The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes (19 page)

             
"To me it sounded rather too easy. I frankly had not cared a bit for our encounter with the old person inside and I knew Connie was very upset indeed about the whole layout, although for some esoteric reason I couldn't fathom. The Nazi had the wind up worse than either of us, although he was trying to pretend otherwise in the best
herrenvolk
manner. I also felt sure that a German bullet in the back would be our destined reward as soon as he considered himself quite safe, and I knew Connie felt exactly the same.

             
"Nevertheless, we had little choice except to agree. The man was on the edge of a complete crackup, and might shoot us on the spot. Even the likelihood of Miss
Keto's
swift—and paralyzing
—
retribution afterwards would hardly have been of much concern to us.

             
"Connie turned to the young lady and asked very politely if we could be shown to our rooms. It was indeed by now late afternoon, and the sky was darkening rapidly, which made our request all the more credible.

             
" 'Do you wish food brought to you,' she said a bit dubiously, 'for I wished you to eat in my company?'

             
"Connie was superb. I knew him enough so that I could tell it gave him the absolute chills to even talk to her, but he concealed it awfully well. He told her that we wanted to rest and be in our top-hole best form to enjoy her ravishing company and a lot of
bumph
like that.

             
"Her reaction was curious, I thought—not that of a flattered woman at all, but more like that of a child, who knows it's being put off but anticipates a treat in the near future anyway. Also as the light faded, her strange round eyes grew less attractive and rather, well, spectral.

             
"Von
dem
Bruch-
Wiletzki
was quite right. She showed us to rooms, or cubicles, next to his and drifted reluctantly and slowly away.

             
"A short time later one of the island men, older than the two we'd seen, but the same dull, vacant-eyed article, appeared with food. There was coarse bread and meat, some grapes and a jug of the sweet, heavy wine. Connie wouldn't touch the meat, seemingly some sort of local and very stringy goat. It wasn't bad, so I ate his. He wouldn't say why at the time, only asked me not to eat it either, but I was hungry. I expect he was wrong anyway.

             
"There was no fish, which was odd for an island, but one can't worry about everything.

             
"The Nazi ate with us, but he actually didn't tuck much away. Mostly he fidgeted and looked at his watch and muttered to himself. Once he shot a question at Connie, something about the statue he'd seen, I believe, and Connie said
'I
knew the eyes were closed or you couldn't describe them,' whatever that meant.

             
"It was not exactly a cheery meal, but I felt better when I'd finished. Always grab a bite in a tight place, because you never know where the next nibble is.

             
"We decided to set, since it was now six-thirty, three rough sentry go's until midnight. I had the first and the other two went to their respective cubicles and tried to sleep on the pallets provided for them.

             
"I lay down on mine and tried to plan ahead a bit on how to deal with our German 'comrade.' I had not, you may have noticed, given
my
word to any agreement, and he was so obviously meditating treachery, he hadn't even asked for it, which was a trifle silly of him if he expected to be believed.

             
"I hadn't much luck in thinking up any schemes, beyond grabbing a rock and blipping von Bruch from behind. The atmosphere of the gloomy place, the House of the Eye, was not conducive to ordered thought. A soft wind moaned through the little narrow windows and strange groaning and creaking noises echoed through the cold, dank air.

             
"I think the whole place must have been built over vast limestone caverns in the island's rock, caverns which allowed the sea to enter. Every so often a great muffled noise, something like a softened howl, would come vibrating through the floor, almost shaking it with its sheer intensity. I am considered to be anything but oversensitive, and yet at times one was almost persuaded that one was hearing some monstrous and awful beast, whose feeding hour is overdue and whose bellow signals the rise of a titanic and raging hunger. All this from the sea simply banging away at the ceiling of an underground and underwater cave far below my feet. Shows you how wrought up I was, eh?

             
"It really was a most weird place with the utterly dumb and peculiar servants or serfs or whatever and the two women, old and young, running everything and lurking in this vast mausoleum. I almost got up and woke Connie, because he at least seemed to have some idea of who these very odd people were, but decided to let him alone. He had the last watch, just before we left and I thought he looked really done up.

             
"Eventually the German appeared from his cell and announced he would take his turn. But he told me in a nasty voice that he would take it in my company. I could sleep and he would wait for
Murusi
. 'I don't trust you two overmuch, Captain,' he said and tapped his pistol. 'We will wait together until midnight.'

             
"I was annoyed, but too tired to argue and fell asleep on my pallet almost at once. I needed rest and the Nazi problem could wait.

             
"I woke up suddenly to a crash and a thud. The SS man had been sitting on a low wooden stool, the room's sole furniture, and must have nodded off. At any rate, as I blinked and stretched, I saw a grinning Connie tucking that very large pistol in
his
belt. He had waited, come around the door fast, and dotted the German over the head with the stool from his cell. The Nazi lay on the floor, quite visible in that strange light, looking as if he were asleep. Well, let him answer the questions about where we had gone.

             
"There was no need for speech. My shoes were already on and we had never removed our
clothes at all. We stole down the corridor, Connie in front with the gun, me carrying one of the stools. We could see moonlight coming in a door at the far end, and there was no sign of life or movement elsewhere, unless one counted the sub-aqueous and subterranean
roarings
, which were both louder and more frequent. I thought to myself there must be quite a sea running.

             
"When we actually got out, we could see a strong wind had come up and the sea was indeed rising. We were at an exit leading directly into the garden, and after a quick look around, we dashed off for the head of the path down to the beach. The shrubs and low trees were bending in the wind and the moon gave strong but
fitfull
illumination through a
wrack
of racing cloud.

             
"We had just reached the Hoplite statue I mentioned earlier, and it looked very effective and alive in the moonlight, when the last sound I expected to hear broke on my ears. It was the snap of several bullets passing by! An accompanying burst of fire came from behind us.

             
"I threw myself flat instinctively and saw Connie dive under a bush to the right. We wriggled around and got a look back at the building and saw we had made two cardinal errors.

             
"One was assuming that the Nazi had only one weapon. He was staggering after us firing a
Schmeisser
machine pistol in short bursts and screaming something in German, probably curses. The second error was not bashing his conk a bit harder, or at least tying him up.

             
"Connie sighted the Browning carefully and fired twice. One bullet must have been a near miss, and that was excellent shooting with a pistol, by the way, especially at night. Usually, a large rock is a far more reliable weapon. At any rate, von
dem
Bruch-
Wiletzki
also fell flat and got behind that base of a statue about a hundred feet off. He stopped firing and a momentary quiet, broken only by the wind and the sound of waves far below, lay about us.

             
"But now the House of the Eye was roused. No light appeared, but suddenly Keto in her white robe, her heavy blond locks flying, appeared in a clear space not far from the German and a little behind him. She called out something, but he had either had enough or was rattled, and whipping around, shot her dead in her tracks, using at least six bullets. I was appalled, because strange though the girl may have been, she was unarmed and had done nothing to justify her cold-blooded murder, at least that I could see. Connie, I may add, disagreed, but that is another matter.

             
"The German seemed a bit stunned by his own action and remained staring at the body, his back to us and resting on one knee. Connie motioned to me and we both got up and ran for the path like deer. We were running on turf and made no sound at all. I think we could have just gone racing on down, but at the head of the path something, some premonition or other, made us turn back and this is what we saw:

             
"Where the Nazi had been standing, something had interposed between us and him. The moon was partly veiled and sight was difficult, but some great, dark bulk, whose upper parts seemed to writhe and be full of restless movement, had blocked off the light so that the German was momentarily hidden. Whatever it was suddenly withdrew, lurching off to one side and at that precise moment the moon came from behind the clouds.

             
"What we both saw made us tear down that path like Olympic sprinters. In seconds it seemed, we were in one of the little boats, each at an oar and pulling like hell for the harbor entrance. The waves were rising but we fought our way out of the narrow entrance and pulled for the open sea like good ones.

             
"Despite the rest and grub, we'd been through a lot you know, and as we passed the two little headlands which guarded the harbor I began to slack off a bit on the oars. But Connie noticed at once and, thank goodness, was having none of it.

             
" 'Goddammit, Donald, keep pulling!' he screamed over the rising wind. 'We aren't near being safe yet! Pull, for the love of your mother, pull!'

             
"Something about his manner,
d'you
know, made me tug a bit harder and my idea that we could rest vanished.

             
"The wind was strong, but not near gale force and the air was warm. The little boat was well-shaped for riding the seas and we took in hardly any water, but we were getting quite wet from the spray. Overhead the sky had grown darker and black clouds seemed to be increasing ahead of us, to what I assumed was north. Behind us not a light shown and only an occasional gap in the clouds revealed the mass of the island. Now, in the clouds ahead, I could see lightning begin to play as I looked over my shoulder. The thought crossed my mind that we had come to the island in storm and in storm we were going forth.

             
"Connie, however, wasn't looking ahead at all. He was staring back at our stern and over it, as if determined to memorize every speck of wood on the square stern. Suddenly he cried out sharply and stopped pulling. He pointed at the water some way astern, but I could see nothing except that an unusually large wave had broken at its crest, showing a splash of foam.

             
"Ahead of us, and now almost over us indeed, lightning bolts played down the sky. The moon had vanished behind the heavy cloud cover and only the lightning gave any view of the tossing black waves and the foaming combers.

             
"At this time, new strength came to my arms. It may sound peculiar, and indeed downright mystical sitting here, but I felt as if I'd received a combination message and shot in the arm, so to speak. The message said 'Pull, just a trifle harder and you're safe,' and the jolt seemed to give me the strength to do it. Connie was pulling like hell, too, and we simply tore through those waves as if we were working up for Henley.