Alistair MacLean - When Eight Bells Toll

Beyond this chamber was a massive wooden door secured by an equally massive-looking lock with me key missing. All the celluloid in the world wouldn't open this lot but a beehive plastic explosive would do a very efficient job indeed. I made another of the many mental notes I'd made that night and went up the stairs to rejoin Susan.

Harry had come to. He was saying something in has throat which fortunately couldn't get past his silk-shirted gag to the delicate ears of the chieftain's young daughter, his eyes, to mint a phrase, spoke volumes and he was trying as best he could to do a Houdini with the ropes round his legs and arms, Susan Kirkside was pointing a rifle in his general direction and looking very apprehensive. She needn't have bothered, Harry was trussed like a turkey.

"These people down in the cellars," I said, "They've been there for weeks, some for months. They'll be blind as bats and weak as kittens by the time they get out."

She shook her head. "I think they'll be all right. They're taken out on the landing strip there for an hour and a half every morning under guard. They can't be seen from the sea. We're not allowed to watch. Or not supposed to. I've seen them often. Daddy insisted on it. And Sir Anthony."

"Well, good old Daddy." I stared at her. "Old man Skouras. He comes here?"

"Of course." She seemed surprised at my surprise. "He's one of them. Lavorski and this man Dollmann, the men that do all the arranging, they work for Sir Anthony. Didn't you know? Daddy and Sir Anthony are friends — were friends -before this, I've been in Sir Anthony's London home often."

"But they're not friends now?" I probed keenly.

"Sir Anthony has gone off his head since his wife died," Susan said confidently. I looked at her in wonder and tried to remember when I'd last been so authoritatively dogmatic on subjects I knew nothing about. I couldn't remember. "He married again, you know. Some French actress or other. That wouldn't have helped. She's no good. She caught him on the rebound."

"Susan," I said reverently, "you're really wonderful. I don't believe you'll ever understand what I mean by my pension coming between us. You know her well?"

"I've never met her."

"You didn't have to tell me. And poor old Sir Anthony -he doesn't know what he's doing, is that it?"

"He's all mixed up," she said defensively. "He's sweet, really he is. Or was."

"All mixed up with the deaths of four men, not to mention three of his own," I said. Sergeant MacDonald thought him a good man. Susan thought him sweet. I wondered what she would say if she saw Charlotte Skoura's back. "How do the prisoners do for food?"

"We have two cooks. They do it all. The food is brought down to than."

"What other staff?"

"No other staff. Daddy was made to sack them all four months ago."

That accounted for the state of the watchman's bathroom. I said: "My arrival in the helicopter here yesterday afternoon was duly reported by radio to the Shangri-la, A man with a badly scarred face. Where's the radio transmitter?"

"You know everything, don't you?"

"Know-all Calvert. Where is it?"

"Off the hall. In the room behind the stairs. It's locked."

"I have' keys that'll open the Bank of England. Wait a minute." I went down to the guard's room outside the prisoners' cellar, brought the whisky bottle back up to where Susan was standing and handed it to her. "Hang on to this."

She looked at me steadily. "Do you really need this?"

"Oh my God, sweet youth," I said nastily, "Sure I need it. I'm an alcoholic."

I untied the rope round Harry's ankles and helped him to his feet. He repaid this Samaritan gesture by swinging at me with his right foot but fifteen minutes on the floor hadn't helped his circulation or reactions any and I forestalled him with the same manoeuvre. When I helped him up the second time there was no fight left in him.

"Did you — did you really have to do that?" The revulsion was back in her eyes.

"Did I — did you see what he tried to do to me?" I demanded.

"You men are all the same," she said.

"Oh, shut up!" I snarled. I was old and sick and tired and I'd run right out of the last of my witty ripostes.

The transceiver was a beauty, a big gleaming metallic RCA, the latest model as used in the naval vessels of a dozen nationalities. I didn't waste any time wondering where they had obtained it, that lot were fit for anything. I sat down and started tuning the set, then looked up at Susan. "Go and fetch me one of your father's razor blades."

"You don't want me to hear, is that it?"

"Think what you like. Just get it."

If she'd been wearing a skirt she'd have flounced out of the room. With what she was wearing flouncing was out of the question. The set covered every transmission frequency from the bottom of the long wave to the top of the V.H.F. It took only two minutes to raise SPFX. It was manned night and day the year round. It really was most considerate of the ungodly to provide me with such a magnificent instrument.

Sue Kirkside was back before I started speaking. I was ten minutes on the microphone altogether. Apart from code-names and map references I used plain English throughout. I had to, I'd no book, and time was too short anyway, I spoke slowly and clearly, giving precise instructions about the movements of men, the alignment of radio frequencies, the minutest details of the layout of Dubh Sgeir castle and asking all-important questions about recent happenings on the Riviera. I didn't repeat myself once, and I asked for nothing to be repeated to me, because every word was being recorded. Before I was half-way through, Susan's eyebrows had disappeared up under the blonde fringe and Harry was looking as if he had been sandbagged, I signed off, reset the tuning band to its original position and stood up.

"That's it," I said. "I'm off."

"You're what?" The grey-blue eyes were wide, the eye-brows still up under the fringe, but with alarm, this time, not astonishment, "You're leaving? You're leaving me here?"

"I'm leaving. If you think I'd stay a minute longer in this damned castle than I have to, you must be nuts. I've played my hand far enough already. Do you think I want to be around here when the guards change over or when the toilers on the deep get back here?"

"Toilers on the deep? What do you mean?"

"Skip it." I'd forgotten she knew nothing about what our friends were doing, "It's Calvert for home."

"You've got a gun," she said wildly, "You could — you could capture them, couldn't you?"

"Capture who?" The hell with the grammar.

"The guards. They're on the second floor. They'll be asleep."

"How many?"

"Eight or nine, I'm not sure."

"Eight or nine, she's not sure! Who do you think I am, Superman? Stand aside, do you want me to get killed? And, Susan, tell nothing to anybody. Not even Daddy. Not if you want to see Johnny-boy walk down that aisle. You understand?"

She put a hand on my arm and said quietly but with the fear still in her face: "You could take me with you."

"I could. I could take you with me and ruin everything. If I as much as fired a single shot at any of the sleeping warriors up top, I'd ruin everything. Everything depends on their never knowing that anybody was here to-night. If they suspected that, just had a hint of a suspicion of that, they'd pack their bags and take off into the night. Tonight. And I can't possibly do anything until to-morrow night. You understand, of course, that they wouldn't leave until after they had killed everyone in the cellar. And your father, of course. And they'd stop off at Torbay and make sure that Sergeant MacDonald would never give evidence against them. Do you want that, Susan? God knows I'd love to take you out of here, I'm not made of Portland cement, but if I take you the alarm bells will ring and then they'll pull the plug. Can't you see that? If they come back and find you gone, they'll have one thought and one thought only in their minds: our little Sue has left the island. With, of course, one thought in mind. You must not be missing."