recruited from the London underworld and they were the sort who were prepared to do any kind of dirty work so long as the pay was right.
The bored sentry pointed a finger at the approaching strangers. ‘Take a gander, Sweeny. It looks like the circus is in town.’
Sweeny took a moment to light a cigarette then peered through the smoke at the distant figures. It was clear now that the newcomers were dressed in the most extravagant Scottish regalia.
‘Bloody Jocks,’ Gilson growled. ‘What do they look like in that clobber!’
He moved to reach inside his jacket for his gun, but the other man stopped him. ‘The boss doesn’t want any gunplay unless we’re pushed to it. From the look of those jokers, they’re so blind drunk they’ll probably stagger past without even clocking us.’
The two Scots were close enough now for the words of their song to be audible if not actually intelligible.
‘I belong tae Glasgow, dear old Glasgow toun,
There’s something the matter wi’ Glasgow
’Cos it’s going roond and roond.
Ah’m only a common all working chap
As anyone here can see,
But when I hae a couple o’ drinks on a Saturday
Glasgow belongs tae me.’
On the last line their voices rose in grotesque parody of an operatic chorus.
One of the new arrivals was a brawny, red-headed character who looked as though he could hold his own in a fight, at least on a better day. His companion, by contrast, was pale and dark-haired and of such a slight build you would believe a strong wind could knock him over, especially in his current state of inebriation. With buttons unfastened, their sporrans askew and one sock higher than the other, the pair of them looked very much the worse for wear.
The two stumbled towards the windmill, their vacant eyes raised up in wonder at the great, tattered vanes. The smaller man had a rusty bucket dangling from his right hand which clanked with every wobbly step.
Sweeny halted them with an upraised hand. ‘Hold it there, Tam O’Shanter, this is private property.’
‘Who the hell are you anyway?’ Gilson asked with a sneer.
The big redhead drew himself up and straightened his sporran in a tottering show of dignity. ‘Sergeant Dougal Crombie, third regiment, First Caledonian Rifles,’ he declared. He swung his arm upward in an exaggerated salute that threw him off balance, so that his slightly built companion had to steady him before he fell over.
‘And I’m Corporal Galt,’ said Jaikie. ‘You’ll have to make allowance for the sergeant as he’s a mite fu’.’
‘I’ve had no more than a couple o’ nips, corporal,’ Dougal asserted. ‘I’ll not have you slandering my good name in front of these gentlemen.’ He punctuated this defence of his honour with a loud hiccup.
‘And what are you kilted wonders doing here in a civilised country?’ Sweeny enquired scornfully.
‘Ah, well, we’re bivouacked back there,’ Dougal explained, thrusting an unsteady thumb back in the direction they had come from, ‘back in . . . what is it? Upper . . . ?’
‘Is it no Nether something or other?’ Jaikie wondered.
‘Aye, well anyway,’ Dougal continued, ‘they’re shipping us off to Egypt tomorrow.’
‘That’s how we’ve been having a few farewell toasts,’ said Jaikie.
‘Aye, pretty soon we’ll be sipping cocktails wi’ Cleopatra,’ Dougal declared proudly. He made an exaggerated show of daintily downing an invisible cocktail, then both Scotsmen convulsed with crude laughter.
Sweeny took a draw on his cigarette and blew a puff of smoke into the faces of the Scots. ‘In that case you’d best clear off out of here and scrounge up some suntan oil.’
‘That’s no what we’re lookin’ for,’ said Jaikie with a corrective wag of his finger.
‘That’s right,’ Dougal confirmed. ‘Have ye no got a cuh about here?’
Gilson stared at the young Scot as though he were an exhibit at the zoo. ‘A koo? What do you mean, a koo?’
‘A cuh, man,’ Dougal insisted. ‘Ye ken, mooooo!’
‘Aye, moooo!’ Jaikie repeated after him.
‘A cow?’ exclaimed Sweeny. ‘What in God’s name do you want a cow for?’
‘Why, tae mulk her, man!’ Dougal bashed Jaikie’s bucket with the back of his hand to emphasise the point. ‘The boys back at camp are needing some mulk for their porridge. They’re close tae mutiny for the lack o’ it.’
‘There’s squads of us out searching for some mulk,’ Jaikie added.
‘And if we’re the first back wi’ a fu’ bucket,’ said Dougal, ‘why we’ll be the cock o’ the walk.’
‘So tell me, man,’ said Jaikie, leaning unsteadily towards the two gangsters, ‘do ye have a cuh or no?’
‘Does this look like a farm, Jock?’ said Sweeny disdainfully. ‘Can’t you see it’s a windmill, and a pretty tatty one at that?’
‘Aye, it does look like a shambles,’ Dougal agreed. ‘So what are you doing here?’
‘We’re here to . . .’ Gilson groped for some explanation of their presence.
‘We’re here from the council,’ Sweeny supplied for him. ‘We’re inspecting the old ruin before it gets demolished.’
Dougal’s features contorted painfully as though he were calculating a difficult problem in mathematics. ‘So what yer sayin’ is, ye dinna hae a cuh?’
‘That’s about the size of it, Jock,’ said Gilson.
‘That’s very sad news,’ Jaikie lamented with a sorrowful shake of his head.
Sweeny tossed his cigarette on the ground and crushed it under his heel. ‘Listen, Rob Roy. Like we said, we’re busy here, so shove off and peddle your Highland fling someplace else.’
Jaikie turned to his companion in evident befuddle– ment. ‘But, sarge, if they dinna hae a cuh, what am I to dae wi’ this bucket?’
‘I ken exactly what you should dae wi’ it,’ Dougal replied in a voice that had suddenly dropped its drunken slur.
In response, Jaikie swung the bucket in a swift motion, smacking Gilson on the side of the head with a loud clang. At the same moment, Dougal lashed out a beefy fist that connected forcefully with Sweeny’s astonished jaw.
During all this uproar, I was darting through the gorse and bracken that covered the ground to the rear of the windmill. The distraction my friends had cooked up had kept the sentry from making his usual circuit, leaving this rear approach unguarded at least for the moment. There was always a chance someone inside might take a glance out back.
