After her sharp tussle Ann stumbled through the heather and bracken, terrified each moment that a restraining hand would fall upon her shoulder, but Kenyon’s desperate resistance held their assailants until she was well away and, once assured of her escape, she threw herself panting into a ditch near the coppice.
For a little while she feared that they might search for her with torches, but the sounds of fighting ceased and, peering cautiously from her hiding-place, she could see no moving forms between her and the camp fire that lit the dell, so she crawled out and gave a low whistle.
No answering note came from the surrounding moor and after repeating the experiment once or twice she decided that Kenyon must have been captured. For a moment the idea of trying to fetch help from Shingle Street occurred to her but, even if she could reach it, would Gregory be willing to send a force sufficiently large to cope with this big gathering, and was Kenyon still alive?
Her fingers plucked feverishly at the strands of coarse grass as she thought that he might be already dead, and she realised at once the necessity of finding out what had happened to him before endeavouring to reach Shingle Street by herself.
She began to creep forward slowly and carefully, fearful that the snapping of every twig might mean discovery, and after ten minutes of cautious manoeuvring managed to reach a position some ten yards from the backs of the nearest men, where she could see the hollow.
Kenyon was nowhere to be seen, and for a little she was filled with new hope that he might have escaped in a different direction to herself, but the bonfire interfered with a large section of her view so that she could not be certain.
A little man with lank fair hair and eyes that glittered fanatically in the firelight was haranguing the crowd. Ann could not catch all he said but snatches of his discourse came to her borne on the night air: ‘Our brothers black, white and brown—An era of new Freedom—Already the towns are organising’
The man nearest her spoke in a gruff voice to his companion, a frail-looking woman. ‘They ain’t organisen’ Communist though.’
‘Ain’t they, Jim?’
‘No; too sensible be half.’
‘What be ’em a-doen’ then?’
‘Blow me if I know, but the chap I spoke to on the road today say as how the Mayor were back an’ the Greyshirts a handen’ out vittals from the Town Hall.’
‘Think o’ that now; in Ipswich do ‘ee mean?’
‘Yer—and other places too!’
‘Don’t ’ee believe that,’ cut in another labourer, ‘’tis a Soviet what’s been set up—it be true about the vittals, though only for the townsfolk—they ‘on’t part with any for the likes o’ we!’
‘Well, if it do be the Communists that be a wonderful pity!’
‘What the ’ell’s it matter ’oo it be so long as they stop a-murdering o’ each other; seein’ as the old lot let us down so bad, I’m all for given’ the others a chance.’
‘England won’t never go Bolshie; happens us’ll be all dead afore then.’
‘If you fared as hungry as what I do, you’d go Bolshie all right; aint you a comen’ on this party tonight?’
That be different thing; they stole my horse and tumbril, not to mention the hins and eggs. It be only human nature to want your own back.’
‘You be right,’ said the woman. ‘Fair’s fair, as I allus do say.’
The agitator sat down and Cattermole took his place. With feverish impatience Ann listened to his speech, for until they made some move she had no means of ascertaining if Kenyon was still among them and every now and then she shuddered at the thought that he might be lying murdered in a nearby ditch.
At last in a storm of applause Cattermole ceased speaking and then Kenyon was dragged down the bank. Her intense relief at finding him still alive was soon submerged in shuddering dismay as she saw them press the burning branch against his chest. Unable to bear it any longer she closed her eyes and rocked with misery, but when she opened them again the whole crowd were on their feet and struggling away up the far slope.
She had followed enough of Cattermole’s speech to gather their intention, but she had little thought to spare for Shingle Street; Gregory would deal with an attack by such a rabble with horrible efficiency. Kenyon was all that mattered and she must keep as near to him as possible. With that one central fact dominating her distraught mind she crept after the farm people and, seeking all the cover she could from the sides of the road, followed them down to the coast.
At the turn of the road where it debouched from the trees and curved across the marsh, she remembered an old concrete pillbox and, finding it without difficulty, slipped inside. The long slit in the front of the musty little circular chamber commanded the village and its approach, so, from it, although the whole scene was shrouded in darkness, she was able to watch for the crisis which she felt was imminent.
The Redoubt was a quarter of a mile away but she heard Kenyon’s shout that gave warning of the attack, and next moment the rapid tattoo that heralded the butchery. Stray bullets ripped through the branches overhead and a couple thudded on the little concrete fort, then the firing ceased abruptly. The stricken field was mercifully covered by night, but the dark curls clung damp about her temples at the thought that Kenyon must be somewhere among those panic-stricken, shouting people. Then there was a dull boom to seaward and in the flash of the following explosion she caught a glimpse of the Martello Tower.
For what seemed an interminable time she watched the shelling and then the silhouette of the village, black and sharp against the revealing searchlight, while little running figures gesticulated to one another. One by one the houses seemed to leap into a blinding sheet of flame as the projectiles struck them, and then disappear, so that the remnant of the burning hamlet began to take on the appearance of a row of black and jagged teeth which were being steadily extracted.
The gun took a new angle, and the shells fell nearer to the fields ahead where Ann believed Kenyon to be dead or wounded. She wrung her hands helplessly together, and at every fresh detonation a shudder shook her from head to toe. For hours it seemed she had been crouching there, sending up little muttered prayers that the holocaust should cease, but there was no indication of its speedy termination. The searchlight shifted to the north but, owing to the shelving beach, she was spared the sight of that last desperate attempt of the survivors to seek safety; she only heard the renewed rattle of rifle and machine-gun fire and then a sudden silence.
For another quarter of an hour she watched, fearful that at any moment the fighting might break out again, then by the dancing light of the flames she saw figures moving freely about the wreck of the village and crawled from her shelter.
If Kenyon was dead she felt that it mattered little what happened any more, but if he was still alive she might yet be able to aid him so, taking a deep breath of the fresh night air, she set off towards the Redoubt.
The going was not easy in the darkness; deep ditches half-filled with water and stinking mud intersected the fields of long coarse grass and, having fallen once, cutting her hand badly on a rusty nail, she did the last hundred yards on hands and knees until she was among the victims of the righting.
Someone stumbled near her and she realised that others were seeking friends among the more seriously wounded who had been unable to crawl away. Then lights appeared a little distance to her left and she saw that a group of men were carrying those still living in rough stretchers towards the village. She stood up suddenly with fresh hope, feeling how senseless it was to stay there listening to those pathetic voices calling for the missing. In the darkness she would stand little chance of finding Kenyon, but if he was still alive he would be carried down to the beach with the others.
Trailing a group of stretcher-bearers she made her way down to the foreshore, and saw that two camps had already been formed. The farmers and the fisher-people were now mingled together and, a little apart, stood some fifty sailors from the ship. At the sight of the mutineers she drew back quickly with a sudden horrible memory of Crowder and Brisket, but they were busy about a bonfire that they had lit across which they were hoisting a spitted pig. Then she caught sight of Gregory hunched on the shingle, his arms tied behind his back.
Veronica was kneeling by him adjusting a rough bandage to his head, and a little way behind them sat Silas, also bound. Rudd was there too, some way away and half-obscured by the fringe of shadow. His hands were free, she noticed, but the bulging pistol holster which had always decorated his hip was missing, and as the flame flickered for a second, lighting his face, she saw a miserable and hopeless expression upon it.
For a moment Ann thought of going to them, but her fears for Kenyon overcame every other impulse and she turned away towards the larger gathering. They too had heaped a fire and by it some men were busy dismembering a horse. Although she knew little of the situation Ann judged from this that the sailors were the masters in this partnership, and to placate their unsought allies had parted with this indifferent portion of their spoil rather than be compelled to drive them off.
Mud-stained and bedraggled as she was there was little chance of her being recognised as Kenyon’s companion of earlier in the evening, so she threaded her way in among them to a spot some distance from the fire where the long line of wounded were being deposited. Some lay unnaturally still and silent, others were twisting and groaning in their pain, but she peered furtively at each in turn and came to the end of the row without finding Kenyon among them.
‘Happen you’re looken’ for a friend?’ As the man behind her spoke she started guiltily, but his voice was sympathetic and kind, so recovering herself quickly she replied:
‘Not—not exactly—but I was wondering what happened to the tall man they caught up on the heath.’
‘Happen you be meanen’ him that give the alarm. The officer chap; ’oodn’t that be him they’re a-setten’ down now?’
He pointed a grimy finger towards the other end of the row and Ann recognised at once the long-limbed body which was being laid beside the others. The firelight caught the auburn curls, no longer smoothly-brushed but rumpled now and clotted with dried blood.
She hastened over to him, her new acquaintance following. ‘Is he—is he dead, d’you think?’ she managed to stammer.
The man peered down at him. ‘It fare to me he’ll live all right. They ‘oodn’t trouble to bring him in else, but anyways these fellers be shooten’ all the officers come mornen’.’
‘Are you certain; how do you know?’ Ann’s voice held a sudden sharp note, half-fear, half-challenging refusal to accept the statement.
‘Waren’t you here ten minutes agone?’ the man looked at her curiously. ‘The furrin’ looken’ sailor who fare to be the boss told all of we they meant to sail again come sun up, and after that us ‘ooldn’t have no more trouble with any o’ they thievin’ soldiers hereabouts,’
‘I see; then that settles it.’ Ann hardly recognised her own voice, it came so strange and harsh although she strove to make it sound as natural as possible.
‘I be rare vexed for they,’ said the man slowly, ‘but I reckon they’d have done the same to the others, come to that.’
Ann nodded, she was past all speech and could only visualise her wounded Kenyon, kindly Silas and the ever-defiant Gregory, being massacred upon the beach in the cold morning light.
As the man moved away she looked furtively after him and then stooped to Kenyon. Despite the blood she could find no wound upon his head, perhaps he had been thrown against another casualty; his arm had fallen from a sling and she replaced it quickly, noting the flesh wound in the shoulder that Veronica had bandaged. Apart from that he seemed to be unhurt and he was breathing regularly, so she guessed that the explosion from a shell burst had knocked him out.
Another man paused near to her, it was Rush, and suddenly fearful of being recognised she hastened away into the darkness of the beach, but a gruff voice brought her to a standstill: ‘Not this way, Missie; your supper’s a-cookin’ on the beach.’
A broad-shouldered sailor leaning on a rifle barrel barred her passage, so she turned away without protest, veering off towards the still smouldering houses, but another sentry farther along also turned her back and then she realised that they were posted in a circle guarding the approaches to the corral that held Gregory’s fine collection of poultry and live stock, about which Kenyon had told her on the way from Orford. The idea flashed into her mind and out again, for it mattered little to her who secured this wretched provender. Her whole anxiety was centred in the prisoners, so she struggled across the now deserted fortifications and, gaining the open marsh, sat down to think.
As she rocked backwards and forwards, torn with a terrible distress, her natural urge was to risk discovery, but get back to Kenyon and remain with him, to face whatever the dawn should bring, yet all her sound practical common sense revolted at the thought of final surrender. Alone among the little band that had set out from London she remained free. Surely she could use her freedom in some way to help the others.
For half an hour she sat, her head in her hands, her brain absolutely incapable of coherent thought, tired, miserable, dejected, unable to think of a single way in which she might bring them succour or relief, then like a thunderclap the words of the agitator in the dell: ‘Already the towns are organising,’ came back to her.
She recalled the ensuing conversation, with its mention of the Mayor being back in Ipswich and the issuing of rations by the Greyshirts, word for word. If only she could get to Ipswich they would be sure to help her, and she might yet be able to save her friends.
No sooner had the thought come to her than she was on her feet, angry with herself for the time that she had already lost by not having grasped the full implication of the news before, yet moving cautiously, terrified that she might be stopped and questioned; for now she was quite convinced that upon the retention of her freedom hung their only hope.
Every shadow seemed a menace and every sound a threat. Even the grounding of a rifle butt or the calling of the sentries to each other caused her fresh alarm. With quick stealthy steps she headed inland until she had passed from the lingering glow into the darkness of the marshes.
The ground soon began to give her trouble. Uneven, boggy in places, or sown with Gregory’s man-traps for the protection of the Martello Tower, which lay in ruins to seaward. Then, clear of the defensive belt at last, she ran up the slight incline only to pause breathlessly at the top visualising suddenly the tremendous task she had set herself.
Ipswich was sixteen miles away, she would never be able to do it after her journey with Kenyon and the strain to which she had been subject the previous night; yet she hurried on, assessing the chances as she went.
They had left Orford at seven-thirty, two hours at least must have been spent upon the way, another hour between their capture and the first attack on Shingle Street; that then would have been somewhere about ten-thirty. How long had it lasted, from start to finish? an hour perhaps. Then she had waited in the pillbox for a bit, hung about the bonfire on the shore looking for Kenyon among the wounded—and then wasted more time stupidly doing nothing. It must be twelve-thirty at the least, and sixteen miles would take her a good five hours. She could not hope to arrive in Ipswich before six o’clock.
Too late, she decided. Aeroplanes and cars could hardly be running again yet, so soldiers or police would have to rely on horses and bicycles. By such means it would take them a good two hours to get to Shingle Street and sunrise would be about six. Unless she could reach Ipswich by four o’clock they would arrive too late.
Suddenly a new plan came to her, the cross-country route. If she took that it would save her at least four miles, but it meant crossing the River Deben.
In normal times there was a ferry boat at Ramsholt and in an emergency the ferryman could be dragged out of bed, but would he still be at his house, Ann wondered. Perhaps, starving like the rest, he had wandered farther towards the coast or back into some town. She would never be able to swim the Deben—a quarter of a mile of water with treacherous muddy banks.
She paused for a moment by a solitary farmhouse, leaning against the low stone wall, breathless already from the pace at which she had come, and miserably undecided which road to take—the track leading north to Melton and Woodbridge or the lane to the left through Alderton to Ramsholt. Then, with the swift realisation that her only hope lay in taking a chance on being able to cross the river, she turned down the lane; to go by Woodbridge meant certain failure on account of time.
With that vital factor of time pressing upon her brain she broke into a run and covered the next half mile in seven minutes. Then she slackened into a breathless, shambling trot.
All question of what reception she was likely to meet with when she got to Ipswich, and if the authorities would be willing to undertake her friends’ relief, had passed from her mind. The one thing that mattered was to get there at the earliest possible moment, for she had already convinced herself that, if she could only stay the course, troops, police and Greyshirts would be sent dashing to the rescue.
A voice hailed her out of the darkness. With swift fear, no longer for herself, but that she might be held up or stopped altogether, she burst into a fresh spurt and ran again as fast as her short sturdy legs could carry her.
The houses of Alderton came into sight and she checked, approaching them at a quick cautious walk, fearful that she might be set upon, but her alarm had no foundation; the village was silent, ghost-like and untenanted, for all its inhabitants were congregated on the beach at Shingle Street tearing lumps of fresh roast horse between their teeth.
Two more miles yet to the ferry and even that was only a little over a third of the distance she had to cover. If she was ever to reach Ipswich she must conserve her strength so she moderated her pace and settled down into a steady dogged trudge.
Another mile and the road sloped upward toward the hills that held the Deben to its banks. The pebbled surface, rarely used except for motor traffic in the summer, was rough and tiring to her feet. Grass grew on either side, creeping towards the centre of the track, so Ann abandoned the road for the grass and found it better going. At length she breasted the rise and, stumbling slightly, slithered down the steep descent, the broad bosom of the river plain before her in the starlight.
There lay the ferry, an old broad-bottom punt, and on the right the tall bleak house, an inn where trippers came in the summer-time, filling the small tea garden with their noise and clamour. Now it was silent, dark, apparently unoccupied.
Panting a little she regained her breath and shouted. There was no reply. Again she called, then, desperate, picked up a pebble from the road and flung it at one of the first-floor windows. The glass splintered under the impact, and the pieces tinkled to the unseen floor with a melancholy sound, then silence descended on the little cove once more.
The landlord, his family, and the ferryman were gone, where, heaven knew. Impatiently for a moment the small agitated figure on the foreshore waited, and then abruptly turned away.
With quick steps she hastened on to the short broad ‘hard’ that jutted out into the river. Great posts of wood, rotting under the pressure of time and sea, held the banked earth together, except in one corner where the mass had crumbled and a gap showed plain between the surface, beaten down by generations of trampling feet, and the decaying pillars at which the tide sucked and gurgled.
The river being in flood it occurred to Ann for one moment to swim it, but she knew the treacherous mud banks on the farther side that the night concealed. She would be trapped for certain in the slimy ooze.
The ferry lay there in the starlight but Ann knew that her slender arms would never be able to cope with the great heavy pole, or steer the ancient barge safely to the other side; once she got out into the stream she would be swept seaward by the tide.
In desperate haste she began to scan the other boats for one that might be suitable. Most of them were inaccessible, being moored out in the river. Yachts and motor-launches rocked gently in the tide, lonely and forgotten now in the stress of terrible events, but kept there for the weekenders who, in happier times, forgot their business worries during the hours they sailed, or chugged gently, down-river, along the coast, and up the reaches of the Orwell or the Stour. A dinghy swung at the stern of all the larger boats but not one of them was within Ann’s reach.
She stamped with impatience at the thought that in such a place there must be something in which she could get over if only she could find it, and hurriedly retraced her steps to the landward end of the hard. Her eye lit on a battered rowing boat half sunk in the mud. She paused by it a moment and hastened on, its planks were rotting even if she could prise it from its sticky bed. Then on a shelving beach of pebbles above the mud she saw a dingy, lopsided but lying high and dry. Next moment she had seized the painter and was dragging it towards the water. Her sense of flying time, upon every moment of which Kenyon’s life might hang, lent her added strength, and with a superhuman effort she managed to get it launched.
The sculls had been left beneath the thwarts, and the boat was hardly rocking in the water before she had them out and in the crutches. With a sharp left-handed stroke, she swung the nose towards the opposite shore, and then with all the weight of her strong shoulders pulled towards it.
Five minutes later she had shipped her sculls and was scrambling out into the ooze that fringed the farther bank, It sucked and plopped as she struggled through it but she was on to the course grass a minute after landing, leaving the dinghy to drift out on the tide.
With renewed courage she ploughed her way up the rising ground and over the thick heather. The brief respite on the hard and the use of different muscles in rowing had eased her legs and rested her feet a little. The river too had been her principal anxiety, now she had succeeded in crossing it the remainder of the journey depended only upon sheer dogged endurance.
At last, with infinite thankfulness she struck a road and, leaving the uneven ground, turned north along it for half a mile until she came to a cross-roads that she recognised. There she turned left but with a sinking heart, for she knew that she had barely accomplished half her journey, and that a solid seven mile tramp still lay before her.
It seemed hours and hours since she had left Shingle Street and her head was burning with fatigue. As she trudged on she became half-delirious and began to sing, strange breathless snatches of half-forgotten tunes, hymns, choruses and nursery songs, that she had learnt in Orford when she was a little girl.
She broke off suddenly, impelled from sheer fatigue to sit down and rest by the wayside. Slipping to her knees, she leaned against a bank and lay there for a few moments panting heavily, while she tasted the supreme pleasure of relaxing all her limbs. Instantly a great drowsiness came over her, with a little flicker her heavy eyelids closed, and the great weight of sleep bringing relief to her utter weariness, pressed down upon her.
That would have been the end of her pilgrimage had not a sudden picture blazed in her half-conscious brain. Kenyon, with the burning brand pressed against his chest! She started up with a muffled scream, those devils were going to hang him—no, he was to be shot tomorrow—today—when the light came in the morning. Wide awake again now she struggled to her feet, and pressed on down the road, running a few paces and then dropping back into a staggering walk.
She wondered vaguely how much farther she had to go and, knowing the country well, she would easily have recognised any bend or turning in the daylight; but now that she could only see hedged fields on one side of her and heath on the other, her brain would no longer take in the significance of gradients and dark coppices. At last another cross-road loomed up out of the darkness, and the place was unmistakable even in her weariness. It was a little north of Brightwell and on one corner of it stood a signpost, but she did not trouble to peer at it for she knew its legend; it read, 5¼ miles to Ipswich.
Five and a quarter miles still to go. She felt that she would never be able to do it. Her feet were aching, galled and blistered about the heels. The road seemed to waver in front of her, closing up then broadening out before her with a horrible sickening motion. She swayed as she walked, lurching from one side of the road to the other, and failed to see the faces of the starving prowlers who peered at her from the hedgerows every now and then. Furtive, soundless, they watched her pass and then slipped back into the shadows for she carried nothing, not even the smallest packet that might contain food, and seemed to be as destitute as themselves.
It was not until he was actually upon her that she saw the man who sprang from the roadside and seized her arm.
What could have urged him to attack her is past conjecture. She obviously had no food about her and even less of beauty. Her dark hair hung in matted locks; her face was puffed and swollen. The mud of the Deben clung about her feet and blackened her arms up to the elbows; smears of it disfigured her face where she had sought to wipe away the perspiration and her mouth hung open in an ugly contour, but as she swung terrified to face him she saw that his eyes were glowing bright in the darkness with the horrible glare of insanity.
She screamed and with a sudden access of strength wrenched her arm free, then slogged him again and again with her clenched fist in the face. For a second he stood there, a look of stupid amazement in his eyes, his arms dangling foolishly, then he tripped and fell backwards in the roadway.
Ann screamed again and, forgetful of her weariness, ran and ran until she was clear of the hedgerows and out once more upon the open heath. There she collapsed and fell into a ditch, lying sobbing for several moments.
Rocking from side to side, moaning a little from acute bodily distress and terrified that she might fall asleep, she began to massage the aching muscles in her legs, then recognising a cottage opposite suddenly realised that she could now be no more than three miles from her goal.
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, she 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.