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I’d have been far happier had they been amateurs. Reluctantly, I let go the possibility that I might get one alone.
They fell back to the house with their wounded. There they drew the curtains, closed the front door, and lit the lamp. To my satisfaction, in the muddle of this house-of-many-structures, although they closed the bedroom curtains, the co
I walked silently up to the window and eased the curtain join apart, which allowed me a glimpse of the men gathered around the table.
They were assessing their injuries. One man went past with a white flash of dishtowel in his hand, and I heard a sound of ripping. All of a sudden the bedroom door flew fully open and a man came straight at me. I bolted sideways down the house, but no torch beam shot out of the window, and the tiny thread of light from the crack in the curtains remained as it was. Gingerly, I eased back to the window-sill, then held my eye to the crack again: This time, the bedroom door had been left open far enough to reveal several men, one of whom was ripping a large sheet of fabric-he’d been after the bed-sheet.
They bound wounds, washed bashes, cursed fluently. One man groaned. The others argued. Their faces were not distinct, because of the uncertain light and the number of shadows cast, but the accents told me that they were far from home, and they spoke more like criminals, or hardened soldiers, than police.
One man, the deep-voiced Londoner whom I had first heard speak, was adamant that they needed to stay until morning. The others objected loudly. Back and forth they went, until the voice that had been swearing pointed out that they’d be no safer during the day, once among those trees.
Even the Londoner fell silent at that reminder.
“Fine,” he said after a moment. “We’ll go as soon as Mack here can walk, but we’ll set fire to the place before we go. Pour out the bastard’s lamp on the floor and-”
I did not stop to think, I simply moved. Burning down the household of this poor man whose only sin had been to help a trio of strangers? Absolutely not. My right hand reached forward to yank one of the curtains from its rod, while the other snatched the knife from my boot, snapping it through the air. The sliver of steel left my fingers, passing through two rooms to plant itself in the man’s upper arm. He bellowed and disappeared, and I made haste to vanish, as well-it was not a serious injury, the angle and the limited target had guaranteed that, but it would serve to frighten them. With luck it might also deliver the warning that the woods held a corporeal sylvan who disliked this talk of burning.
Five minutes later, motion in the darkness materialised into the Green Man of the woods. “Come,” he said.
“One moment,” I responded.
He hunkered down beside me. The night was quiet again, and I was braced for the begi
I stood. “I need to see if they left my knife behind,” I told him.
“Why do they have your knife?”
“One of them was talking about torching your house. I wished to discourage him.”
He held my arm back with his hand. In a moment, I heard the same crackle of loosed branches I’d heard before, followed by shouts of pain and outrage.
Robert Goodman, hermit and Robin Goodfellow look-alike, chortled in pleasure. “Wait here,” he said. I heard him trot away. The window gave a dim light for perhaps two seconds, then went dark. Seconds later, I heard a faint squeak-the hen-house door. But why…?
Before he pressed the handle of my knife against my palm, I had worked out the meaning of that squeak: Goodman anticipated being gone long enough that his chickens would starve.
He grasped my hand, and pulled me away into the black expanse of his woods.
Chapter 34
Do you wish a motorcar?” Goodman’s enquiry was polite, as if offering me one lump or two in my tea.
“Do you have one?” I asked in astonishment. Puck with a motorcar?
“Theirs is on the road. We could reach it before they do.”
“Mr Goodman,” I said in admiration, “you have a definite aptitude for low trickery.”
He chuckled, then shifted course and sped up.
I was blind. Only the wordless eloquence of his hand in mine kept me from injury, if not coma: His fingers told me when to go left and when right; a slight lift of the hand warned me of uneven footing; a pull down presaged the brush of a bough against my head. In twenty minutes, I sensed the trees retreating and knew that we were on the cleared soil of a forest track.
Now he broke into a fast trot, pulling me along in childish companionship. It was terrifying at first, then strangely exhilarating, to run at darkness, trustingly hand in hand with a wood sprite. I could only pray that his attentive guidance would not waver. In eight or nine minutes, he slowed, and I became aware of the smell of burnt petrol: the crash site.
He stopped to listen to the night, then said, “We have three or four minutes. If I push the motor, there is a slope in half a mile that should be sufficient to start it.”
“Wait-can we risk a light?” I asked.
“Briefly.”
“I may be able to circumvent the ignition lock.” His footsteps went around to the passenger side while I felt my way in behind the wheel-groping first for the keys, but finding them gone-then contorted myself sideways until my head rested against Goodman’s knee, half under the instrument panel. He lit a match, shielding it as best he could with his body, and I saw that the motorcar was my old friend the Austin 7, which must have been a tight fit for five men and their local guide, but made my task easier. If only my mind hadn’t been taken up by the rapid approach of five angry men with guns… I pulled at the wires, followed their leads, and let him light another match when the first one burnt to his fingers. At the third one, I had it: A yank and three quick twists, and the car would be mine.
I touched the wires together: The starter spun into life. I jerked upright, slammed my door, turned on the head-lamps, and slapped it into gear. We jolted forward, and the woods exploded in a fury of gunfire.
Had it not been for the trees, the bullets might have hit us, but we were safely away long before the shooters reached the track. I eased my foot back on the pedal, and let out a nervous laugh. “A bit closer than I’d have wished.”
“Driving like that, we could have used you on the Front,” he said.
“I do hope Javitz and Estelle are in this direction? It might not be a good idea to turn around.”
“Two miles north,” he agreed, “then ten minutes’ walk.”
“Is that all? If those men come after us, they’ll catch us up.”
“Why should they? We could be making for Carlisle, or Newcastle. They’ll turn back to the village.”
“I hope you’re right,” I said uneasily.
“Do you know what they want?”
In truth, I did not. “One of them said something about ‘the girl,’ but I don’t know if that meant Estelle, or me.”
Two miles up the track he had me stop. The head-lamps dimmed, then went dark as I separated the wires; the silence was loud over the tick of cooling metal. Had we come far enough that the men would not notice the sudden cease of motor noise, and renew their pursuit?
Goodman got out, and I quickly whispered, “Don’t slam the door.”
“No,” he said. I was again blind. His feet rounded the motorcar’s bo
“I’m sorry,” I said. “If we wait a-”
His hand found mine, to lead me again into rough ground; leaves brushed my legs and arms. It required an intense commitment of trust that this man was not leading me off a cliff or into a tree. The earlier run through the dark had been terrifying, but my brief return to control and capability-to say nothing of vision-brought a strong impulse to freeze. Every step was a decision: to trust, or rebel? In the end, the only way I could continue to follow him was by imagining that the hand in mine belonged to Holmes, whom I had followed blindly into circumstances worse than this.