Arms and the Women (46 page)

'Careful you don't tread in my xanthic linn,' she said, standing up. 'Unless of course you're into golden shower.'

She returned to Jorge and pointed to the roof of the pavilion, almost invisible now in the growing darkness of the approaching storm.

'There, that's it. It's nicknamed the Command Post and that's what CP stands for.'

Suddenly lights came on in the house, throwing a golden glow over the terrace, and Feenie emerged, carrying a wooden box with a large red cross on it.

'I need to be able to see,' she said coldly to Jorge, who looked ready to object to the lights. 'What's going on, Ellie?'

'This gentleman was enquiring the whereabouts of the Command Post,' said Ellie.

'Why?' said Feenie. Her voice remained even but Ellie thought she detected something like alarm in her features.

'He didn't say.'

Feenie knelt beside Novello, produced a pair of scissors and began to cut her T-shirt.

'Careful. That cost good money,’ gasped the WDC.

Plucky little trouper. Perhaps the old and the young through experience and innocence can deal with trauma. It's us poor buggers in the middle who crumble.

Wendy Woolley, without even a permission-asking glance at Jorge, joined Feenie on the floor and began to help her clean and dress the wound.

'Straight through,' said Feenie. 'May have chipped the bone but nothing more. Either a lousy shot or a very good one.'

She worked expertly.

Wendy said, 'You've done this before.'

'And worse. You're pretty handy yourself, my dear.'

The woman flushed and said, 'Thank you. What on earth's that you're putting on?'

Feenie was using her fingers to extract what looked like goose fat from a jam-jar and smearing it onto Novello's wound.

'It's an ointment Mrs Stonelady made up for me. Don't ask me what's in it. All I know is when I cut my foot chopping logs, this healed me up faster than our dear NHS could have managed.'

'Yarrow,' said Ellie. 'I bet it's yarrow.'

Mrs Stonelady glanced at her appraisingly, then nodded.

Jesus, thought Ellie. What's going on here? Trigger-happy thugs, the latest medical advances hot from the Trojan war, everyone else being brave and useful and defiant, and her own major contribution had been to take a pee in public! Thank God Rosie hadn't been here to witness that!

Rosie. Where was she?

She had a vision of the girl and the dogs suddenly racing out of the shrubbery and the jumpy bastard with the gun taking a potshot. It must be better that they knew.

The two Latins and Popeye were having a conference.

Boldly she went up to them and said, 'Excuse me. I just wanted you to know my daughter's in the garden somewhere . . .'

'Your daughter? In the garden? Where?'

Jorge had spun round in alarm, gun waving.

'No, please, she's only a child. No danger. She's playing with the dogs. Just little dogs, no danger either. I just wanted you to know so that you wouldn't be surprised by her and start shooting . . .'

Speaking a possibility makes it more possible. She heard her voice wavering.

Popeye said, 'Never you worry, darling. Me and Luis here'll keep Wild Bill Hickok under control. Now that pavilion place, the CP, you call it, what kind of place is it?'

'It's a sort of summerhouse, I suppose. Where people could go and sit in comfort and watch the ships go by, or storms out at sea.'

'Looks like there'll be plenty of chance for that just now,' said Popeye.

He was right. The wind had dragged the turbulence of cloud right across the sky and under the darkling air the sea was flocculent with foam.

'So, this CP, is it a substantial sort of building then?'

Ellie said, 'Well I've only been in it once, but there were a couple of rooms at least. The big one, the viewing chamber they call it, you could have a dinner party there. In fact I think that was the idea. Water and electricity were laid on. Oh, and there's a cellar, for storing wine and provisions so that they didn't have to bring everything down from the house.'

Away from the subject of her daughter, she was amazed how calm she'd become. Scope here for a treatise on the nerve-soothing effects of urination. Don't take prozac, chew on a dandelion instead.

'Ellie, what are you telling them?'

Feenie had joined them and her tone was accusing. Where does she think we are? Back in the Resistance refusing to betray our comrades to the Gestapo?

'How's the girlie?' asked Popeye.

'She'll live but she needs a doctor. I hope that this is what you are discussing,' said Feenie sternly.

'Not really. I'm sure she'll survive a little while longer with you to look after her, darling. And we'll be getting out of your hair as soon as possible, then you can doctor her to your heart's content.'

The two Latins seemed content for the time being to let Popeye talk to the natives, though Jorge was beginning to look impatient.

'This pavilion, darling, can we get a truck down to it?' continued Popeye.

'Certainly not,' declared Feenie. 'Nor do I see why you should want to. Everything of any use or value was removed from it as soon as the council declared it dangerous.'

'Dangerous? What do you mean, dangerous?'

This was Jorge getting back in on the act with his gun-in-the-face technique.

Feenie wrinkled her nose as if assailed by a particularly noxious cigar.

'Dangerous insomuch as it is likely at any moment to fall into the sea. In fact, the whole garden beyond that fence is off limits for the same reason. That is why it has warning notices printed all along it. I am assured that the weight of a human being might be enough to cause a landslide. Anything like a truck would immediately precipitate an avalanche.'

This was laying it on a bit thick, thought Ellie. In any case, if there was a degree of truth in what Feenie was saying, surely the clever move would be to encourage these thugs to drive straight down there!

'Not very keen to have us visit your precious Command Post, are you, darling?' said Popeye slyly. 'Tell you what. Why don't we all take a look-see with you and your friends leading the way like the womenfolk do out in Cambodia when dada wants to take a walk. Takes a lot to make an oriental give precedence to women, but show him a minefield and suddenly he's a feminist.'

Jorge and Luis spoke to each other in Spanish too rapidly for Ellie to understand, then Jorge nodded at Popeye.

'Looks like we're on,' said Popeye. 'All right, ladies. This way if you will. That's right. Nice and easy does it and you'll be back here for the rest of your dinner before you can say Hail-Mary-full-of-grace. You've not had your pudding yet from the looks of it. Fine ladies like yourselves shouldn't have to go without your pudding. Old ones at the front. And you two, give the lady cop a hand.'

Ellie and Daphne looked towards Feenie for guidance.

She said, 'Don't be silly. She can't be moved. Have you forgotten she just got shot?'

'No, but you seem to have, darling,' said Popeye. 'Only way my friends are going to let her stay here is if she gets shot again.'

Feenie considered then nodded at the two younger women, who went to Novello. Feenie had taped a dressing round her wound and put her left arm in a sling. She looked very pale and swayed as they helped her to her feet but uttered no sound. Daphne draped her right arm round her neck and took most of the weight, while Elli supported her left side as best she could without bringing any pressure on the injured shoulder.

'You, where are you going?' demanded Jorge.

Wendy Woolley had made a move towards the marble bench.

'I was just going to get my handbag,' she said fearfully.

Cue Edith Evans, thought Ellie. Time like this and the poor cow doesn't feel able to move without her sodding handbag!

'Leave it,' said Jorge.

For a moment it looked as if Wendy's dread of committing a social solecism was going to be stronger than her fear of the gun.

Then Feenie said, 'For heaven's sake, forget your precious bag. If you must have something to carry, carry this.'

She thrust the medicine chest into Wendy's arms and obediently, though not without one last longing glance towards her large sensible handbag, she fell into line behind Novello and her supporters, with Feenie and Mrs Stonelady leading the way, flanked on one side by Big A. and Little A., on the other by Jorge and Luis.

'Now just in case anyone hasn't read the script,' said Popeye who was bringing up the rear. 'If any one of you decides to make a run for it and hears a shot, don't bother to duck. It won't be fired at you, it'll be blowing a hole in one of the friends you leave behind. Let's go.'

At this hour on a summer evening it should still have been broad daylight, but the clouds which had now eaten up the blue sky entirely were so heavy and dark, shading from murrey through perse to empalling black, that they rapidly moved from the bright-lit windows of the house into a frightening crepuscular world which felt even less like England than Axness normally did. This too was once one of the dark places of the world, thought Ellie. And might be again. What was it these men wanted? And above all, where was Rosie?

Pointless and terrifying speculations, both. She concentrated on the ground at their feet, trying to pick the smoothest way for the injured woman. Ahead, Feenie had reached the warning fence. She halted and called, 'Stay!' in a loud commanding voice. What does she think we are? Dogs? Ellie asked herself as the little procession came to rest.

The fence presented little problem to an active adult who could either climb over or duck under it, but when Jorge asked impatiently why they had stopped, Feenie said in the same loud voice, 'Have you forgotten that you have shot and wounded Miss Novello? She is hardly fit to walk and certainly unable to perform gymnastics.'

Jorge looked ready to give her an argument, but Popeye, moving to the front, said, 'You're dead right, darling. We'll soon have this out of the way.'

He produced a knife, pressed a catch which released a vicious-looking blade and began sawing at the fillet of red plastic.

The Ajaxes were uneasily examining the threatening sky as if minded to open fire on it while Luis and Jorge talked together incomprehensibly fast, but with body language suggesting it was a less than amicable discussion.

Probably debating what to do with us later, thought Ellie. With everyone's attention otherwise engaged, it occurred to her that this might be a good time to make a run for it. Except of course no one was going to run, not with Popeye's threat hanging over their heads . . . but why not? Why should it be
of course
? Why trust the implied promise that if they all stuck together and did what they were told, no more harm would come to them? She thought of those long columns of the doomed and dispossessed, outnumbering their captors by thousands, who'd let themselves be marched quietly to their deaths during this century, and centuries before, when if they'd turned and fought and run, some at least would have escaped, some must have survived who were driven down to death.
Driven down to death . . .
that or something like it was the stock phrase Homer used in the
Iliad.
Not a euphemism in sight there when it came to being killed, nothing for anyone's comfort. Blood, guts, pain, despair, it was all there. No joyful embracing of heroic death. These heroes saved their heroism for living. When it came to dying, as often as not they turned and ran, they screamed, they abased themselves and begged for mercy, they offered bribes and prayers. In the whole of the poem, while there are plenty of reproofs for those who try to hold back from going out to confront the enemy, no one ever gets blamed for doing their best to avoid death on the battlefield.

If Hector could turn tail and run when he saw Achilles raging towards him, why shouldn't I let go of plucky little trouper Novello and head for freedom? For if these men are truly capable of killing one of the others because I have escaped, then they are capable of killing the lot of us once they've got what they're here for.

As these thoughts synchronized through her head, historical, literary and practical indistinguishable from one another, she looked around for the best exit route. Whichever way she ran except forwards, there were yards of open ground before she reached cover and Big Ajax and Little Ajax would have all the time in the world to pick her off. The only area which offered immediate concealment was the shrubbery, but that was beyond the fence and involved running past the Latinos which would be somewhat counterproductive. Still not knowing whether it was common sense or even commoner fear which was making her think of escape, she looked longingly at the jungle of rhododendrons which the ever rising wind was whipping into a maelstrom of branches and leaves and shredded blossom, everything on the move so that it seemed a wonder it didn't all take off like in
The Wizard of Oz
and go spinning into the vast inane.

Except for one small patch of paleness straight ahead which didn't move, now visible, now not, as the swirling veil of greenery moved over it and away.

She stared. Found the focus. And saw Rosie crouched there, looking right at her, one arm around Tig, the other tightly gripping Carla.