Hammond Innes - Attack Alarm

‘I understand, sir.’

The tone of the man’s voice was significant. Vayle turned away. The matter was settled. It was not even a tense moment. There was nothing to grip one’s imagination. There was nothing emotional or stirring about his words. The order had been given quietly, matter-of-factly. It might have been an ordinary everyday matter. Yet, in fact, it was cold-blooded murder. And the strange thing was there was nothing sinister about Vayle, no animosity in the way he spoke. I could not hate him. I even found it difficult to blame him. Micky and I were just pawns that threatened his queen, pieces of grit that could mar the smooth-working machinery of his scheme. It was necessary that we should die. In the interests of his country he had given the necessary orders. He had shown no morbid interest in our reaction to his death sentence. He had made no attempt to gloat over our wretchedness. It made murder seem so natural. Two slugs had got in his cabbage patch and he had trodden on them.

That was my first reaction — surprise at murder done without feeling. But fear followed as we stumbled between our guards across the heath. Ferret led us straight back to our lorry. It was quite evident that he knew exactly where it was. At first I could barely realise that those quiet, simple words of Vayle’s meant that we should be dead in a few minutes’ time. But after we had been trussed with ropes and bundled into the back of the lorry with a tarpaulin over us, I began to grasp the full significance of those orders. ‘ — and set fire to it.’ Should we still be alive when they did that? Was death by fire quick? I began to shiver. What was it like to die? I had never thought about it much. It all seemed so incredible. If only I had fallen asleep like Micky and had never heard the lorries grinding across the heath. Yet if Vayle’s plans succeeded, all our gun team would probably be dead, too, in an hour’s time.

I rolled over in the darkness. ‘Micky!’ I spoke softly, for I knew one of the guards had come in the back of the lorry with us. ‘Micky!’

‘Wot is it?’ His voice sounded hoarse and strained.

‘I’m sorry, Micky,’ I said. ‘I didn’t think it would end like this.’

He did not answer. I felt he must be angry. He had every right to be. ‘Micky,’ I said again. ‘I’m sorry. That’s all I can say. It’s just one of those things. A bit of luck and we’d have pulled off something big. He was too clever for us.’

I heard him say something, but his words were lost in the jolting of the lorry as it gathered speed on the rough lane leading down to the main road. ‘What did you say?’ I asked.

I suddenly found his face close to mine. ‘Stop shooting ye mouth off, can’t you?’ he said quietly. ‘I’m lying on your jack-knife. It must ‘ave fallen out of your pocket when they pitched us in ‘ere. I’m trying to open it.’

I lay still, not daring to hope, wondering what chance we had even if we did manage to cut ourselves out of the rope that bound our arms and legs. It was pitch dark under the tarpaulin, and it smelt strongly of malt. The jolting of the lorry hurt my shoulder. I wriggled over on to my other side. As I did so the lorry swung sharp left, flinging me on to my back and banging my head against the floor boards. After that the going was smoother. We had turned on to the main road. I leaned over towards Micky. ‘We’ve only got about four minutes,’ I said.

‘Orl right, orl right,’ he grumbled. ‘Don’t fuss. I’ve got the bloody thing open.’

I could feel his body against mine. It was rigid as he struggled to cut through the ropes. Then suddenly it relaxed and he brought his feet up. His right arm moved stealthily — but freely.

‘Yes, but what do we do when we’ve cut ourselves free?’ I whispered. I felt helpless and rather a fool. The initiative should have been mine. I had got the lad into this scrape and felt it was up to me to get him out of it. Yet the leadership had passed from me.

His arm moved and his hand took hold of my arm, feeling for the rope. ‘You’ll see,’ he whispered as he sawed at my bonds. A strand gave and then the knife slipped and cut into my hand. But my arms were free. A second later my feet were free too.

He stretched away from me a moment and then put his mouth close to my ear. ‘I can feel the end of the tarpaulin,’ he said. ‘You gotta take a chance. Move slowly to the other side of the truck as though you was still bound, and start ‘ollering like you suffered from clausterphoby — ain’t it? I want ‘is attention on you, see? Leave the rest to me.’

‘O.K.,‘I said.

He wriggled back against his side of the lorry. He took my jack-knife with him. His foot tapped my leg. I slid along the floor as far as I could without disturbing the tarpaulin. As soon as I felt it pressing against my back, I put my arms against my side and braced my legs together, so that I moved forward exactly as though I were still bound. At the same time I began to yell, ‘Let me out! Let me out! I can’t stand it. Everything is black.’

I heard the guard’s feet move towards me. I tensed, nerving myself for the blow. And at the same time I kept yelling to be let out. His boot caught me in the ribs, rolling me on to the floor and knocking the breath out of me. But I began to scream.

‘Shut up, you bastard, or I’ll club you with my rifle.’

I put my arm up to protect my head and continued to scream. I heard the sling swivels of his rifle rattle. I did not hear him raise it but I sensed it.

The blow never fell, however. There was a faint choking sound, and then the rifle clattered on the floor of the lorry. A second later his body thudded on the boards. I struggled clear of the tarpaulin to see Micky retrieve my jack-knife from the man’s throat. I felt slightly sick. Blood was bubbling up in great gouts where the knife had been. Against the red of his neck his face looked horribly pallid in the moonlight.

The driver of the lorry suddenly braked. I glanced at the glass window at the back of the cabin. It had been slid back and the barrel of a revolver suddenly appeared. It was pointing at Micky. ‘Duck!’ I yelled.

He dropped in the instant, and as he dropped, the revolver cracked and the bullet sang through the air in the direction in which he had been standing. I dived for the body. Subconsciously, I suppose I had noticed the man’s revolver when I first saw him lying on the boards, though the only thing I had consciously recorded was his throat. I slipped it from its holster and dived back to the shelter of the cabin, where Micky had already taken cover. The revolver turned, nosing blindly in our direction. It was the civilian, Ferret, who had fired. But now he could not see us without leaning right across the driver. The lorry was drawing up. There was only one thing to do, and I did it.

I fired through the back of the cabin at the point where I thought his head would be. I hadn’t fired a service revolver since my schooldays when I was at Bisley. My arm must have been too slack, for the kick was much greater than I had expected. This, coupled with the fact that the lorry swerved badly, caused me to lose my balance, and I fell headlong into the middle of the tarpaulin. For a moment I thought I had hit the driver by mistake. But by the time I had picked myself up he had got the lorry back on to the road again.

The brakes were no longer being applied. At the same time he was not accelerating. It was clear that he was undecided what to do. I peered cautiously through the little window of the cabin. Ferret was huddled in a heap over the gears. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or not, but he had a nasty wound across the side of his head.

I poked my gun through the window. ‘Draw up,’ I ordered the driver.