Contraband

      'Smugglers, my boy,' said Gregory grimly. 'For the last two years this outfit has been costing Britain half a million pounds a month in revenue but there's more to it than that. These birds are out to wreck the old firm of J. Bull, Home, Dominions and Colonial unless we can stop 'em. D'you feel like running a marathon?'

      "Orders is orders and got to be obeyed,' said Mr. Rudd 'Come on then.' Gregory drew back into the deeper shadows and stood up. 'We're going to run now run as we've never run in our lives. We've got to be in the air again before Gavin Fortescue's fleet starts on its way to England.'

7

In the Silent Hours

      Ordinarily Gregory was a lazy devil in fact he prided himself upon being a master of the gentle art of idling gracefully. He never ran when he could walk, stood when he could lean, leaned when he could sit, or sat when he could more comfortably lie down. He loathed every form of exercise and had been regarded as a crank at his public school because of his open hatred of all ball games. He would, perhaps, have proved highly unpopular on that account if nature had not endowed him with other assets; a lean sinewy body, which made him a dangerous opponent in a scrap, and a bitter caustic wit to which the games enthusiasts found it difficult to reply. Moreover, he was quixotically generous and the ringleader in any devilry which could alleviate the monotony of the dull scholastic round. In consequence, he had been forgiven his idiosyncrasy and let off the penalties which would have been meted out during their first terms to most youngsters who had such heretical tendencies and, later, he established a definite reputation as a 'bad man' which earned him much admiration among the younger boys.

      Perhaps it was the very fact that he had made it a life rule never to exert himself unnecessarily which accounted for his continued fitness. It so often happens that footballers and rowing blues run to seed and put on fat when they are compelled to abandon their regular hours of sport through the ties of business or professional life, whereas Gregory, never having put himself to any strain, had retained his supple figure and his wind unimpaired.

      He could not, of course, compete with a trained athlete but he had a wonderful reserve of strength and when he felt it necessary to use it he could put up a far better performance than the average man of his age.

      As soon as they were clear of the slope he broke into a long loping trot which Rudd, who was half a head shorter, but of far more muscular build, found it difficult to keep up with.

      The going for the first mile over the coarse grass was tiring and tricky, as they felt it too risky to show a light, but when they reached the track Gregory produced his big army torch and lit the way as they ran on side by side.

      Luck was with them when, panting and breathless, they reached the road, for they had hardly gone two hundred yards along it in the direction of Calais when a lorry loaded with fresh vegetables came rattling up behind them. Gregory hailed the driver in French and offered fifty francs for a lift into the town. The man blessed his luck and, gasping from their exertions, they scrambled on to the back of the vehicle.

      'So it's smugglers we're after,' said Rudd when he had regained his wind. 'I thought smugglers was a back number since we beat old Boney at Waterloo.'

      'Not a bit of it,' Gregory assured him. 'Free trade put them practically out of business for several generations but since protection came in with the National Government the whole racket has started up again. You see, there's a packet of money to be made now for anyone who can get silks and cameras and a score of other things into England duty free; and for the last year or two smuggling has assumed enormous proportions. The big concerns won't handle the stuff, but any amount of contraband is jobbed off cheap through some organisation in the East End to scores of little shops all over the country, which enables them to undercut the big corporations. That's why Sir Pellinore's people are getting so het up. Their turnover's been going down thousands a week in the last eighteen months and this new smuggling racket is the reason. But there's a more sinister side to it than that. I've been put on to try and run this dangerous organisation to earth; so that we can hand particulars over to the authorities and have it mopped up.'

      'Seems like you've succeeded pretty quick, sir.'

      'Good Lord no! What we've seen tonight is only one thread in the tangled skein. These people must be operating on a huge scale. They've probably got half a dozen bases on this side, because if they sent every cargo from that dip in the downs the French police would get wind of it before long. We've got to find out where they land their stuff in England and how they distribute it afterwards too.'

      'Seems a chancy game ter me, anyhow, with all the planes there are flying about these days. Some bloke might fly over casual like any old night 'nd spot those flares.'

      Gregory shook his head. 'Didn't you notice the flares were placed irregularly so that the valley would not have the appearance of a proper landing ground from the air? Besides, Gavin Fortescue is as wily as the traditional serpent: we've got to give him that. If anybody visited that base in the day time there wouldn't be a thing to show what's going on, not even a cart track, because the goods are all consigned to one of the little fishing villages on the coast and brought up underground through the caves.'

      'Maybe, Mr. Gregory sir, but what abart all them planes? They've got ter have 'angars, ain't they? Though I didn't see none.'

      'Of course you didn’t because the planes are not kept there. Each one is probably registered as a privately owned machine and housed separately somewhere between here and Paris. Then, when these night birds get their orders, they go up, only land here long enough to take on their cargo and are away again over the sea. I doubt if the whole operation takes more than half an hour so, if they don't use any one base too frequently, the chances are all against their being rumbled in an almost uninhabited stretch of country like this.'

      'Half an hour, eh! Blimey, we'll have to make it snappy then if we're to be in the air before they hops it.'

      'Ever known me run without reason?' Gregory replied tersely. As he spoke the lorry was rumbling into the outskirts of Calais. Leaving Rudd, he crawled forward and spoke to the driver, asking him to take them direct to the airport for an extra ten francs.

      The man complied and five minutes after their arrival they were in their plane, Gregory having already thrust a note into the oily palm of the mechanic and asked him to telephone the garage with particulars of the spot where they had abandoned the hired car. Next moment they were in the air.

      Gregory did not make straight for the secret base on the downs behind Cape Gris Nez. The place was so near by the measure of air travel that he would have been compelled to fly low over it and, perhaps, give away to the smugglers the fact that they were’ being watched. Instead, he spiralled round and round to gain altitude then, when he had reached three thousand feet, turned the plane's nose towards the west.

      It was the dark period, between moons, and he guessed that the smugglers had purposely chosen this, and the succeeding dates mentioned in the telegram, to run through their cargoes; but there was little cloud, and many stars lit the August night. By their faint glow it was quite possible to make out the coastline and his position was easily ascertainable from the harbour lights of Calais and Boulogne.

      As they passed over Mont Couple he felt a stab of disappointment. The flares in the hidden valley were no longer burning so he assumed that the secret fleet had already sailed but he turned his plane seaward in the hope that he might yet pick them up.