Appleby on Ararat (21 page)

She looked over her shoulder. Certainly it was no good. They all had those dumpy weapons and they were less than fifty yards away. “John–”

Uproar compared to which all before was silence drowned her words. Before her eyes Appleby’s shirt turned into shreds and vanished. They were caught up, hurtled through the air, pitched down together yards away in a confused heap. She was on her hands and knees, aware of a sort of strange element about her. She gasped. All around them was one swirling and impenetrable curtain of sea apples. Visibility was nil. The strange fibrous balls, large and small, wildly buffeted them. They were like dwarfs caught in a snow fight between giants.

Appleby took her hand again. “They can’t see us. We’ll go on.” They staggered forward, as people might move in a great flying-boat out of control. The beach pitched itself at them in sudden bewildering angles; the air was filled with sand, with an acrid dust from the sea apples; each breath was caught with pain. It was difficult to go on, it was impossible, they stopped. The dance of the sea apples, the drift and drive of the sand took on a pattern, a curve, a circular sweep. Everything was sweeping round them suddenly in a simple rhythm, round and round with increasing speed and an increasing density. They were sprawled, gasping, on a little island of stillness. And all around was a swirling cylinder of sand and sea apples and twigs and leaves through which it would be impossible to plunge. They sat idle, like explorers in a little tent, held up by a blizzard. And somewhere – in a similar stillness, perhaps, or in the very chaos of the storm – the enemy waited too.

Diana panted. The air was thin and suddenly clear, as on top of a mountain. “John, what happened?”

Appleby grinned, exhausted. “We went to see Dunchue. We suspected he suspected we were suspecting, and we were going to persuade him that we suspected the wrong thing.” His eyes, red-rimmed and strained, were striving to pierce the dizzying swirl before him.

“I know that. But–”

“But George gave the game away. Didn’t I tell you he was vital? George and this fantastic storm. Between them they exposed the mystery of the dump.”

“The what?”

“The dump. What our friends called the barrow or the tumulus or the dig. What Heaven thought was pirate gold. What we pretended we thought was pirate gold. What is really oil; thousands of gallons of it for submarines.”

“John!”

“Just that. The cyclone ripped the sand from it and stove in a tin or so. Poor old George at his burrowing came in for an oil bath. And Dunchue and I looked at each other and it was all up. He just knew that I knew, and that we’d almost had him fooled. We ran.”

“You knew all the time?”

“I thought it might be arms; I know there are plenty neatly cached about the world. Anyway, something they were just concerned to sit on. Theirs was a waiting game; I got that as we sat over our coffee yesterday in the bungalow. And the whole tempo of the island made it plausible.”

“I don’t understand about that chart.”

“A third line of defence. If they were exposed as Pacific archaeologists they were after Vikings; if they were exposed as that they had ready a story – and a chart – of pirate treasure. I like Dunchue; I think he’s thorough.”

“At any minute he may be thorough again.”

“Too right, Diana.”

“The man’s a murderer.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Theirs is an imperial theme. And we have to hold them up. Which, at the moment, means making the hotel.” He got to his feet. “Above all this racket I can just hear the breakers still. Which is a guide of sorts. I think we’ll try to get through.”

They moved forward and were presently in the swirl again. “I wonder what happens after this round-about effect?” Diana asked.

“Possibly very little. The island returns to normal. But I hope not.” He glanced anxiously behind them; the sea apples were beginning to fall and scamper about the beach again, so that the strange curtain which had cast itself about them was becoming thinner. “The elements betrayed us. They have also saved us and for a time they must stay on the job. A fog or even sheeting rain would be capital. Or an earthquake or a tidal wave. Anything to provide cover and confusion to get us back and away. Now we’ll run.”

They ran, still almost blindly. To distinguish any sound of pursuit was impossible; a mechanised column might have been behind them and they would have been none the wiser. For the island was full of noises: of great water-wheels that creaked monotonously as they turned, of monsters crashing through the undergrowth or plunging into pools, of Cup Final crowds roaring goal, of twanging instruments mounting urgent scales. And all this was but a ground bass to the chant of the congregated demons of the upper air. This rose again in a clamour that might have cracked the welkin; King Lear in all his madness could not have bawled for a more clamorous storm. It was no longer possible even to shout; there was no longer any question of hearing the breakers; but they moved down the slope of the beach until they met the sea. It was then comparatively easy to go forward in the right direction. But this probably applied to the enemy too.

The storm, continuous overhead like a great slab of chaos, was capricious and fragmented on the ground; suddenly they would tumble out of it into a drifting pocket of sticky calm, and as swiftly it would be all about them again; their progress was like a dream of struggling through some horrid pot-pourri of clear and thick soups. The uncanny effect intensified. To their left the air suddenly exploded and rocked them; the same thing happened on their right and they were drenched with spray; straight before them sand leapt up like a roaring geyser. A battlefield, Diana thought, must be rather like this – and as the idea came to her she was swung round by Appleby and they were making up the beach to where the cover of the jungle lay. Dimly she realised what had been happening. Something landed with a plop at her feet. It looked like a cricket ball. They were past it, running. She was pitched forward amid a whirl of force that hurt the ears, and lay covered in sand.

The world was still slipping slowly away behind her – so they must be crawling still. Through undergrowth again. And the jungle blanketed the storm; she could hear Appleby shouting.

“They followed down the water’s edge – chucking grenades. But we’re all right here.”

“Had we better lie low for a bit?”

“No. We must try to make the hotel before them. Come on.” They went on. Diana felt soaked to the skin. Perhaps it was raining torrentially. Or perhaps she was bathed in sweat. Or in blood, perhaps, from an unfelt wound or from the prick and scratch of the thorns. But she could crawl. And then, unaccountably, they were on the little jungle path again and running. The soupy sand-charged atmosphere thickened and they were running blind. But almost they must be there. Diana felt a hard and artifact surface under her feet. Before she could think it had vanished and she was head-under in water. She clutched and grasped something flabby and yielding; for a second she thought of her companion by some powerful agency horribly pulped; she realised that she was in the swimming pool with her arms round a large rubber toy.

Appleby hauled her out. “You couldn’t have done better. Gives us bearings. Come on.” But the atmosphere was clearing again before some down driving blast of wind and presently they could distinguish the outlines of the hotel. “Home,” Appleby said.

The air was still clearer, and the hotel thrust forward and defined itself before them like a shot in an arty film. They leant forward against the wind and stared at it distrustfully.

“A bit battered,” Appleby said. “Position thoughtlessly exposed for weather of this sort. But we may make something of that.” As he spoke a chunk of iron roof blew off and floated at them like a vast driven leaf or a flying carpet.

The hotel and its outbuildings stood on the neck of a peninsula, with a little tongue of land, where the jetty lay, behind. It was impossible to approach it cautiously from a flank and they stepped boldly forward towards the front. There was no sign of life. Perhaps everybody was huddling in the most sheltered part. Or perhaps not.

They were on the steps. Something stirred – and Diana, recognising it, jumped. It was George, his chrysanthemum fleece sadly bedraggled and browned. He rose, not without a remnant of dignity, to meet them. Diana patted him. “John, do you think–?”

“No. They wouldn’t have left him out here as a warning. We’re first, all right. And George has come over to our camp. A countryman, after all. George, come along.”

They skirted the verandas, all three, and ran towards the boat house. Half way they met Miss Curricle, her clothes whipped about her by the gale, nubile again. “Disgraceful!” she bawled at them, and gestured at the elements. It was plain that she had gone out of partnership with natural law and established herself trenchantly in opposition. “And virtually out of a blue sky. Cloudless…intensely blue.” She plunged towards the hotel, the wind shoving and slapping at her from behind.

The boat house was before them and they dived in. A figure like a nigger minstrel rose at their feet, crooked an oily finger within a collar that wasn’t there. “It reminds me of our organ,” it said. “Sometimes we have discovered trouble within fifteen minutes of service. And knowing that the Tavenders were coming. Lord Tavender’s father gave it to the church. Bought it up somewhere. Awkward.” Mr Hoppo giggled cheerfully. “
Parvis componere magna
. And I am delighted to see you back from your hazardous mission. George looks as if he had been engineering too.” He flourished a spanner and disappeared.

Mudge’s voice came from the bowels of the launch. “The transmission, Mr Appleby; there’s a little bit of trouble there. Shall we be wanting the craft soon?”

“At once, I’m afraid.”

“Half an hour, sir.”

“Very well.” Appleby spun round as the door was tugged open from outside. It was Mr Rumsby, agitated and determined.

“Look here, the electricity’s still off. But there’s a kerosene stove and I think I can manage a spot of dinner if–”

Appleby had pushed past him and was running towards the hotel. Diana followed. The guests were huddled in a corner of the lounge, rather like startled minnows in a pool. Glover was frowning over a shotgun, the only weapon about the place which a search had revealed. And Sir Mervyn Poulish sat on a piano and sipped whisky, a sardonic spectator of the scene. Appleby strode up to him. “Sir Mervyn, did you ever try arson?”

Poulish frowned in an effort of memory. “No” – he spoke rather regretfully – “I can’t say I ever did.”

“You have your chance now. The whole place must be an inferno within five minutes.”

Poulish nodded and slipped from his perch on the piano.

“Petrol,” he said.

Had the guests of the late Mr Heaven, before deciding to set out for their island asylum, thought to purchase some manual of elementary psychology they might have saved much in the way of diamonds and Triangular Capes. For they would have learnt that physical danger is often less daunting in actuality, when nature has poured appropriate chemicals into the blood, than it is in the prospect and when operative only upon the imagination. They would have learnt – so unsearchable is the human heart – that when one is oneself actively engaged there may even come certain rare moments to be classed among the Good Times. The guests were learning all this now. Mr Rumsby, a wet towel tied round his dangerously open mouth, had made a brilliant sortie amid the flames to plug a gap with kerosene. Miss Busst was putting more vigour into rolling petrol drums than she had ever put into chasing fat gentlemen about the beach. The whole hotel had become a little microcosm of ordered national effort.

The fire was spreading to the jungle. It darted through the undergrowth with the swift sinuous movement of a snake. It scampered like a great golden squirrel up the trunks of dark foliaged trees and set them suddenly ablossom with flame. The enemy advancing against this might have awkward movements. But it was only the line of the hotel itself and its half circle of outbuildings that formed for the time an impregnable barrier. To outflank this flaming mass they would have to swim. And against a swimmer was Glover and his shotgun.

Diana had rolled out the last drum of sugared petrol and paused to view the leaping flames. “John,” she asked, “has it occurred to you that the wind may change before that launch is ready?”

“Don’t worry. Unlike Poulish, I’m not a tyro. I often do this.”

“Burn places?”

He smiled absently. “Well, once before. But on a smaller scale – and on an altogether more important occasion… What do you think our friends are doing now?”

“Gone back to fetch something nasty.”

Appleby nodded cheerfully. “They insured themselves against some of us attempting a getaway when they made their cannibal raid. Doctored the petrol and monkeyed with the magneto. So they’ll think they can give half an hour or so to bringing up the Big Berthas. They will reckon, though, on a spot of hidden petrol and won’t wait longer… Ah!”

High above the clamour of the now dying storm there rose the crash of an explosion. Diana hitched up Miss Busst’s tattered shorts and opened childish eyes. “They’re not really shelling us?”

“Dear me, no. Grenades again – quite big ones. But that one was deliberately short of us by quite a long way – nerve stuff.” He turned round to the door of the boat house. “How long now, Mudge?”

“Fifteen minutes, sir. But the old place will burn for longer than that.”

“No doubt.” Appleby was scanning the lie of the land anxiously. On one side were the flaming buildings; on the other were only the boat house, a low concrete jetty and the sea. The jetty offered cover, and now at this first explosion Glover was shepherding the guests into a couple of uncomfortable feet of water behind it. The grenade had exploded beyond the burning hotel, but it would not be at all difficult for the enemy to get near enough to lob others over it. And they would only have a small area to destroy.

Diana was counting heads. “The native boys have bolted. Are you going to take everybody else away?”