Chapter 18
The Alvis squelched, sloshed, and jolted along muddy ruts with grass growing in between. Phillip hoped the suspension was up to it. He wouldn’t have chosen to drive his Swift this way.
He remembered sadly that he might never see the Swift again.
They emerged from the tree-tunnel and started uphill.
The drainage was better though the potholes were just as bad.
The hedges gave way to high banks topped with drystone walls.
An occasional gateway showed steep hillsides of short-cropped pasture, where fleeing sheep added to Phillip’s impression of the rarity of motor-vehicles.
“No side turnings,” Lucy observed.
“Thank heaven.”
“And I think the rain’s stopping.”
The bank on their right ended. Now they could see the sheep-dotted slope rising beyond the low wall. The few trees were scattered, twisted thorns or clumps of oaks in the hollows of the hills.
“There, I saw his hood,” Lucy exclaimed in triumph. “He’s not far ahead, just around a bend or two. Slow down.”
Phillip caught a glimpse of something moving less than a quarter of a mile ahead, before a particularly vicious pothole made him clutch the steering wheel. He returned his attention to his driving. If they had a puncture or broke a spring, they would lose Crawford for good.
A moment later Lucy leaned forward and peered round Phillip. “There’s what looks like a farm track up to the right,” she said. “A pale streak winding back round behind the hill. I don’t think it’s the lane. Gosh, he’s turned up it. Phillip, stop! If I can see him, he can see us. Go back a bit.”
“Are you sure it’s not the lane?” Phillip asked in an agony of doubt even as he braked.
“Pretty sure. I can see what I think is the lane curving round to the left between the hills. See, over there. There’s a double line of walls. It must be this lane. Go back, he’ll see us!”
“No, with no sun shining to reflect off the glass we’ll be less likely to catch his eye if we’re not moving, and we can watch him, too. Where…? Oh yes.”
The maroon A.C. crept up the track, crossing the slope at an angle. As the car disappeared around the hillside, Phillip started the Alvis forward again.
Around a couple of bends, they came to a gate.
As Phillip slowed, Lucy said, “That’s it.
Look, you can see the tyre-marks in the mud, and there’s the beginning of the track.
No!” she exclaimed as he turned the wheel.
“We can’t follow him up there. He’d be bound to see us, or even meet us face to face.
It looks to me as if the track circles the summit. ”
Something tugged at Phillip’s memory. Frowning, he got out of the car and went to lean against the gate, staring up at the crest of the hill. An odd shape, as if a handleless frying pan had been set down upside-down on top, it was vaguely familiar.
He turned back to Lucy. “I have to go and look. Crawford’s got to have Gloria hidden up there, somehow. Why else should he go up?”
“There’s something fishy up there all right, but you can’t drive up and you can’t leave the car here for him to find. You’re not planning anything asinine, are you, Phillip? Trying to rescue Gloria single-handed will just mean two people for the rest of us to rescue.”
Flushing at the accuracy of her guess, he returned to the driver’s seat. “What shall we do, then?” he asked a bit sulkily.
“Drive on until we find somewhere to hide the car, behind a wall or something. Then you can go off and reconnoitre. At least you had the sense to wear walking boots.” She glanced down ruefully at her muddy footwear. “I can’t go slogging cross-country in these, though they’re already ruined.”
“I’m sure Mr. Arbuckle will pay for a new pair,” Phillip consoled her, driving on.
The lane continued to rise for a few hundred yards, curving to the left between a shoulder of the odd-shaped hill and a lower ridge to their left. Then it abruptly swung right and began to descend. Still nowhere to conceal the Alvis. Phillip was starting to fret when Lucy cried, “Oh, perfect!”
“By Jove, a quarry!”
The flat floor of the abandoned slate-pit was level with the road and thickly overgrown. Phillip pulled over among the trees and bushes.
Lucy took out her vanity-case and powdered her nose.
Between the trees, the ground was stony. Getting out, Phillip saw that the Alvis had left no tracks. He strode back to the lane and turned. The car was invisible.
Returning a few paces, he called to Lucy, “I’m off. Give me a couple of hours, and if I’m not back you’d better go and tell the others.”
“For pity’s sake, don’t do anything idiotic,” she responded. “Don’t let them see you.”
Phillip did not deign to retort. For one thing, he knew Lucy could easily squash him in a contest of words. For another, he was in far too much of a hurry. Somewhere on that hill his girl was being held against her will.
His long legs took him at a fast lope up the lane until he had a clear view of the hilltop. Then he clambered over the wall and set off across the short grass.
In spite of his resentment, he was mindful of Lucy’s parting injunction.
The men probably had a look-out, but he was pretty sure there weren’t enough of them to watch in all directions and the chances were they kept an eye on the track Crawford had used.
As Londoners, they might well discount the likelihood of anyone approaching cross-country.
So Phillip, despite his impatience, headed around the hill.
From every angle, the summit had the same peculiar, truncated appearance. Now Phillip knew where he was. That was Brockberrow Hill, once a favourite place to bicycle for a day’s outing.
The excrescence on top was the remains of an Iron Age fort, unless it was Stone Age or Bronze Age or something.
The Picts, or Early Britons, or whatever, had chosen a good viewpoint for their fortifications.
From the top of the circular mound one could see forever.
Inside, one was sheltered from the wind.
There was even a ruined shepherd’s hut for refuge from showers.
That, of course, was where they had Gloria. How Crawford had ever found the place was a mystery, but Phillip would bet his bottom dollar on it.
He cast his mind back to the old days. The bicyclers—he and Gervaise and various friends and siblings—had always left their cycles at Brock Farm, on the far side of the hill from the track. Buying picnic supplies from the farmer’s wife, they used to walk up a footpath to the top.
It had not been much of a footpath, more of a sheep trail. The kidnappers could easily overlook it, or discount its significance, especially as trees hid the farm buildings from the top.
Quite a few stunted hawthorns grew on the upper slopes on that side, Phillip recalled.
There were criss-crossing drystone walls, too, dividing pastures and sheep-pens, all good cover for a clandestine approach.
And, come to think of it, a clump of thorn trees—more bushes, really—had taken root on the shallower inner side of the fortification mound.
If they had survived the years, he could wriggle in amongst them to watch and listen in perfect safety.
Perfect safety, he assured himself, dismissing the faint echo in his mind of Lucy’s warning.
Climbing a wall, he saw down to his left the tall beeches around Brock Farm. Ahead was the slope—sheepless at present—scattered with hawthorns, just as he had pictured it. From the shelter of the nearest he scanned the hilltop, wishing he had brought binoculars.
No head protruded above the level brow of the mound; no sign of movement; no sound but the cawing of rooks in the valley behind him, the trill of a lark above, and an occasional far-off baa.
All the same, Phillip avoided the path itself when he found it, and took full advantage of the cover of trees and walls as he made his way up the gentle slope.
Before tackling the last, bare stretch up to the track encircling the base of the ancient fortification, he paused for another survey. Nothing had changed.
He set off again at a jog-trot.
Pity it had stopped raining. Not only did rain obscure the vision, the discomfort distracted sentries’ attention from their business—one of the lessons learnt in Flanders which Phillip had never expected to think of again.
He wouldn’t be surprised if it was raining again before nightfall, though.
Here on the exposed upper slopes, a gusty wind was blowing, warm and damp, from the south-west.
Dashing across the track, he tried to remember the lay-out inside the fort.
The one-time gateway, now just a narrow gap, was round to his left, he thought, a quarter circle from the head of the track, perhaps for some obscure, prehistoric defensive purpose.
The thorn bushes, fortunately, were slightly to his right. He hoped.
He scrambled diagonally up the steep bank. Lying prone on the damp grass, his elbow in a patch of scarlet and yellow ladies’ slipper, he took off his hat and raised his bare head inch by inch.
No outcry greeted the appearance of his hair on the horizon. He moved up a little farther and found he had perfectly judged his position. The hawthorn thicket hid him from those below. They hid the men from him, too, but he heard their voices.
Listening, he slithered over the top and under the spiky branches.
“… don’t fink we’re gonna let yer pick up the bunce on yer own and scarper back to the States wiv it, do yer? Not bloody likely!”
“Come off it, would I vamoose and leave you guys holding the baby?” Crawford’s voice was not so much oily as slimy, Phillip decided with loathing.
His chuckle was still more repulsive. “Still and all, by golly, she’s a baby worth holding, which is one reason I won’t skedaddle with the dough. I’ll be back to…”
Phillip missed his next words. Seeing red, he forgot his good resolutions and rose to his knees, prepared to rush down and strangle the bounder whatever the consequences.