The Cockatrice Boys (13 page)

“Headquarters ain't always right in their info, sir. Not but what it do seem that some of the things what happen is planned; and planned quite smartly, too,” the sergeant acknowledged, sighing.

“Oh, I certainly think they are planned,” said the archbishop, who all this time had been sitting in the colonel's easy-chair listening keenly and attentively to the discussion. “I think they are planned,” he repeated. “I think that every smallest thing that has befallen us has been planned—even down to the child Sauna's aunt's collection of holiday souvenirs—hundreds of little tiny china pots.”

“Sir?” said Bellswinger, greatly startled.

“I have had many talks with the child Sauna, Sergeant, while you were off on your ill-fated errand, and several things have struck me forcibly. One is the nature and character of Mrs. Florence Monsoon. She sounds to me a very strange, not to say repellent and sinister individual. Keeping the child tied up in that manner—keeping her, it seems,
at the behest of somebody else;
no, that situation was not simple, not natural at all. Another significant factor is that Florence Monsoon was not herself a native of Manchester. She moved there when she married. But her place of origin was in Scotland—ah, yes, you can guess where. Not far from the Kingdom of Fife. Near the Pool o' Muckhart. (It is instructive, is it not, that many place names in Scotland relate to streams and water, or to the weather—Burnfoot, Bridge of Earn, Coldrain, Burn of Cambus, Devil's Cauldron—those waters, streams, storms are so important to the Scots.) And Muckhart, of course, lies close to the Ochils, a most mysterious range of hills, volcanic, you know, very abrupt, seamed with unexpected caves and gorges. So your little Sauna, Colonel, is closely connected by her ancestry with the very neighbourhood in Scotland to which you have been directed by your command; is not that a very singular coincidence?”

“Very singular indeed,” agreed the colonel gloomily. “In fact it sounds damned fishy to me.”

“Not only so,” went on the archbishop, “but, according to the child, her aunt had told her stories concerning family forbears which suggest that she can trace her descent straight back to Michael Scott.”

“Michael Scott?” said the colonel, perplexed. “You mean the feller that wrote a book called
Tom Cringle's Log?
”

“No, no, Colonel, not that one; a much earlier character, also an author, as it happens, who lived in the twelfth or thirteenth century, travelled to Spain, was an official astronomer (or astrologer; they were synonymous in those days) at the court of the Emperor Frederick II in Palermo and wrote numerous learned books about Nature and her secrets.
Quaestio Curiosa de Natura Solie et Lunae
was one of his bestsellers. And he was reputed to have traffickings with the Evil One, to possess a demon horse and a diabolical ship. When he died, his last and greatest book was said to have been buried with him at Melrose Abbey, lest its secrets fall into unprincipled or inexperienced hands.”

“Fancy that, most remarkable,” said the colonel, not greatly interested.

“Another of Sauna's ancestors, a more recent one, was a man called John Brugh, a notorious warlock, who lived in Glen Devon around the year sixteen hundred, who was tried and burned for witchcraft.”

“Indeed? But I still don't quite see the relevance. What has that got to say to our present predicament?” demanded the colonel fretfully.

“Firstly it explains the girl's psychic powers. These things are often hereditary. They run in families—like red hair and deafness. Secondly, it appears to me that a kind of stage management is going on.”

“What
can
you mean, Archbishop?”

“Why—that matters are being put in train to get the girl up to Scotland, up to the neighbourhood of her origin. The aunt mysteriously vanishes, the girl is rescued—quite fortuitously as it seemed at the time, but I now suspect that the whole affair was pre-designed.”

“Come to think,” the colonel recollected, “there was that funny business of her aunt's voice coming through on the phone. You told me about that, Bellswinger.”

“Yes, sir, I did, and a deuced queer start it was. On the internal house line, it was, and smashed the instrument all to little bits, and gave me such a shock as loosened the teeth in my gums. But Sauna didn't like that one little bit, sir, she was even more scared than what I was. She didn't
want
to answer her auntie. And she told me her auntie never loved her, nor wanted her at all, but only took her as there was nobody else as'd have her.”

“Yes,” said Dr. Wren. “That was what she told me. But in fact, as we now know, the aunt's position was a false one. For Sauna was not alone in the world—she had her cousin Dakin and Dakin's mother in London.”

“But what about the dogs?” demanded the colonel. “I must confess, I can't make head or tail of that affair. Who—I ask you—would arrange to have a decent pack of hounds slaughtered
on purpose?
” The colonel had been a foxhunting man in his younger days, so naturally he felt strongly about this. “I can just about swallow your notion that there might have been some deep-laid plot to get the girl aboard this train—though it seems a mighty roundabout way to gain such an end—but why take elaborate steps to do away with all those valuable, high-bred dogs? It don't make sense—no, by Columbus, it don't!”

Dr. Wren sighed.

“There are powers of which our knowledge is minimal,” he said. “And
their
values, mercifully, are not the same as ours. We shall just have to be extra watchful, extra vigilant.”

“Keep a sharp eye on the gal, you mean?” suggested the colonel.

“Certainly that—among other things. But without making the poor child aware that we do so—for, after all, she herself may be as innocent as the day.”

“Well,” sighed the colonel, “at all events, we can't put the girl off the train. Besides, she's a deal too useful. Now, what about this other fellow—what's his name, Linch, Finch?”

“Tom Flint, sir, from the Canine Rescue Mission.” And Bellswinger told the story of how Flint and his colleagues had been given the charge of the dogs at the port of Boston.

“I wonder,” mused Dr. Wren, half to himself, “if the object of the rendevous at Willoughby was to get
Tom Flint
on board?”

“Just wait till I get back and write a report on that bungling harbourmaster,” growled the colonel. “All this howdedo results from his idiocy. However! That's water under the bridge. What'll we do with Flint? Can't very well turn him out to walk back to Boston across country on his own?”

“He asks, sir, if he can come with us as far as Queensferry on the Firth of Forth, and then from there he can make his way back along the coast by submarine.”

“Seems a bit roundabout—and how did he know we were making for Queensferry?” muttered the colonel. “Still, if that's what he wants … Maybe he can be of some use in looking after the hound.”

Oddly enough, this reasonable suggestion proved unworkable. Uli, the great, grey, shaggy dog, soon settled down well enough and found his place among the crew of the
Cockatrice Belle;
the men grew very fond of him and competed to slip him bits of their rations (for he had a huge appetite); Mrs. Churt tolerated his presence in her galley, though she did grumble that it was like climbing over the Alps every time she wanted to get to her cooking stove; Dakin and Sauna loved him dearly and spent hours brushing and combing out his shaggy grey pelt and practising the language in which they conversed with him. Sauna called it
Low Hundisch;
very soon she was almost as expert in it as Dakin.

“
Guten
dog, Uli!
Wie geht es?
”

And he would gravely raise his massive right paw.

“
Mitdogessen!
”

And he would stalk hopefully to his dinner-bowl.

But with Tom Flint of the Canine Rescue Mission his behaviour was quite other.

“Perhaps Uli doesn't
want
to be rescued?” suggested Sauna.

Whenever Tom Flint was in his vicinity, the great dog would spring to his feet and growl—a low, threatening, terrible sound. A brilliant green spark would light up in his eyes and he would slowly pace forward, baring two rows of fangs like snowy mountain ranges set in coral-red gums that looked quite capable of crunching an iron bar in half.

To Tom Flint's nervous squeaks of “
All right, then, good doggie!
” he paid no heed at all. A confrontation between the two had never been reached; Tom Flint always bolted.

“I'll tell you what it is,” he confided to Sergeant Bellswinger. “He's come to associate me with that awful battle in the graveyard, when all his mates were killed. It's not to be wondered at he has unhappy feelings connected with me. I daresay it'll pass off, all in good time.”

“Unhappy?” said Bellswinger. “Looks like downright unfriendly to me.”

“It'll pass, it'll pass. I'll give him a biscuit every now and then, or a bit of Mrs. Churt's raisin cake.”

But so far this had not proved successful.

Chapter five

Slowly, in fits and starts, depending on the condition of the track, the
Cockatrice Belle
made her way northwards to York and Thirsk, to Darlington and Newcastle.

Surprisingly few monsters hindered her course. And yet the countryside was sadly empty and wasted; there were very few humans to be seen. Wildlife was considerably reduced too.

“I don't like it,” muttered the colonel. “It ain't right, this lack of monsters. I don't trust it.”

“You think they are mustering, Colonel, for an all-out assault somewhere farther north?” suggested Major Scanty.

“Yes, Major, that's just what I do think.”

And the colonel made Bellswinger keep the men at battle exercises all day long, every day, to maintain them in hard fighting condition. Mrs. Churt was exhorted to feed them on wild spinach, heather porridge, and what raw greens could be garnered by the track-side, either from woods or commons, or from deserted farms and gardens. But as they travelled north the conditions became more and more wintry, snow lay thicker and thicker on hillsides, there were fewer and fewer wild greens to be found.

The main obstacle to their progress in these rougher and more hilly regions was the state of the track, which often required days of repair before the train could cautiously advance over it. Bridges, likewise, needed mending and the engineers had to make use of what materials they could find lying about in ruined goods-yards and sidings along their route.

“Days and days wasted,” fumed the colonel, as the party of engineers doggedly extended a new span of bridge across the River Tyne.

“It will be much better on the return journey,” mildly pointed out Major Scanty. “Their work will be done already.”

“If we ever
do
return,” muttered the colonel.

One advantage of these periods of enforced standstill was that Mrs. Churt's herb-gathering parties could range further afield. And the archbishop spent many hours of leisure with Dakin and Sauna, teaching Dakin French, and Sauna the basics of mathematics.

“But why should I want to measure the distance from that tree to the sun?” she asked. “What use would that be?”

“Oh! my dear child! You never know when such knowledge may not come in handy! And,” pursued the archbishop thoughtfully, “to have knowledge in your brain of
any
kind, if it is true and factual, is always a useful defence against the assaults of the Evil One. Knowledge is a shield. And it can be a weapon.”

“I'm not sure that I know what you are talking about,” said Sauna. “In fact, I'm quite sure that I don't.”

“Well, my child. Remember those long, sad days in the past when you were imprisoned in your aunt's flat with your hands tied behind you to prevent you from knocking over the china treasures. What did you think about during those hours?”

“Well,” admitted Sauna, “at first I used to think of how, if I could get my hands undone, I'd push Auntie Floss out of the window. Or bash her to flinders with the rolling pin. She had one made of marble.”

“Just so, Assaults of the Evil One.”

“Sir? On Auntie Floss?”

“No, child. On you.”

“And then,” went on Sauna, pondering, remembering, “I began to see Dakin, ever such a long way off, a-coming towards me. And that cheered me up a lot. So instead of planning how to do in Auntie Floss, I took to remembering a place Dad and Mam and I used to stop at on holidays when I was a little 'un.”

“Yes? Where was this place then, my dear?”

“I don't know, sir. I don't remember. It was called Bride's Bridge. Two rivers met. And there was a gravel-bed where I used to play. And a ring of trees—big trees. And just a few houses. An old lady called Alison Pittendreich lived there. Aunt Ailie, I called her. She used to give me girdle cakes. And there was big black mountains over the other side of the brook. It was a lovely place. Aunt Ailie gave me two tiny dolls with china heads and I called them Ted and Emily after Mam and Dad. I built them a palace of stones on a big rock in the river. If I think hard, I can remember the sound the water made, running among all those rocks. I used to jump across with dry feet, using them as stepping stones.”

“Stepping stones; just so,” said the archbishop. “They helped you past the danger of the fast-flowing water. In the same way knowledge, good sound knowledge, can help your mind leap over currents of cruelty, depths of deceit, slimy swamps of sin.”

“Fancy!” said Sauna. “You mean knowing about the square on the hypotenuse can do all that?”

They were sitting in the colonel's office; the colonel himself was outside on the observation deck inspecting a party of men who were holding a Snark practice. In the distance they could hear the powerful voice of Sergeant Bellswinger: