The Secret Vanguard Read online

  ‘Lassie, lassie, will ye no come into the body of the kirk?’ It was from the little cave behind that the blind man was calling her; she turned back to find him untying the knots of his bundle. When it was spread open before him he rose, groped his way to the little burn and laved his hands; then he returned, rummaged, and handed Sheila a scrap of fine linen, folded and spotlessly clean. He rummaged again and set out a tin of oatcakes, a little kebbuck of cheese, a loaf of bread.

  His hands hovered over them – open, in a gesture of offering. ‘The Lord provides,’ he said. ‘Lassie, what are ye for?’

  15: Two in a Cage

  Sheila was for everything; she ate carefully and with slow satisfaction, while Harry McQueen cut deep into the loaf and the kebbuck. This was perhaps his provision for several days, and in a way she was sharing it under false pretences – in the guise of a fugitive from Sir John Cope or the butcher Cumberland. She must thank him after the best manner she could devise. ‘Harry,’ she said when she had eaten her last oatcake, ‘may I have a read of your poems?’

  The paper-covered volumes had been taken from the bundle and neatly stacked; the old man picked up a copy and handed it to her. ‘Ye must mind that I’m but of a lowly and inconsiderable generation, that never went for schule-craft tae Aristotle or Plato. But the verses such as they be are my ain, and they’re yours now if you’ll take them.’

  Sheila opened the book. It was faintly familiar: she remembered the poor type from some little newspaper office in the north, the careful literary English, the stock themes of Scottish sentiment with here and there a fresher sensibility showing through. For twenty years the book had been on sale, and perhaps few that bought had read; it had been tossed under the seat in first-class carriages, laid aside for cheap magazines, used to wrap up banana skins or rub steamy windows. Sheila turned over the pages, reading to herself; she picked a stanza and read it aloud as well as she could.

  Upward the dying man’s carriage wound

  It stopped, and in the fitful sound

  Of murmuring Tweed Sir Walter found

  Just strength to hail

  From this henceforward hallowed ground

  His native vale.

  ‘These are good verses, Harry.’

  ‘Lassie, I ken full well that they’re but dust, like the laces and fripperies I’ve peddled them instead of. And yet whiles I’ll think them scarcely bad, and be right blythe ye should think the same.’ He smiled gently. ‘There’s never a writer but thinks he sells cheap what is most dear – even at a shilling, lass, or half a crown from some that’s in a hurry.’ He rose and began to gather up the remains of their meal.

  And Sheila took the book back to the boulder on the platform and continued to read. She would give herself ten minutes of this relaxation before turning to make her plans. A poem about Burns. Another poem about Sir Walter Scott. A poem about Rob Roy… She turned to the end of the volume. An Ode, she read, on the Natural Beauties of the Highlands of Scotland.

  Region of rock, and cloud, and heath austere,

  Of ben and mountain-torrent, and the steep,

  Dread fall of mighty waters, cataract sheer,

  That thunders in the deep!

  Me, thy remembered beauties cheer

  Like shepherd seeing from far,

  When riven clouds asunder roll

  Athwart the slopes of stern Glas Maol,

  Dark Loch Nagar!

  For Harry, Sheila thought, the form was too ambitious. She read on with wavering attention.

  Oft in soft twilight have I erstwhile stood

  Beside thy crumbling pile, and viewed the still

  Grey waters, and the islands, and the wood,

  And, distant far, the dim wind-cuffer hill

  That hovers o’er the flood…

  ‘Harry,’ Sheila called back into the cave, ‘what’s a wind-cuffer?’

  ‘Lassie, it’s the Willie-whip-the-wind. Is it an English quean ye are?’

  Sheila laughed. ‘No, Harry, it’s not. And now tell me what’s a Willie-whip-the-wind.’

  ‘A Willie-whip-the-wind? Why, that’s a wind-cuffer, lass.’ He laughed merrily. ‘A kestrel it’s called by some.’

  ‘I see.’ Sheila returned to the poem. But something had gone wrong with the metre; something was interfering with it in her head. She turned back:

  And, distant far, the dim wind-cuffer hill

  That hovers o’er the flood.

  Wind-cuffer…kestrel…falcon. That was it.

  Where the westerly spur of the furthermost mountain

  Hovers falcon-like over the heart of the bay…

  Harry McQueen and the man in the train were talking about the same thing. And the westerly spur of the furthermost mountain was falcon-like not merely because it hovered over the bay; it was falcon-like because it had the form of a falcon; because it was the wind-cuffer hill.

  She ran back to the cave. ‘Harry, where is the wind-cuffer hill? And just how does it come to look like that? And where did you used to stand and see it as you write here in the poem?’

  Sheila was vehement, and her vehemence was a mistake. The blind fiddler’s hands moved in the indecisive, groping gesture she had noticed before; his expression became remote, anxious, stern. ‘Nae,’ he said. ‘Nae, lassie, no more o’ that. This is but havering talk to hold while the king’s flag is flying at Glenfinnan. We’ll awa’.’ He rose, trembling, and swept together the contents of the bundle. ‘We’ll awa’ ouer the heather.’

  One look at Harry told Sheila that it was no use. His madness, if intermittent, was genuine. But perhaps the information she wanted was in the poem itself. She took up the book again.

  Oft in soft twilight have I erstwhile stood

  Beside thy crumbling pile, and viewed the still

  Grey waters, and the islands, and the wood,

  And, distant far, the dim wind-cuffer hill

  That hovers o’er the flood;

  Oft have I stood, a lonely boy,

  Beneath thy ruined, storied tower

  And dreamed of Scotia’s vanished power,

  Stern Castle Troy!

  Sheila slipped the fiddler’s book in the rucksack. Castle Troy. Find a crumbling pile called Castle Troy and she would have taken the first step towards the last lonely fountain and the dead garden… She turned round to the blind man, suddenly as impatient as he. ‘Then come along, Harry. We’ll away to Glenfinnan at once.’

  ‘Aye, lass. And on the king’s business, too.’

  ‘Yes, Harry. The king’s business, as you say.’

  They descended from the platform as slowly as they had come. If a hunt was still forward they must take their chance. The Cage of the Wolf was inviolate, but it meant ineffectiveness. Whereas if they could gain the fringe of the main road.

  The wood was once more thickening about them, but Sheila had a fair sense of her direction now. It would be necessary to cut across the long ride: there was not perhaps great risk in that. And Harry McQueen appeared to have regained his strength; they made good going and the ride was before them almost before she was aware.

  ‘Is it the clearing, lass?’

  ‘Yes, Harry.’

  ‘Then, lass, I’ll be awa’ up it for the six-fifteen.’

  Sheila stared at the blind man in astonishment. His mind had fluttered back to the twentieth century with the inconsequence of a bird to an occasional perch. ‘The six-fifteen, Harry?’

  ‘Aye, up the line.’

  Should she return with him to the little station and trust to its being safe till the arrival of the train? Probably better not. The enemy had lost her, but they might still be lurking where she was known to have been. She laid her hand on the fiddler’s arm. ‘Harry, what’s the nearest place on the main road?’


  ‘Craigard, lass. It will be no more than five mile.’

  ‘Is there much traffic?’

  ‘Plenty of traffic.’ The fiddler shook his head disapprovingly. ‘Motor traffic. I’m awa’ for the line.’

  She watched him, fiddle at chin, start on his curious progress up the ride. She saw him stop, set down the fiddle, fumble in his pack. He turned round, a book in his hand. ‘Poems,’ he said. ‘The poems of a Moray loon. A fiddler’s philosophy. One shilling.’

  Sheila paid; she paid and watched him move slowly away – surprised, almost, that he did not instantly vanish, so dreamlike had the whole encounter suddenly become. And then she turned her face towards the highway.

  It was late afternoon, sunny, and as the wood thinned again she found herself among slanting shadows. Everything was very silent, and she walked on expecting momentarily the purr of a distant car or motorcycle. But the only sounds were nature’s still: the scurry of a rabbit through a clump of dry bracken; somewhere to the north snipe crying – a call like the tiny snort of elfin ponies scattering before weasel or ferret… Unbroken solitude. She began to doubt her sense of direction. And then she saw the road.

  Smooth, broad, straight, incredibly man-made and reassuring – it stretched before her. Regularly along it square, white-painted posts gave warning of ditch or drain; there was a trail of oil; and overhead ran telephone wires on which one could talk to Sydney or New York. All this. And behind her still was silence and the pines.

  Soon now. Soon this responsibility – unknown in its kind or its degree – would be lifted from her. Soon she would be out of danger. But she had better wait here in the shelter of the wood until –

  The shadows of the scattered pines behind her lay across the road like the bars of some gigantic prison. She sought for her own shadow, dwarfed and enclosed by these. There it was, a little to the left. But there were two shadows. She swung round. Dousterswivel was standing beside her.

  At three paces. He looked at her – not like his minions impassively, but with a smile that was contemptuous, good humoured, well bred. He spoke. ‘It’s no good, Miss Grant. We have a longer arm than that.’

  Sheila’s hand was in her pocket. It was difficult. Presumably she would never be quite the same person again – and it is hard to part with oneself. Presumably, too, he was not proposing to take her life – or not at the moment. But here he was, where he had no business to be. And here was she, with information in her head which he and his friends were making the most concentrated effort to prevent her getting away with. Sheila took her hand from her pocket, and with it the pistol. She pulled the trigger. And Dousterswivel turned oddly round on his heel and toppled into the ditch.

  There had been a loud report. It repeated itself horribly in her head – went on repeating itself. She realized that she was listening to a motorcycle engine, but even as she made this identification the sound faded. Before her on the road was an indeterminate red blur. Her head cleared and she gave a gasp of relief. Pillar-box red. It was a motorcycle with a little van by way of sidecar. And a young man in the uniform of a postman was looking at her with frank astonishment.

  Sheila held out the pistol. ‘I’ve shot someone,’ she said. ‘A spy. Get me away from here.’

  The eyes of the young man astride the motorcycle rounded. ‘Shot someone?’ he asked dully. Dousterswivel’s body was invisible to him in the ditch. ‘I think, miss, you’d better tell the police.’ He stared again incredulously at the pistol. ‘Would you like me to look in on the sergeant at Craigard? Maybe he’d come out on his bit machine.’

  Sheila looked over her shoulder at the darkening pines. Just how close were Dousterswivel’s reinforcements it was impossible to tell. ‘Take me to Craigard now,’ she said. ‘Let me get on behind.’

  ‘It’s against the regulations.’

  The young man was looking obstinate. And behind her Sheila imagined she heard a crackle of dry bracken. She stepped up to the machine and scrambled on the rudimentary carrier behind the saddle. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘drive on. Please.’

  And the postman drove on. Presently he was driving at a very considerable speed, as if anxious to be through with this dubious adventure as quickly as might be. The wind sang in Sheila’s ears. It was hard work clinging on. Suddenly there was a hoot, a scream of brakes, and she found herself colliding violently with the postman’s back. A large open car had swerved out of a by-road and both vehicles were now at a standstill.

  An amused voice came from the car. ‘I say, Morrison, you’ll have trouble if there’s a smash-up when you’re giving a lady friend a lift. Go slow, man. I nearly had you in the ditch.’

  ‘It’s not a lady friend, sir.’ The postman’s voice was indignant. ‘It’s a young person who says she’s shot someone and wants to be taken to the police. I’m taking her to the sergeant at Craigard.’

  ‘Shot someone!’ The man in the car turned a surprised glance on Sheila. He was young and handsome. His eyes were very blue. ‘Why ever–’ He checked himself. ‘Can I be of any help?’

  It was the postman who answered. ‘Well, sir, if you were going to Craigard–’

  ‘Certainly.’ The man in the car leant across and opened the nearside door. ‘It will be quicker in the car. But, Morrison, if you know anything about this you’d better follow behind and come to the police, too.’

  Sheila was dazed and jolted. She climbed into the car and in a couple of seconds was hurtling down the long straight road once more. For some time the man at the wheel said nothing, and Sheila supposed that he conceived the matter to be none of his business. But presently a thought seemed to strike him. ‘Back there – there isn’t anybody injured?’

  Once more Sheila produced the pistol. ‘I shot a man,’ she said wearily. ‘He fell into the ditch. I don’t know.’

  He took the pistol from her hand as he drove. ‘You fired this?’ His tone was incredulous; he put the muzzle of the weapon cautiously and obliquely to his nose and sniffed. ‘Good lord!’ He set the pistol down in the glove box before her and accelerated slightly. ‘Well,’ – his voice was now briskly practical – ‘we’d better push along to that police sergeant.’

  There was a long silence. ‘It was a spy,’ said Sheila.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘It was a spy – a German spy. I found out something I wasn’t meant to. He was hunting me. A lot of them were. I shot him.’

  The car slackened pace. The young man, intermittently giving his attention to the road, eyed her seriously and curiously. ‘You are an educated lady?’ he said.

  The question was odd, and oddly phrased. But Sheila answered automatically. ‘Yes – I suppose so.’

  ‘Then you know about people – women especially – who will draw attention to themselves with stories of strange adventures? Even a country policeman meets with that. Listen’ – and Sheila was aware that the car had slowed down at a crossroad – ‘may I drive you straight to my uncle’s? He happens to be Lord-Lieutenant of the county and will get straight to the Chief Constable. That will cut out slow-moving people at the bottom.’

  ‘Yes, please do.’ Sheila lay back, tired. Then something prompted her to add: ‘What is your name?’

  They were rounding a bend and the young man sounded his horn. ‘Alaster Mackintosh,’ he said. He looked at her once more and his blue eyes were smiling. ‘My name is Alaster Mackintosh.’

  16: Castle Troy

  It was a long drive and into wilder country again. But the road was good and the car sped swiftly through the late afternoon – swiftly and smoothly, so that once or twice Sheila was almost asleep. The man in the ditch, she discovered, was not going to worry her; wounded or dead, he was simply something that had been dealt with. She was meditating soberly on this psychological fact when the car swerved through massive gates and swept up an avenue of beeches.

  Massi
ve gates, a solid lodge, an avenue long and beautifully cared for…it almost prepared her. But at the next turn she opened her eyes wide nevertheless. The car shot out from among the trees, there was a glimpse of spreading lawns and formal gardens, the flash of a moat, a moment’s darkness and a hollow sound beneath the wheels, and all about her was a great courtyard – immemorial, towering, grey. It was like slipping back more centuries than Harry McQueen could reckon.

  A seat, thought Sheila; decidedly what they call a seat. This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air…

  The windscreen before her lurched disconcertingly at her nose; the car, with the brakes too suddenly applied, had stopped like a lift. ‘A party.’ The young man spoke sharply. He put out his hand and switched off the engine. ‘There seems to be a party. Never mind. We’ll hunt out my uncle at once.’ He smiled at her, jumped out, and hurried round to open the door.

  There was certainly a party. Half a dozen cars stood about the courtyard – large and expensive cars, with little coats of arms on their doors and here and there a liveried chauffeur already standing by. Security, thought Sheila. And the transition was almost unbelievably abrupt, like Country Life after Robert Louis Stevenson, or Piccadilly after a battlefield… They walked across a sweep of gravel. ‘Come along,’ said the young man. ‘We won’t waste time. Some of them appear to be leaving, anyway. What’s your name?’

  ‘Grant – Sheila Grant.’

  They went up steps – the young man bowing as they passed to an old lady and gentleman coming down. Vaguely familiar faces. That sort of party: on the strength of studying the illustrated papers you could feel half at home at it. Footmen. A tall elderly man, bareheaded, saying goodbye to – yes, to Willa Maine the actress, and to a vague man with a Guards moustache. And behind him a raftered hall, already artificially lit, with armour and trophies, Raeburns and Wilkies in vistas on the walls… The young man had her by the arm. ‘Uncle’ – he spoke quietly and rapidly – ‘here is something very important. This lady has had an encounter with spies – German spies – and I want you to help her with the police.’