The Wood

Seven

Andy Dark saw the rowing boat looming up out of the mist, its bows now only a few yards from the marshy shore. He stared, tried to make out what was happening through a curtain of swirling grey vapour. The boat grated on the bottom and a man leaped ashore, struggled to pull the cumbersome craft further up the beach; the others (there appeared to be four of them) threw a length of rope which he fastened to an old tree stump. They were all leaping out, talking in low voices, splashing to and fro in the water as they began unloading boxes, wooden crates which they supported on their shoulders with difficulty, stacking them on the soft grass, talking in low muttered voices, glancing furtively about them the whole time. Andy counted three men and a boy who could not have been more than thirteen, moving, bustling outlines, details hidden by the fog. And only yards away those men in their strange attire, their three-cornered hats pulled down over their faces, watched and waited. Deathly cold, not a breath of wind now, the light beginning to fail.

Andy Dark wished again that he had his watch; surely it could not be late afternoon already. He had the feeling that time was a commodity that existed only in irrational fragments in this place. These terrible mists were responsible for it in some inexplicable way. Suddenly the Droy legends were no longer wild tales to be dismissed lightly.

Andy crept forward another few yards, crouched down again behind a tussock of reeds. Now he could see the newcomers more clearly and his mouth went dry. Ragged clothing that had no place in the twentieth century outside museums or theatrical costumiers, patched coats and rough homespun shirts, breeches rolled up above the knees, wading barefooted in the water. Bearded features except for the boy who was emaciated, terrible to behold. Some disease, it could not be anything else, had eaten into the flesh on his face, a spreading malignant rash that exposed the bone in places. Barely able to lift the boxes yet struggling to do so as though he was afraid of what might happen to him if he shirked; cringing every time one of the others spoke to him. Gruff whispers which the fog seemed to magnify. Hurrying, all of them glancing about them fearfully, an obvious furtiveness, a haste to be finished and away. Andy's flesh crept. Smugglers without a doubt yet this was no highly organised trafficking. Had there been a motor launch moored close by, even a conventional boat of some kind, he could have accepted the situation. But this was like some dreadful nightmare, the product of a fevered brain. Suddenly the hidden men leaped into action, on their feet and cutting off the smugglers' retreat back to their boat. A scream; Andy thought it came from the boy. Shouts, curses. A muffled explosion; somebody had fired a pistol but the bullet appeared to have missed. A melee, struggling, fighting. The ambushers were armed with clubs, crude staves into which nails had been hammered, the points protruding wickedly.

A blow, one of the smugglers dropped and Andy saw the gaping head wound, a deep gash that split right into the skull, splintering the bone. Another was bent double, clutching at his groin, the third being held, screaming as his captors broke his legs with their cudgels. Brutal mutilation, and then came a realisation which had Andy wanting to burst into headlong panic-stricken flight. There was no blood, not a single trickle of sticky scarlet fluid from any one of the multitude of wounds!

Yet the sheer awfulness of the encounter held the conservation officer spellbound. These savage brutes who were undoubtedly some kind of Customs officers had turned on the boy. Two of them held him whilst a third raised a nail-spiked club. Andy's instinct was to rush to the other's aid. He could not stand by and witness a cowardly murder, but his legs refused to move. Whatever his feelings he was forced to watch, not even able to turn his head 'away, screaming mutely. For Christ's sake, you can't.

They had forced the boy's mouth open, were jamming the head of a narrow cudgel between the stretched lips, the rusted nails ripping the flesh, gouging and tearing at the skin. Twisting, pushing, muffling the cries of agony, shredding gums and tongue, raking the back of the throat, clawing for the tonsils. Withdrawing, a tongueless child mouthing silent pleas for mercy. But still there was no blood!

They had his arms pinioned behind him and were frogmarching him along with the other two smugglers; coming inshore — towards Andy Dark! And still Andy was struggling to move, transfixed like a wedding guest beholding the Ancient Mariner. Eddying fog, a breeze coming in off the sea, the mist no longer adequate cover for the lurking watcher.

Shouts, they had seen him. A pistol exploded with a dull boom and he heard the whistle of a spherical ball of lead passing a yard or so above his head. Fighting with his limbs, his brain, yelling at them to co-ordinate. And then movement returned to his aching muscles, arthritic joints creaking, stretching. Extricating himself from the mud into which his feet had sunk, those figures only yards behind him now, gaining on him. Running, the wood ahead of him, he'd have to go through it whether he liked it or not, try and lose his pursuers in there. Swirling mist; it might clear altogether or else it might come down thicker than ever. He could hear their wheezing breaths behind him, feet that seemed to move faster than his own. If only he could have had a start on them he was sure he would have outdistanced them. Nightmare thoughts about what would happen to him if they caught him, those devilish cudgels with their pincushions of rusty nails, the way they had ripped out that young boy's mouth. Clubbed to death, a score of atrocities from these torturers from a bygone century might be his fate. Andy's lungs hurt, he tasted the sour odour of the mist, its stagnant marsh gases which constricted his breathing. These men were some kind of apparition, he tried to tell himself, an astral projection with the fog acting as a screen on which to show the film; scenes long dead, perhaps some kind of embodiment of vibration. They couldn't hurt him, they could only harm their own kind. They were gaining on him fast. Another shot, another bullet cutting through the air above his head, the feeling that they did not want to shoot him — they wanted him alive for some diabolical reason. If only he could reach the wood.

.

And then he fell. He wasn't sure whether he had tripped over a tussock of grass or whether his legs had finally given out. Momentary blackness, fainting for a split second and then the deluge of stinking black water revived him. Lying there, lifting his head so that he did not drown in the shallow pool, closing his eyes. Anticipating a pistol ball splintering his skull. One brief moment of pain, no more. He had read somewhere that you never heard the shot that got you. Silence, just an awareness that they were clustered around him. Wincing, bracing himself for the shattering impact of one of those clubs, being battered mercilessly to death.

Hands seized him, dragged him to his knees, a blow from a fist jerking his head back, looking up into those features which might have belonged to freshly exhumed corpses. Eyes that stared unflickeringly, mouths that were twisted cavities of hatred, foul breath mingling with the stink of the fog. They exchanged glances, muttered in a dialect which he barely understood, a kind of mongrel English. 'Another smuggler hid'n on merse. take 'un to dungeons. '

Andy was hauled to his feet, strong fingers gripping both wrists, and even as they pushed him forward he was frighteningly aware of the coldness of the hands which held him. No way could the temperature of any human being drop so low and life still course through the body!

He stumbled, almost fell, and a booted foot kicked him on the thigh. All around him feet squelched in the marsh grass and reeds, and somewhere somebody was whimpering. It had to be the boy, probably the other two smugglers were being dragged along too, taken to those dungeons. Anger penetrated his fear. I'm not a smuggler, I'm not interested in your quarrel with these men. But there was no way he was going to be allowed to prove his innocence or even state his case. These Customs officers, for surely they could not be anything else, were judge and jury in their own primitive age. The mist had begun to thicken again by the time they reached the wood. One of the captors went on ahead, the party converging into almost single file in his wake, a route that threaded its way through the trees, detoured deep reedy bogs, at times seeming to cut back on itself, until eventually the outline of a large turreted building loomed out of the fog. Droy House, without a doubt, Andy decided — as it once used to be.

Centuries before it had been a castle, probably partly demolished in the Civil War and then rebuilt. Gaunt and sinister, towering over the treetops, the main entrance gates wide open like some monster preparing to swallow its prey. Andy's legs threatened to buckle under him again but there was to be no respite. Up a flight of moss-covered stone steps and into a hallway that had once perhaps formed part of the courtyard. Wooden panelling faced part of the interior stone wall, a table and chair set in the centre but no other item of furniture was visible. At the far end a trap door stood open, below which yawned a black square with steps going down into the darkness. Andy Dark's captors released him, gave him a push which almost sent him headlong down that stone stairway. There was no mistaking his fate, no way he could protest. Holding on to the wall for support, feeling his way, hearing the other prisoners following him. The boy was gurgling, trying to scream but only succeeding in making animal-like noises, grunts and whimpers. The injured man, unable to stand, fell; crawled. Suddenly one of the smugglers, the last one down the steps shouted, 'For mercy's sake, no. Not in here! Never again shall we see the light o' day!'

Somebody up above laughed and a sudden fierce heavy thud which had an air of finality about it extinquished that single square of grey light, turned it to pitch darkness. Cries of hopelessness, the boy whimpering again in his own tongueless manner.

Andy moved forward, feeling his way with outstretched arms, following the wall. They seemed to be in some kind of passage that led on into the bowels of Droy House; testing each step, a fear lest some deep pit might lie ahead of him and all the time aware of the pathetic yet terrible creatures bringing up the rear. Mentally hurrying, fearing lest an icy cold hand might seize him, pull him back. Starting to panic as an awful realisation dawned on him: life sentence. 'And life shall mean life.' Here for ever, starving, dying of thirst

eventually becoming one of them!

He could hear the others floundering about in the darkness. Somebody fell, cursed in a strange dialect. Gruff reprimands, probably aimed at the boy. They all seemed oblivious of the fact that a stranger had been imprisoned with them but sooner or later they must become aware of that fact. Hunger did terrible things to civilised Man, Andy had read something only comparatively recently; plane-crash victims who had feasted on the dead. He tasted bile in his throat, his stomach rejecting the idea instantly, wanting to vomit at the thought of… of those things, their putrified flesh. Rats… he could hear them scurrying. In a way they seemed friendly creatures compared with those with which he had been entombed in this damp airless place. A fluttering somewhere close by and he recognised the wingbeats of bats. The fact that bats inhabited this place meant that they had to be able to get in and out, probably only a tiny niche somewhere but in this kind of situation you found yourself clutching at straws, building up hopes only to have them dashed but knowing that without them you would give up and die. He had always had a secret fear of underground places and now they were manifesting themselves into awful reality. Cobwebs touched him, had him clawing at them. If he wasn't already mad then he surely would be soon. Listening, holding his breath. He could not hear the others, not even the sound of faint breathing. Perhaps they hadn't been here at all, he had imagined it. Or else they had died; no that couldn't happen because they were already dead, they had to be.

Fearful lest they were stalking him, ravenous beasts who smelled fresh meat and were determined not to starve. Glancing about him, seeing nothing except total blackness. He stretched out his hands again, determined to explore this place, to find out where the bats came and went.

Then suddenly he touched something; recognised it instantly as soft human flesh, warm and living; moving, tensing. A body hanging from the wall that screamed deafeningly and screamed again!

Andy Dark jerked back, stumbled, was on the verge of blind flight, saw in his mind his wretched companions again. But their flesh was cold and dead even though they moved and spoke. It was not one of them, it was somebody else who like himself had been captured and thrown down here.

'Who. is it?' his whisper echoed and re-echoed. 'Who is it? Who. is. it?'

Who? Waiting for an answer, hearing the other's sharp intake of breath as though in preparation for another scream. And then came one word, a name, uttered in fear and hope, disbelief. The old game of building up hopes and having them dashed. A name. His own.

'Andy?' Fearful female tones, barely recognisable but enough for him to know.

'Carol!' Oh Jesus God, what have they done to you, my darling?

He rushed forward, felt at the pinioned body. It was female, naked and very real, sagging in its manacles. How? Why? When? Questions that could be answered later: first he had to free Carol Embleton.

'I'll get you out of whatever this contraption is.' He slid his hand up one of her arms, located the iron bracelet. A sudden fear that it might be locked, the key taken away by those diabolical gaolers. Then he sighed his relief aloud; a crude clasp, nothing more. Rusted and stiff, he prised at it, felt it creak open reluctantly. The other arm, the ankles, Carol tumbling on to him, crying, still not believing. 'Oh, Andy, is it really you?'

'It is,' he said, holding her dose and kissing her, staring into the Stygian darkness again, fearful lest at any moment those terrible beings might suddenly grab at them with cold, dead hands. But they didn't, there was no sound. They might never have existed.

'It's madness all this,' he said, speaking in a low whisper. 'It seems the old legends have some truth in them after all. Smugglers, Customs officers from the eighteenth century, ghouls who once walked the mists of Droy Wood and its adjoining marshlands. It was the mist that was responsible for all these happenings.'

'Whatever are you talking about?' She clutched at his arm. 'You're talking in riddles, Andy. I never saw any Customs officers. It was the German pilot who imprisoned me here.'

'A German pilot!'

'That's right. After I fled from this man James Foster it was like the whole sky was ablaze. There was bombing and firing and then this plane crash. A German plane but the pilot managed to bale out. He claims that the war isn't over yet, that Britain is tottering on the brink of defeat. He locked me up for the Gestapo to deal with me when the Nazis overrun Britain.'

'Christ Alive!' Andy Dark's brain reeled with this latest piece of information, 'Right now we're locked in ancient dungeons, there's a Nazi and a sex maniac at large, not to mention a gang of ghoulish things prowling about with cudgels spiked with nails!'

'Oh, what's it all mean, Andy?' Carol Embleton's whole body was shaking. She couldn't take much more.

'I don't know,' he confessed. 'Only that the mists that blanket the wood and the marsh from time to time are responsible, somehow having retained past evils, kept them alive. Like those old films they keep showing on the television from time to time. I guess the dead live on here, ensnaring any who get caught up in the wood in the fogs. Like a sort of time-machine. I can't offer any other explanation.'

'It's ghastly.' She didn't want to go into details of her encounter with Foster, that could all come later.

'We've got to get out of here,' he muttered. 'We'll try the trap door first. Maybe I can smash a way through it. Now hold on to me and we'll try and find our way back to the entrance.'

Once again Andy Dark led the way, one arm at full stretch in front of him, the other holding Carol's hand, feeling his way along the damp mossy wall, testing each step before putting his full weight on it. Tense, skin prickling all the while, afraid that at any second an icy hand would reach out and grab him, or he would hear that boy whimpering with pain, trying to scream with his lacerated mouth from which no blood poured. But there was no sign, no sound of anybody.

'Here are the steps,' he said with hope in his voice, fearful lest the Droy curse might bring them another terrible phase from its evil past. One at a time up the steps until he touched the trap door, felt its studded iron bands and his hopes began to fade. So heavy, so strong, a square of reinforced seasoned oak which had probably withstood the frenzied onslaughts of scores of prisoners over the centuries. 'I'll have to find something to smash it with.'

And that meant going back down to the dungeon, groping around in the pitch blackness. He should have thought of it in the first place. His hands explored the trap door, pushed upwards, and felt it move. Those rusty hinges squealed, a crack of grey daylight appeared. Heaving, afraid that he was mistaken, that it was some kind of cruel trick designed to demoralise the damned. Another six inches, the hinged door lifting, finally thudding back against the stone wall of the hallway. *I can't believe it.' He still didn't, hauling Carol up behind him, both of them scrambling out of that evil-smelling hole in case at any second the trap door decided to slam back shut. 'It wasn't even bolted! We're out, girl, my God, we're out!'

They crouched there blinking in the faint daylight; it might have been dawn, dusk, any time of day. Winter daylight, darkened by the presence of a thick fog outside.

'We'd better get back to the road,' Carol found herself whispering. 'It can't be far.'

'No, I'm sure it isn't.' He licked his lips, remembered only too well what it was like out there, the same as it had been for centuries, a dark stunted wood where the foul marshes had infiltrated, where people got lost and were never heard of again. 'We'd better make a move. Here,' he said, slipping off his muddy thornproof jacket, 'put this around you. Now, we'll go as fast as we can, take a direct line.' And I hope to God we're going in the right direction. They had barely taken half-a-dozen steps across the stone-flagged hall when they heard footsteps coming from the balcony above, the slow measured footfalls of hard leather soles, something eerily positive about them.

'There's. somebody coming down the stairs.' Carol Embleton clutched at him, dared not look, felt him whirling round, heard his gasp of fear and amazement. Half-way down the stairs the tall figure, clad in an immaculate grey-green uniform, the tunic unbuttoned, stood watching them with cold unblinking pale blue eyes. And in his hand, held almost casually, the barrel trained unwaveringly on them, was a Luger automatic pistol.

'So,' Bertie Hass smiled but there was no humour in the stretching of his thin lips, 'you think you can escape from my castle, eh! My friends, I think that it would be easier for you to escape from Colditz!'

The German began a slow descent, laughed gloatingly. 'Consider yourselves prisoners-of-war, caught in the act of trying to escape and for that there is only one penalty!'