Death trap, p.9
Death Trap, page 9
‘Shut up!’ Smith hissed. ‘Let the peasant pass. We don’t want to attract any more attention to ourselves than necessary. So no talking English.’
‘Yessir,’ the two of them answered in unison. Slowly the ox-cart with its dreaded stench drew level with them and Smith held his breath as they stood at the side of the track to let it pass.
The peasant on the seat looked down at them grumpily and said something.
Smith nodded his head, as if he understood, but he could see that the driver was interested. He had spotted the Tommy-guns over their shoulders and must be asking himself, of that Smith was certain, why they were armed with such deadly weapons this peaceful dawn.
He breathed out hard as the cart rumbled past, taking its stench with it, but before the ox-cart disappeared around the next bend, Smith saw the peasant turn on his seat and give them one last look.
‘Do you think he’s rumbled us, sir?’ Billy asked, patting his little dog which had kept silent during the encounter with the peasant, not even snapping at the legs of the great lumbering oxen.
Smith bit his bottom lip for a moment. ‘Yes, on consideration, I think he has. He spotted the Chicago pianos’ – he meant the Tommy-guns – ‘and obviously wondered what we were doing with them. And our clothing, rough as it is, is not the kind of gear they wear in this part of the world.’
‘Well, even if he has spotted us,’ Ginger said, ‘what can he do about it?’ He pointed to the horizon dominated by the snowcapped mountains which were their objective. ‘The whole ruddy place seems empty. Who’s his nibs gonna tell, I ask yer, sir?’
His confidence restored somewhat, Smith said, ‘I suppose you’re right, Ginger. Come on then, let’s get cracking again. All the same, the two of you keep your weather eyes open. You never know.’
So they plodded on as the sun started to rise in the east, with Billy Bennett complaining that, ‘When yer see things like that piss wagon, it puts a bloke right off his grub,’ adding then, as an afterthought, now that his mind was now occupied with his favourite subject – food, ‘Would yer like to swap your bully beef wad for my cheese ’un, Ginger, when we have us break?’
To which Ginger replied sourly, ‘No, I wouldn’t. Now shut yer cakehole up about grub.’
It was an hour later when Smith had called the first halt of the day and they were sitting on the side of the track’s drainage ditch, enjoying the warming sun and taking sips of cold tea from their water bottles when Bully started to growl, the noise coming from deep down in its throat. At the same time its hackles rose, as if it intended to launch itself on someone aggressively at any moment. Billy, who had just offered to swap his ‘cheese wad’ for Ginger’s bully sandwich again, patted the little dog soothingly and said, ‘Now then, Bully, mustn’t go on like that. Daddy doesn’t like it.’
‘Daddy!’ Ginger echoed and clapped his hand to his forehead in mock anguish. ‘Where will it all bloody well end?’
‘Shut up,’ Smith said severely. ‘Listen. That’s why he’s barking.’
The two of them cocked their heads to one side, while Billy clamped his big hand over the little dog’s snout to keep it quiet. Now they heard what the dog had: the clatter of horses’ hooves, somewhere round the bend in the track. Smith knew instinctively they spelled trouble. He guessed after seeing the oxen pulling the peasant’s cart that horses would be a rarity in this remote corner of the world. He made a snap decision. ‘Into the vines, quick!’ he snapped. ‘Come on – move it!’
They needed no second invitation. With Billy bundling the dog beneath his arm, they sprang over the drainage ditch and into the vines. At this time of the year they were without leaves, but they were closely packed together and provided good cover. Hurriedly they dived into the furrows between each line of plants and crawled deeper and deeper into the great field.
Just in time. As they lay there, faces just above the fragrant earth, which had obviously been fertilised with the same mixture that the peasant had carried on his ox-cart, a group of riders came into view as they swung round the bend in the trail. And Smith knew he didn’t need a crystal ball to divine what their purpose was. They were looking for them! For as soon as they cantered round the corner, they reined-in their sturdy little ponies and, raising themselves in their stirrups, started to gaze to left and right.
‘They’re looking for us,’ Smith hissed urgently. ‘The bloke on the ox-cart must have told them about us. Watch it, here they come!’
Noiselessly the three of them prepared to fight, slipping off their safety catches, hardly daring to breathe, knowing that they would be in serious trouble if they were discovered.
The riders were a rough-looking bunch. All of them wore black fur hats cocked at a jaunty angle. Rifles were slung across their backs and a couple of them had sabres hanging from their saddles. Smith realised immediately they couldn’t be soldiers or police, for apart from the fur hats not one of them wore the same kind of gear. Also, most of them looked as if they hadn’t shaved for a couple of weeks. Indeed, two of them had full dark beards. No, he told himself, they were irregulars of some kind, or perhaps even bandits for which the Balkans had been infamous ever since the time the Turks ruled this part of the world.
Slowly, too slowly, they came down the trail peering to left and right, their hawk-like, rapacious faces grim and intent. Smith knew they could expect no mercy from those men, whoever they were and whatever they were after. They’d be slaughtered out of hand. It would be a case of either killing or being killed. He held his breath and curled his finger slowly around the trigger of the Tommy-gun.
Next to him, Billy Bennett pressed the little dog’s muzzle even harder, sensing from Bully’s body movements that he would dearly love to rush out and bite the riders.
Time seemed to stand still. Now, Smith could make out every detail of the riders’ villainous faces as they searched for the three strangers they had been told about. It was obvious they were thinking that they had to be here somewhere.
Then they did what Smith had feared they would do. They pulled at their bits, jerked their mounts round and, springing over the drainage ditch, entered the vines.
‘Bollocks!’ Ginger said. ‘That’s torn it! Here they friggin’ well come.’
‘Yes,’ Smith said grimly, raising his Tommy-gun slowly so that he would not alert the group of inquisitive riders.
They began to trot past the spot where Smith and his men were lying among the vines and Smith gave a little smile of relief. It looked as though they were going to get away with it. Now, the riders were level with them and were just about to pass by.
Then suddenly, startlingly, everything went wrong. Bully, agitated by the approach of the riders, who the dog assumed were going to hurt its master – which of course they were – tore itself loose from Billy Bennett’s grip. Tail between its legs and yapping wildly, the dog hurtled towards the first of the horsemen.
And gave away their presence.
Six
‘Speak… speak now!’ the cop called Dusko cried, as his companion, another huge man, raised the broom once more and whacked it across the bucket which they had placed over Thirk’s head. He reeled, the blood spurting from his nose and ears once again and would have fallen from the chair if his captors had not tied him to it.
It had seemed the simplest idea of all to find a ship when he had clambered ashore at the small coastal town after robbing the Swordfish’s strongbox. He had bought himself some dry clothes from the usual pawnshops that lined the front in places frequented by sailors. Then he had gone deeper into the old town, heavy with the odour of garlic, strong Macedonian black tobacco and ancient lecheries. The brothel was the place and there was usually one at least in such places, he had told himself, and he had been right. Within ten minutes he had come across one and had sauntered inside, knowing that the gold sovereigns he had stolen together with the ‘readies’ would get him anything he wanted. After all, the ‘Horsemen of St George’, as the British sovereigns were called, were a universal currency throughout the Middle East and Mediterranean.
‘Bit rundown even for a knockin’ shop,’ he had said to himself, as he had entered. It was indeed. The walls were unpainted and peeling. There were not even the usual pornographic pictures adorning them. But the state of the place didn’t worry him. It would do. He’d get himself a woman for the night and then set about finding someone who could get him a ship to make his escape. ‘You’ve got the readies now, Charlie old son,’ he had told himself happily as the madam had approached him, waving her pudgy be-ringed hands, crying, ‘Pivo… birra… beer… Bier!’
‘Yer,’ he had answered easily. ‘Get me a pint of wallop, you old cow.’
She had returned with a glass and then made it quite clear that she was expecting him to order something else other than the weak Yugoslavian beer. She pointed to the row of women squatting on the hard-backed chairs along the opposite wall, clad only in their shifts, their legs spread so that the customers could see what they had to offer, and had made an explicit gesture with her finger. ‘You want?’ she had asked.
Thirk hadn’t been impressed. ‘Look poxed-up to me,’ he had told himself, ‘but I need a kip for the night and hoors never ask about papers and the like.’ So he had taken a swig of the weak beer and walked along the line of bored whores, most of whom looked half asleep, as they smoked in silence, hardly even venturing one of those fake smiles that whores put on when they smell money.
He had picked one who looked fairly clean and was young, though she did have a slight squint, but as he said to himself, ‘Yer’ll never know in the darkness.’ She had taken him up to her little crib, furnished solely with a bed, a night-table and tin chamber-pot, the once white walls blackened with squashed mosquitoes and bed bugs. She had performed as he had requested, nothing special. He was too tired for tricks. Afterwards, while she had continued to smoke morosely in the growing darkness, he had fallen into a heavy sleep.
The two big cops had come crashing through the door about midnight. ‘Dokumente!’ they had demanded threateningly, hands on their pistol holsters, as he blinked at them, blinded by the light of their torches.
He had tried to offer them a sovereign each. But it had been a very bad move. They had started going through his trouser pockets immediately, chatting away excitedly to one another in their own language, while the girl had sat up in the bed, her skinny back pressed against the wall, looking very, very frightened.
Within seconds they had found the little leather pouch containing the coins. Then they had grabbed his wallet, stuffed with one pound notes. In the light of their torches they had examined one of them before turning to him and snarling, ‘Angelhana?’
He hadn’t understood and the bigger of the two had reached across and slapped him across the face viciously. ‘Inglish?’
‘Yes, English,’ he had gasped, adding with a show of defiance, ‘Hey, what’s the bloody game?’
The man had hit him again and he had fallen silent, his brain racing. He was in trouble and he knew it. How was he going to get out of it? For the time being he had no answer to that damned overwhelming question.
Five minutes later, while the startled whores cooed and wept, they were frogmarching him down the dark, cobbled street, with his arms twisted cruelly behind his back. Ten minutes after that, they had thrown him in a tiny cell, which stank of stale urine, the only amenities some dirty straw in one corner and a hole in the floor for a toilet. Both of them had kicked him routinely a couple of times, almost as if it was a matter of duty to do so, before locking him in.
At dawn, Dusko had appeared: tall, lean, with a cruel sadistic, swarthy face crowned with a long-flowing moustache like the Mexican bandits Thirk had seen back home in cowboy films. He had struck Thirk full on the face, making his lips split and bleed even before he had snapped in his heavily accented English, ‘You speak – what you do here, eh?’ He had stared at Thirk, fists still clenched and Thirk had seen why the punch had hurt so much. The fingers of his right hand were curled round a row of copper coins to give more weight to the blow.
‘Just a sailor…’ he had stuttered, trying to wipe away the blood which was spurting from his lips… ‘Jumped my ship… Want to go back to England.’ Dusko had hit him cruelly once more, snarling, ‘You lie! Not just damned sailor… You spion… spy!’
‘But I’m not,’ Thirk had answered desperately. ‘Then why all that money?’ Dusko had pulled the wad of English pound notes out of his breeches pocket and thrust them into Thirk’s ashen face. ‘Spy have much money.’ Then he had hit Thirk again so that he had reeled against the cell wall, blood gushing from his flattened nose.
It was then that Thirk had realised he was in serious trouble. If he told them what he knew about the Swordfish’s mission, they would really take him for a spy. He realised, too, that now they had taken his money, which presumably went into their own pockets, they would have to justify their actions to their official superiors. They would have to prove they were really trying to find out his motives for being here, without papers. The money would be conveniently forgotten. What the hell was he to do?
That had been an hour ago. Now under Dusko’s orders they were trying to beat the truth out of him, and even as his head reeled from the blows on the pail with the broom handle, Thirk tried to think straight, knowing that he was fighting for his very life now. The money didn’t matter. But his life did.
‘Speak,’ Dusko cried again, as he puffed at the long cheroot, his booted feet on the desk. ‘You spy. You tell!’ He nodded almost casually to the sweating torturer, dressed in the blue-grey uniform of the Royal Police.
The huge man needed no urging. He raised the broom handle, took a deep breath and launched a tremendous blow against the side of the enamel pail. Bits of enamel flew everywhere as he struck it, sending the blood spurting from Thirk’s eyes, ears and nose so that for one horrifying moment he thought he was going to choke on his own blood.
Dusko indicated with his cheroot that the men should remove the pail.
He did so, still gasping with the effort of those blows. The crew of the Swordfish wouldn’t have recognised CPO Thirk. His face was green and black, puffed to twice its normal size. His nose had been burst and blood was trickling down his cheeks from his ruptured ears. Two of his front teeth had gone, and his lips were puffed and swollen like those of a prize-fighter of the bare knuckles days who had just finished the four-hour bouts of those times.
Dusko looked at the bleeding Englishman, sagging in his bonds, his cruel swarthy face totally without pity. ‘Now you speak? You tell me why you here… you go free.’ He winked at the other policeman, who winked back. He knew what was going to happen to the prisoner sooner or later.
Thirk peered through his puffy slits of eyes, seeing everything through a red mist. His head rang and rang and he knew if he didn’t pull himself together he would collapse. ‘I speak,’ he quavered, hearing his own voice as if it were coming from far away.
‘Dobja,’ Dusko said and leaned forward to hear what the prisoner had to say.
‘We was to contact some flyboys,’ Thirk began weakly.
‘Speak again!’ Dusko snapped curtly. ‘No understand. Come…’
‘A plane—’
‘Ah, avioni,’ Dusko said quickly for the benefit of the other policeman. ‘Ja!’
Hesitantly, Thirk told Dusko what he knew, his battered eyes flashing from one of his torturers to the other, as he tried to assess their reactions. He suspected, even though he tried to express himself as simply as possible, that the big cop understood only half of what he was saying. All the same, he could see that Dusko’s dark eyes glowed with interest.
He was sure that the cop was asking himself what was so interesting for the English to risk sending a clandestine ship into Yugoslav waters. And he guessed right. For when he was finished, still trying to stem the blood dripping from his lips by sucking at it with his mouth, Dusko asked, ‘What in plane? What there?’
Thirk shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Honestly I don’t,’ he added desperately, as Dusko indicated that his subordinate should pick up that terrible broom handle once more. ‘I’d tell you if I knew. Believe me I would!’
‘I understand,’ Dusko said, his dark face thoughtful. He remained silent for a few moments, asked a couple of more questions and then nodded significantly at the other man.
The latter nodded back. He advanced on Thirk, pulling a knife out of his back pocket as he did so.
Thirk quailed when he saw the blade. ‘No, no!’ he choked.
The cop waved a thick forefinger under his nose, as if to reassure him that he wasn’t going to slit his throat. Then with practised stroke he cut through Thirk’s bonds. The old petty; officer felt himself evacuate his bladder with relief, but it didn’t matter. He was saved.
Carefully the big cop guided him out of the room into the outer office where the little hunchback, who kept the charge book – he was the only one who could really read and write – crouched behind his desk, laboriously scrawling names into the big, leather-bound ledger.
‘Death,’ the cop said.
‘Death,’ the clerk echoed and started to write again in the book, copying Thirk’s name from his seaman’s ticket.
A minute or two later a cry of help came from the prison’s interior courtyard, followed by the sharp, dry crack of a pistol and the sound of something heavy falling.
The clerk had heard that sound often enough before. It didn’t move him. He continued his entry and then going over to the hat-stand he reached for his battered homburg, placed it neatly on his balding pate and slid out into the new morning, totally unnoticed by anyone.
Seven
The riders scattered immediately when Bully leaped up and tried to bite the legs of their mounts.
‘Bugger it!’ Ginger swore. ‘You and your bleeding dog, Billy. Look what he’s done now.’ Kneeling among the vines he raised the Tommy-gun, and loosed off an angry burst.
