Bugles at Dawn Page 6

  To the driver’s front, as he squatted muffled in scarves and blankets, loomed yet another of those medieval castles which dominated virtually every twist and turn of Father Rhine. Inside, next to John Bold, a Frankfurt corn merchant, Frankel, shivered and pulled his cloak tighter. ‘Mary, Jesus, Joseph, a louse runs right across my liver when I see such places! God only hopes that we will not have to stay there longer than an hour while they change the nags.’

  Opposite him a pale-faced woman who looked like a nun crossed herself. Holding her rosary to her lips she mumbled prayers rapidly to herself, as if the Devil himself were waiting to snatch her to perdition.

  John grinned wearily. Whatever happened he would be glad to stretch his legs. It had been a long journey since their last stop at Remagen on the Rhine. He could do with something hot to drink, too; the coach was now damnably cold. But he did agree with his fellow travellers. The castle did have something a little eerie about it, like one of those mythical castles of ‘auld Ireland’ his father used to tell of, filled with hobgoblins and the ‘little folk’.

  The pace eased slightly as the driver picked his way down a long drive. Bold craned his head to see the place. The arched windows, long bereft of glass, stared down at him like eyes, while the portcullis through which they would soon pass became for an instant a gaping toothless mouth. There appeared to be no lights anywhere and he guessed that the place had been long abandoned by the nobility, to be bought cheaply by the von Thurns and Taxis to serve as a staging post on the long journey from Aachen to Frankfurt.

  The coach pulled up under a signboard showing four headless men in black, carrying a coffin in funereal solemnity to a crooked tombstone. The legend painted in weathered lettering read Zum Ende der Reise — Journey’s End.

  ‘God in heaven, what a name for an inn!’ Frankel muttered indignantly.

  The woman clicked her beads even more rapidly — the Devil was almost upon her now.

  ‘Alle raus, Herrschaften,’ the coachman called. ‘We stay an hour. Must look after the horses.’

  The three of them descended, John gallantly offering his hand to the woman, who disdained it hurriedly, as if his touch might be the first step to the violation of her middle-aged virginity.

  The smell of warm food drew them to the open door where they paused in consternation, peering the length of a huge grey room. A one-time castle refectory, now much decayed, it was both dank and dusty.

  John shuddered a little and Frankel snarled, ‘Like a damn ghost story! Where is that coachman? What — ’ He gulped and whispered hoarsely, ‘What in three devils’ name is that for a creature?’

  ‘Guten Abend, Herrschaften,’ the crippled man facing them said in a strangely slurred way. His left arm hung loose and he trailed one leg, but it was his face that horrified the travellers. It was smooth and round, as white as the full moon and hairless, with thick lips pulled back in a fixed ghastly leer. John recognized that horrible look. He had once known a woman who had contracted the disease all too common to match-factory workers — lockjaw.

  With difficulty, slurring his words and leering horribly, the hostelier completed his welcome and indicated with his good arm to a grim-faced woman who had now appeared at the far end of the room. ‘She will feed you.’

  John took a grip of himself. The whole place stank of age and decay — and evil! But they would not be here longer than it took to change the horses.

  They seated themselves at a long rough trestle table and the woman brought the food in silence, with a look of sullen resentment.

  John dug into the food, but soon found his appetite had been killed by the sinister atmosphere. All three sat in silence, only toying with their food, waiting on the coachman’s reappearance. Eventually the man sidled in uneasily and gave Lockjaw, as John was now calling the hostelier to himself, a nod before addressing the three travellers. Later John would reflect that he had avoided looking at them directly as he spoke.

  ‘Rear axle’s gone, Herrschaften,’ he announced baldly. ‘Thought it was going all the way from Remagen ... ’

  ‘And what does that mean, eh?’ Frankel demanded.

  The coachman swallowed hard. ‘Sorry, sir, but it means you’ll have to stay here the night.’

  ‘The night!’ the merchant exploded, jowls wobbling with rage. ‘Can’t you repair it?’

  ‘It’s a job for a wheelwright, sir,’ the coachman quavered.

  The landlord hissed in that strange way of his, ‘And no wheelwright would come out from the village at this time of night.’

  The fat merchant frowned and the woman began to tell her beads once again.

  ‘Is there anywhere to sleep here then?’ Frankel asked, the bluster gone from his fruity voice now. ‘I know you’ll have fleas and bedbugs, but we can’t wait up all night in this — ’ He glanced around the gloomy brooding walls and shivered unconsciously.

  ‘No fleas, no bedbugs, sir,’ Lockjaw answered. ‘Just plain but clean country beds, sir, with sheets made of fine Krefeld linen. Can I have the honour of showing you the rooms?’ he waited expectantly.

  Frankel puffed out his cheeks uncertainly and looked at John a little helplessly. ‘What do you think, Englishman?’

  John hesitated. He didn’t like the place or its inhabitants one bit. But what was the alternative? He shrugged finally and said with obvious reluctance, ‘I don’t suppose we can do anything else till morning, Herr Frankel.’

  Tamely they followed the man up the winding oaken staircase deeper into the interior of the grey ruin, his flickering candles casting weird, eerie shadows on the rough walls.

  John’s room was freezingly cold and as bare as he had expected. Under the mullioned window, which rattled and shook with the fury of wind and rain, there was a massive carved oak chest, while a great four-poster bed occupied the centre of the room, its puffed-up pillows and goose-feather mattress fresh and clean. There would be no fleas or bedbugs as Herr Frankel had feared. He shivered and laughed the next instant at his own childish fears. Still, just before he removed his boots — with a sigh of relief — he did go to the door and turn the great iron key in the lock. Then he sat down on the bed. God, how tired he was! ...

  It was Waterloo all over again. In all his years he would relive that great battle time and again. The shock at the first sight of the Imperial Guard as they breasted the rise at Hougemont, the trumpets blaring, the officers shouting, the kettle drums urgently beating. Now in the dream, however, the Imperial Guard were really giants, towering into the evening sky, as the redcoats stared up at them like Lilliputians at Gulliver. Again there was a sense of being rooted to the ground as the blue-clad ranks of giants advanced upon them without sound, their bayonets gleaming. Suddenly the heavy silence was broken as the cannon roared into life.

  He sat up in the great bed with a start, heart beating wildly. For a moment he could not make out where he was. Then he blinked and realized he had been wakened by thunder, echoing and re-echoing the length of the narrow valley of the Rhine. But then he heard something else — closer, smaller. He seemed to sit motionless in the bed for an eternity, though in reality it was only a minute, hardly daring to breathe, every sense acute as he tried to assess the sound — manmade or a product of the storm?

  He slipped from the bed, his celtic sixth sense warning that, whatever the source of the sound, danger was near. Someone who wished him harm. He was sure of that. At Bande they had actually attempted to kill him and at Aachen he had sensed that another try to do the same would have taken place if he had not left in time. But who was after him? How could they move so swiftly from one city to another and from one country to another? If they were out there, how could they know about his movements with such rapidity? It was all very puzzling, frustrating, frightening.

  He yawned and shivered. He really ought to sleep. On the morrow, once they reached Frankfurt, he would take the very next coach out to Munich. Yet some hidden caution warned him about sleeping in the huge four-poster. It would be tempting the
fates. He bit his bottom lip thoughtfully, then he made his decision and moved. First the door and then the bed.

  Five minutes later the body huddled beneath the mountainous goose-feather quilt as if inside a protective cocoon was completely still, as if its owner had not one single care in the world ...

  EIGHT

  John woke with a start.

  Perhaps it was that the noise of the storm had been replaced by a heavy, brooding stillness. He raised himself cautiously from the cover of his cloak, his hand on the butt of his pistol. The night was too quiet.

  He was wondering if he was imagining things when he felt the slight tremor of rain-cooled air fan his left cheek. He turned his head cautiously, every sense tingling. The tremor of air grew to a draught. A door was open stealthily — the one to the next room, which he had thought locked on the other side. He noted, even at the height of his tension, that it had been well oiled. Unlike all the others in this grey pile it made no sound. The trap had been set in advance. Now they — he knew not who — were about to spring it.

  Slowly, with infinite caution, a shadow detached itself from the darker shadows near the bed.

  John dare hardly breathe. The intruder’s right hand was raised and clutching something. Very gently, John eased off the pistol hammer.

  The dark figure with the raised hand was almost at the bed now. Something had to happen soon. John’s whole body screamed out for action to break this unbearable suspense.

  He felt a fresh tremor of disturbed air, and caught his gasp of surprise just in time. Another, smaller, figure slipped into the bedroom and watched the first intruder creep closer to the great bed and its motionless figure.

  For what seemed an age John was paralysed — not with terror but with a seeming inability to forward this murderous scene to an end, though his body cried out for action. Soon he would have to participate — become an actor in this treacherous little drama being played out in the dark bedroom — yet he seemed unable to move.

  Suddenly, startlingly, the smaller figure at the door brought his own hand down sharply, as the other hovered over the bed, knife raised high. It was the signal!

  With a harsh intake of breath the would-be assassin thrust his blade downwards and immediately over-balanced as his knife met no more resistance than a pillow.

  John sprang from the floor in the corner, firing from the hip. The pistol erupted flame.

  There was a shrill scream. The attacker was propelled away from the bed as if slammed by an invisible fist. With a smack that must have broken bones he careered into the wall and then slowly slithered down it, half his head missing, the blood spurting from the great gaping wound in red profusion.

  The smaller figure was attempting to bolt through the door. John flung the pistol and caught the man on his right shoulder. He staggered and went down on his knee. John didn’t give him time to recover but dived on top.

  Furiously, desperately, the little man writhed and twisted. John’s nostrils were assailed by the overpowering stink of unwashed flesh. Grimly he hung on, avoiding an attempt to knee him in the groin. Then the man seemed to go limp, and John relaxed his grasp for a moment. The little man shot up his right hand, two fingers outstretched. For an instant he managed to get them in John’s nostrils. But before he could extend any further and rip them up and outwards to tear open John’s nose, the latter slammed his left hand down hard.

  The butt of the palm struck the intruder squarely on the bridge of his nose. Some-thing cracked sharply like a dry twig underfoot. John’s palm was flooded with hot sticky blood and the little man, ceasing his wild attempts to break free, said thickly, his throat full of the blood he was being forced to swallow, ‘All right, Capt’n ... you’ve got me ... I’ll give up!’

  Warily, trying to control his own crazy breathing and overcome his excitement at the fact that the runt had spoken English, the English of the gutters of Spitalfields, John sought and found the pistol. Still holding the other man down, he cocked the second barrel and, levelling the pistol at him, stood carefully.

  ‘In a second,’ he said as coldly and masterfully as he could, ‘I’m going to tell you to get to your feet, you rogue. When you do so, go to the table over there and light the taper. But do so carefully, for I swear I’ll blow the back of your head off too, if you attempt the slightest mischief. Move — now!’

  The little man stumbled to his feet, still holding his broken nose. ‘I’ll behave mesen, Capt’n ... Don’t worry. You have nothing to fear from me, sir.’

  ‘Get on with it!’

  The man fumbled for the matches and there was a spurt of blue flame. John saw a cunning little peaked face, a long crooked nose already beginning to swell, and sharp but terrified brown eyes. A moment later the taper spread its wavering yellow light.

  ‘Come here,’ John commanded, not shifting his eyes for a moment. Injured as he was, his hand filled with blood held to his nose, the man looked as if his brain was racing at top speed.

  The man came forward reluctantly, eyes fixed on the pistol. ‘I’m all right, Capt’n,’ he said, ‘not an ounce of ‘arm left in me.’

  ‘Put your arms up — and turn round.’

  With a little sigh, the other man did as he was commanded.

  Swiftly, with his left hand, John patted the fellow’s skinny body, disliking the touching intensely, for he smelled as if he hadn’t washed for months. The pistol he found first. It was one of those little ladies’ pistols, with an ivory butt, which had become fashionable since the Revolution, when rich ladies had begun to fear for their lives at the hands of the mob. It was concealed in the left tail of the man’s coat. The knife came next, in a sheath strapped to his inner thigh, with a hole in his trouser pocket so that he had easy access to the razor-sharp blade. The bag of gold coins was hidden next to his skinny chest and John indicated that the runt should unbutton his moleskin waistcoat to free it and hand it over. He did so with a sad shake of his head and a muttered curse, as if life was simply too much for him.

  ‘Blood money!’ John said, balancing the bag in his hand, ‘blood money no doubt, eh, you rogue?’ He judged that the leather bag contained at least a hundred pieces of gold. It would take an ordinary decent working man years to acquire that.

  ‘It was the first half of my payment, sir. You can have it, Capt’n, and gladly. I didn’t like the business from the very start, as true as my name is Jem Jones.’

  John looked at him scornfully. ‘Yes — another lie, I’ll be bound. Now you can lower your hands, and stop that blood dropping from your damned nose. But I assure you I will pistol you the very instant you act foolishly.’

  John reasoned that the coachman and Lockjaw were in on the plot. But the great oaken main door behind him was securely bolted and he now wedged a chair beneath the handle of the other door. Anyone trying to get in would have their work cut out for them.

  ‘And who was going to pay the second half of this blood money?’

  Jem Jones, as he called himself, pretended to fuss with his nose and avoided John’s challenging look.

  He jerked up the pistol threateningly, feeling complete master of the situation, although from far off he could hear the sound of hesitant feet. Probably the coachman and Lockjaw were coming to see if the dastardly assassination attempt had succeeded. ‘Someone paid you to kill me,’ he barked, eyes hard and fierce. ‘Come on, man, I want the truth. Who was it? Speak out!’

  Jem Jones could see that he wasn’t joking. The fellow might be slightly damp behind the lugs, but he looked prepared to shoot. ‘You’ll spare me, Capt’n?’ he quavered.

  ‘If you tell the truth.’

  ‘Right, sir ... right, sir.’ He saw John’s knuckles whiten as he exerted pressure on the trigger. ‘I’ll tell you ... It was Captain Hartmann, or better his governor, Lord Hartmann.’

  John almost dropped his guard for a moment, the pistol wavered in his grasp. Then he caught himself. ‘You mean the Hartmann family paid you to kill me?’

  ‘Yes.’
>
  ‘At Bande back there ... and now here?’

  Jem nodded mutely, as if he thought it better at precisely this moment to keep his mouth shut for a while.

  ‘But how could they?’ John gasped after a few moments. ‘This ... er ... Lord Hart-mann was in London and you were over here ... A galloper would take days to cover such distances ...’

  Jem Jones grinned at having surprised his bold young captor. ‘Ain’t ye never heard of the new telegraph and Mr Reuter o’Aachen?’

  John shook his head, his turn now to be dumb.

  ‘Lawd, sir, this Mr Reuter, he’s begun sending dispatches with the telegraph all over the place. London, Paris, Brussels, Aachen — all over, quicker than you can blink an eye. Marvellous, ain’t it?’ he added quite cheerfully.

  With such a devilish machine, John told himself, Lord Hartmann and his bully boys could pursue him everywhere. In every great city he could hire other rogues like Jem Jones and let him get on with the dirty business of murder; while the real killer played cards with the Prince Regent or sauntered the promenade at Brighton with Beau Brummel. John Bold would be safe nowhere.

  Down the corridor the cautious footsteps were coming closer. He could just imagine the two of them, pressing themselves against the wall as they advanced through the silent shadows, alert for the signal that the deed had been done and they could have their reward.

  Then the footsteps ceased. They were undecided. He had time. ‘Listen!’ he whispered urgently, formulating his plan as he spoke, ‘do you wish to live to collect the second part of the blood money you will undoubtedly receive from the Hartmanns when you report my death?’

  Jem Jones nodded, licking his thick lips. Suddenly his eyes were cunning, calculating, greedy. There was going to be something in this for him after all. ‘Yer, Capt’n,’ he whispered back slowly. ‘But how do you mean?’ He realized that for all his youth, John Bold knew what he was about. The fact gladdened his evil black heart. In the past amateurs and innocents had been the ruination of many of his plans. He’d sooner deal with a villain any day. ‘What now, Capt’n?’ he asked.