Dennis Wheatley - Black August

As she got on her feet something rustled in the bushes at her rear, only a stoat or rabbit perhaps but, terrified by her recent experience, she dashed off down the road.

She was drunk now, drunk with terror and fatigue, but somehow she staggered on, every thought blotted out from her exhausted brain but that they meant to burn Kenyon unless she could reach Ipswich in time.

Suddenly she realised that she was no longer walking through open country. Houses were upon either side. Her mind cleared for a space, and she shook her head violently from side to side. Then as she looked round she knew that she could not be dreaming. The electric tramwires were overhead.

This was Ipswich, but the suburbs seemed interminable and her feet like leaden weights as she dragged them one after the other. There were 'lights ahead and she groped on towards them but, when she was only a few yards from the barrier which they illuminated, all strength seemed to leave her and, pitching forward on her face lay gently moaning in the gutter.

A man came forward and, stooping, gripped her by the arm. He shook her roughly and pulled her to her feet.

'You can't stay here,' he said sharply, 'you must go back where you came from unless you live in the town.'

'Communists,' muttered Ann, 'they're going to burn them.'

'Eh! what's that?' he questioned with a quick glance. 'Where have you come from?'

' Shingle Street,' she flung at him with a desperate effort. 'They'll be burnt alive unless you take me to the Town Hall.'

'All right, pull yourself together, it isn't far.'

Ann remembered nothing of the last part of her journey. Her mind was blank until she stood, supported by the man who had found her and another, before a bald man at a desk in a bare, ill lighted room.

He pressed her for her story, but her memory and even her' power of speech had almost gone. 'Communists, Mutineers, they'll burn them alive if you don't send help, Shingle Street Shingle Street,' was all that she would mutter over and over again.

Limp and utterly exhausted she sagged upon the arms of the two men until at a gesture from their superior they led her to a chair, where she flopped inert, her head lolling forward on her chest.

'Send for the Colonel,' said the bald man, and with infinite overwhelming relief Ann knew that her task was accomplished. She dozed for a moment, but just as she was going off again the thought of time flashed into her mind once more. How long had she been, and could the rescuing force reach Shingle Street before dawn.

Jerking up her head, she gazed round the room, and through dull eyes saw the face of a big white clock. Yes, she had done it, the black hands stood at a quarter to four. She had taken only three hours and a quarter to do that terrible journey.

She smiled then, wanly but happily; with horses or bicycles they would easily get to Shingle Street before six.

Next moment the door opposite to her opened, the bald man stood up deferentially at his desk, the others came to attention and a khaki figure entered. He stood there staring into her face for a second and then he stepped forward.

'Well I never! if it ain't little big eyes turned up again!' and she found herself staring into the blotched unhealthy face of Private now Communist Colonel Brisket.

24

The New Justice

For the moment Ann's state of collapse saved her. Utterly overwhelmed by the appearance of Brisket and all that his new authority portended, after the continual stresses which she had sustained in the last thirty hours she fainted. Despite her forlorn and bedraggled appearance he still regarded her with a lecherous stare from one small hot eye; the other; which she had injured three weeks before, remained hidden under a black shade.

'Take 'er away,' he said suddenly, 'over to the 'otel opposite an' give 'er a bed in one of the guarded rooms. She's an old frien' of mine, is big eyes, an' I'll enjoy a little talk with 'er ter morrer 'op to it.'

The other men jumped to obey his order and Ann was carried out, across the square and up the stairs of a small commercial hotel which had been taken over by the Ipswich Soviet. They pushed open the door of a small bedroom, flung her on the bed, and left her, locking the door behind them.

She moaned a little and came out of her faint, but hardly regained consciousness; the room was dark, her muscles at last relaxed and almost instantly she fell into a deep, dreamless slumber.

'Wake up,' shouted a voice, 'wake up, will you,' and feeling her shoulder violently shaken she groaned, then opened her eyes to stare round the strange room lit by the afternoon sunshine.

Momentarily she remained dazed, then the details of her desperate but useless venture came back to her.

'You're wanted,' said the man who had woken her, 'come on now.'

With an effort she slid off the bed. Every bone in her body seemed to be racked with shooting pains, her throat was dry and parched, her head splitting. As she caught sight of herself in the mirror of the cheap dressing table, she gave a little gasp. Her clothes were torn and mud stained, her hair a matted tangle, her eyes red rimmed and swollen. Picking up a towel from the washstand she dipped it in the water jug and began to dab her face but the man pulled it away from her.

'No time for that, Colonel wants to see you,' he said sourly. Then he pushed her before him from the room, down the narrow stairs and out into the square.

The streets were nearly empty but over at the Town Hall there was considerable activity. Thirty or forty men, some in khaki, but mostly in civilian clothes, and all with a bright red sash crossing their bodies from shoulder to hip, stood leaning on their rifles or passing to and fro. Evidently a selected guard ready to deal with any emergency which might threaten the new local Government. A small group of them, obviously a detachment of cavalry, stood by a dozen horses, and as Ann was led over to the building she noticed that a line of despatch riders stood ready by their bicycles while one or two others were arriving and departing in apparent urgency.

Inside the Town Hall was swarming with people. Messengers were constantly coming and going, men with set important faces carrying bundies of papers hurried from room to room, and a motley throng, who seemed to have no particular business but whom Ann supposed to be adherents of the new movement, blocked the hallway, stairs, and passages.

Her captor forced a way through them, up the staircase and along a corridor, then he poked his head into a room, muttered something, and drawing back thrust Ann inside and slammed the door behind him.

With sick apprehension she saw that Brisket, seated with his legs crossed in a big arm chair, was the sole occupant of the room. A slow smile lit his heavy face as she appeared in the doorway.

'Well, big eyes,' he greeted her, 'feelin' better for yer nap?'

Youth, a healthy body, and eleven hours of complete oblivion had certainly restored Ann's bodily well being to a considerable extent, yet having slept in her clothes and been allowed no opportunity to bath or wash, she was feeling incredibly stale, stiff after her supreme effort, and weighed down to an unutterable degree of sadness by the fate which she had been unable to avert from Kenyon and her friends.

'I'm all right,' she answered dully, 'although I think I could have gone on sleeping for a week.'

He nodded. 'You'll soon pick up agin, don't you fret. An' I tike my 'at off to yer fer that sportin' effort of yours to sive yer pals. 'Ave a pew?' He pushed a chair towards her with his foot.

She sank down in it and passed her hand across her eyes.

'It wasn't much use, was it?' she said wearily.

'Wot's the odds,' he said, trying in a queer uncouth way to comfort her. 'They were for it any'ow. Only a question of time 'fore we mopped 'em up.'