In a rapid shuffle they obeyed, pressing near each other for shelter as they huddled against the barn he indicated.
He ordered down his troops and lined them up with rifles at the ready: 'If any of you move a step, you're for it,' he announced tersely to the cowering crowd, then, determined to punish the villagers for their attack rather than loot any more of the miserable scattered farm dwellings, he sent his half dozen Shingle Street handy men into every house in the place to commandeer all that they could lay their hands on.
Two more carts had to be requisitioned for the extra load, which consisted of a fine miscellaneous haul including the entire supply of drinks from the village pub, which were discovered to have been hidden in a hen house, and a most welcome find of some three thousand cigarettes.
With a parting threat, that if any of the wretched inhabitants moved a foot before his last wagon was out of sight they would get a volley, Kenyon turned his convoy about and headed once more for Shingle Street.
Silas was sent out on a similar errand the following day, but Gregory, suspicious that his Lieutenants were too soft hearted for the business, set out himself on Saturday with a squad of twenty men.
Just before midday Silas abandoned his Herculean labours on the Redoubt and went in search of Veronica. He found her, dressed in a suit of borrowed overalls, busy painting three enormous notice boards in the garden behind the inn. They bore the legend, WAR DEPARTMENT ENTRANCE FORBIDDEN, and were being made at Gregory's orders for erection, one about a mile inland on the road up into the hills and the others on the foreshore half a mile or so to the north and south of the village. In his view, the English being such law abiding people, the sight of them with a sentry pacing up and down nearby would be sufficient to prevent isolated tramps, or even small parties of fugitives, from advancing nearer to Shingle Street.
'Would you do me the honour to have a little lunch with me today?' Silas inquired blandly.
'My good man,' Veronica jammed her paint brush back into the pot, 'don't we always feed together in this infernal pub, and it looks as though we shall until I'm grey.'
'No, this is a little private party I'm throwing at the Ritz Carlton, Shingle Street; do come.'
'O.K., big boy,' she said a little mystified. 'Lead me to it,' and pulling off her overalls which concealed her long slim legs in a pair of borrowed shorts, she strolled along beside him to the Redoubt.
Rudd greeted them in the big dug out which Silas had constructed for himself; it seemed that he had been borrowed for the occasion, and he was busy arranging a mass of cottage garden flowers on a carefully laid table.
Veronica sniffed an appetising smell. 'Don't that make yer hungry, miss?' grinned Rudd.
'It certainly does! Produce the ortolans, friend.'
Silas settled her comfortably in a chair and the meal began. Fresh lobster, roast duckling and green peas, followed by a dish of nectarines and washed down with a bottle of Moselle.
'How did you do it?' she laughed as Rudd served the coffee and Silas produced fresh boxes of cigars and cigarettes. 'That's the best lunch I've had in the hell of a time.'
His round face broke into a puckish smile. 'There are plenty of lobsters on the coast and if you treat the fishermen right they're first class boys. As for the rest, didn't Gregory send me out raiding yesterday? The party occurred to me when I struck a good sized private house.'
'Well, I give you full marks, Silas.' She stretched out a hand across the narrow table, and he laid his own great paw gently on it.
'It's comforting, somehow, to eat a Christian meal again, but what wouldn't I do with you if I had you in New York.'
'You never know,' mused Veronica.
'No, I guess you never know,' he repeated and they smiled quickly at each other.
Silas went out to set his men to work after their midday spell and then returned to keep Veronica company, declaring that in the last six days he'd done enough work for a dozen men, which justified him in taking a holiday.
They laughed a lot, finding immense amusement in their different lives and the strange fate that had brought them together on this undreamed of shore.
The afternoon sped by all too quickly, and they were still together when Gregory returned from his foray. His men were grim and silent, evidently hating the work which he had imposed upon them, but his haul was far larger than that made on either of the two previous days and told the tale of many a ravished farmstead.
Not yet content he sallied forth again on the Sunday, this time with a different squad of men, and returned once more in the evening, tired, morose, and poker faced, but with a long line of loaded wagons. Between them in the four days the countryside for miles around had been swept bare of every living thing except the starving humans whom he now reported to be living on their cats and dogs; but Shingle Street was provisioned against an indefinite siege. With fish, meat and poultry in plenty the inhabitants could survive the most rigorous winter almost in luxury.
All he required now was fruit and fresh vegetables, so on Monday, having carried out a rapid inspection of the fortifications which were growing apace on the lines he had laid down, he set out as his own ambassador to Hollesley.
Mr. Merrilees, the elected representative at the Labour Colony, received him a little suspiciously at first, but soon became friendly. He was a small, nervous, bearded man, and his somewhat bigoted enthusiasms provided much material for Gregory's cynical sense of humour, yet Gregory took care to conceal his amusement with that urbane manner of which he was such a master.
The labour movement, the Wesleyan Church, and the British Empire were the trinity of gods which governed Mr. Merrilees's existence, but he was not above killing a chicken and cooking it for a Brigadier General.
'Not that I approve of the Military,' he hastened to say. 'I'm a pacifist myself, for the burden of war ever falls heaviest on the working man, but all soldiers are the servants of the Government and represent the King, who is a fine man if ever there was one long may he be spared to us!'
'Amen,' said Gregory, marvelling at the quaint philosophy by which his host had arrived at this loyal wish. Then after the fashion of all potentates, whatever the manner of their arising, they fed first and got down to business afterwards.
In Merrilees, when he had explained his project, Gregory found a willing trader, but one who knew how to drive a hard bargain. An agreement for the exchange of commodities proved a simple matter, but with all the tenacity with which he had fought against wage cuts in the past, Merrilees now demanded shelter for his people within the Shingle Street fortifications in the event of a concerted attack by the starving workers from the towns.
This Gregory was loath to concede since in a time of crisis it would mean his having to support a number of useless mouths who could no longer make a return for their keep, but eventually a compromise was reached. Merrilees was to place thirty of the fittest men in his community permanently at Gregory's disposal forthwith, to be trained in the use of arms and apprenticed to the fisherman's craft, so that they would be a present help and an additional support, in case it should become necessary to receive the whole Labour Colony into the sanctuary of Shingle Street.
When the treaty was concluded, Merrilees puffed thoughtfully at his pipe, filled with dried herbs, with which he was already experimenting and looked across at Gregory from beneath his bushy eyebrows.
'What's your opinion of the trend of things, General?'
The corners of Gregory's mouth drew down into an ugly bow. 'Pretty black,' he confessed. 'It seems to me that the present civilisation is doomed utterly. Railways, planes, motor cars, newspapers, are only words now; for all practical purposes they have ceased to exist. Even the wireless which might have kept us in touch with things, has broken down. It's ten days since the broadcasting stations have been silent, which means beyond any shadow of doubt that the mob have triumphed over any form of organised Government. It means the survival of the fittest, and for those who do survive, back to the land in almost primitive conditions.'