Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

Early the next morning an observer at the house could have noticed (and doubtless one or more did) the antics of a large fishing kayik in the waters close to it. The wind was steady enough, the sea calm, but some inexperience or ineptitude at sail or tiller saw to it that the boat, borne only by the current, drifted past the tip of the headland at a speed low enough to keep it within a couple of hundred yards of that spot for several minutes. Shouts and curses filled the air; men ran to and fro on the deck. Courtenay, crouched below the gunwale with his binoculars, saw no more than one thing of the least significance, but it was enough to make him send for Barnes.

‘Bricked up?’ queried Barnes on the evening of the next day. ‘Are you sure? How recently?’

‘I’m sure,’ said Courtenay. ‘Not being a bricklayer I couldn’t tell how recently, but I’d wager it was brand-new work, certainly less than a year old. I’m still trying to find the man who did it. Of course, it might have been one of them.’

‘There being no point in blocking a single window…’

‘And no window-tax or anything of that sort…’

‘We’ll start looking in the morning.’

They looked for the best part of two days — through the stout naval telescope Barnes had brought on Courtenay’s advice, their vantage-point a secluded spot on the far side of the bay from the house. It was established at once that the outbuilding noted by Courtenay had had at least two of its windows bricked up, and gradually that, to go by Vassos’s figures, there were either five or six persons in the party who never ventured into the air. At morning, noon and evening someone emerged from the main house carrying a large tray covered with a cloth and disappeared round the corner of the outbuilding, to where the door must be, later retrieving it piled with empty dishes. Another visitor, on both afternoons, was a tall man with white hair and a complexion proclaiming an origin far to the north of where he now was.

‘Count Axel,’ said Barnes.

‘Yes, but who’s he going to visit?’ asked Courtenay. ‘Who can he be keeping in there? And why on earth?’

Neither had any idea.

They also looked through their telescope, taking alternate watches, for the best part of a night. The moon, approaching the full, gave them an excellent view. The man they had identified as Count Axel visited the outbuilding from 9.27 to 9.53. By eleven the house was in darkness and the grounds, as far as could be seen, deserted.

On the second afternoon, a messenger from Courtenay’s Office ran them down and said that a jobbing builder had called there, saying he was the man he had heard the English kyrios wished to see. Courtenay went and was back within the hour, looking well satisfied.

‘There are three windows and the fellow bricked them all up,’ he told Barnes. ‘But he was very helpful about the type of lock he installed in the door.’

‘It should present no difficulty?’

‘None whatever to me. You it might take some minutes. My informant also told me what I needed to know about the way the inside is laid out, and supplemented our observations of the buildings as a whole. I’ll pass it on to you later. Tonight?’

‘Midnight. I believe you about that gate, but even if you could open it in one second you’d be certain to be spotted — there must be a twenty-four-hour watch on it. So it’s a boat to the tip of the headland where you go ashore and I wait for you. We’ll be in shadow till the very last minute. Will your inquisitive fisherman convey us?’

‘Jump at it; he loves a bit of excitement.’

However, when the proposition was put to Vassos, so far from jumping at it he refused outright, and only a solemn undertaking that in no circumstances would he be required to leave his boat, together with a substantial increase in his fee, changed his mind for him. He would muffle his oars and be out of sight near the base of the headland at 11.45.

‘There’s one characteristic of the door I neglected to mention earlier,’ said Courtenay as they approached the rendezvous. ‘It has a hinged flap a hand’s-breadth deep or more at the bottom.’

‘Deep enough to allow a loaded tray to pass when the flap is raised.’

‘That was how I saw it.’

‘What do you expect to find, Courtenay?’

‘Weapons. Ammunition. Perhaps explosives. Enough to cause the authorities to institute a raid.’

‘Behind blocked windows?’

‘I’ve been thinking again about that. Vassos had a very poor view of those people when they were landing. Half a dozen of them might well have been masked or hooded. They can’t be expected to remain in that state for days on end, so they live where only one man can see them, their leader. Because if a servant saw them he might recognize them, or be able to describe them later, when the job, whatever it may be, is done.’

‘Let’s hear your views on the job,’ said Barnes.

‘Well, they have a strong enough force to seize a strategic point on the coast and hold it while their friends arrive in battalions. They certainly have enough to do for Prince George. I feel we’ll learn the whole story in the next couple of hours.’

Vassos was waiting for them. When they reached his boat he said gravely, ‘ Kyrie Cartnee, kyrie Barans, I entreat you not to do as you intend.’

‘We have to do it, Vassos,’ said Courtenay. ‘It is duty.’

‘I know nothing of that. Then you will go?’

‘Of course. Do you expect us to turn back at this stage?’

‘No, kyrie , but remember that I entreated you to.’

‘Very well. Now let us move.’

By midnight they had reached the spot carefully chosen through the telescope. The two Englishmen disembarked; Vassos took his boat a few yards off into deep shadow. The climb ahead of Courtenay looked a good deal more formidable than they had had reason to expect, but he indicated that he could manage it and was soon out of sight. Barnes himself was in shadow and settled down to wait, till half an hour before dawn if need be. If Courtenay had not rejoined him before then, it was to be assumed, as agreed, that he had been forcibly prevented from doing so. In that eventuality, Barnes was to return whence he had come and inform the British authorities in the island. Meanwhile he was to be on hand to cover the withdrawal.

In fifty-five minutes he heard Courtenay returning. This surprised and dismayed Barnes: the junior officer was famous in the Department for his ability, unexpected perhaps in so big a man, to move over the most difficult ground in silence. Was he who approached indeed Courtenay? Barnes shifted position and drew his revolver.

Courtenay came into view, but it was not the Courtenay who had set off to climb the face of the headland. The dimly seen figure lurched and tottered from side to side, as if almost over come by intolerable lassitude.

‘Courtenay,’ called Barnes, softly but urgently. ‘Over here.’

With obvious, toilsome effort, the other changed direction and took half a dozen weary steps towards the voice. Then he fell forward and did not move. Barnes, revolver in pocket, ran to him and turned him over on to his back. Blood was spreading from a wound in his chest. The eyes were open. After a moment they recognized Barnes; another moment later the whole face took on a look of enormous loathing.

‘Don’t go up there,’ said Courtenay.

‘What did you find?’ Barnes became aware that Vassos, disinclination to set foot on the headland forgotten, was at his side.

Courtenay made another great effort, this time to speak again. ‘Terror,’ he seemed to say, ‘to fill…’ After a single indistinct further sound he fainted.

‘He has seen,’ said Vassos.