Doncaster was sealed off, but the detour roads had been well posted{88}. Meshed in with an increasing military traffic, they went round to the north-east, through a series of little peaceful villages. They were in the Vale of York; the land was very flat and the villages straggling and prosperous. It was not until they had got back to the North Road that they were halted at a military checkpoint.
There was a sergeant in charge. He was a Yorkshireman, possibly a native of these parts. He looked down at Roger benevolently:
“A.1 closed except to military vehicles, sir.”
Roger asked him: “What’s the idea?”
“Trouble in Leeds. Where were you wanting to get to?”
“Westmorland.”
He shook his head, but in appreciation of their problem rather than negation. “I should back-track on to the York road, if I was you. If you cut off just before Selby, you can go through Thorpe Willoughby to Tadcaster. I should steer well clear of Leeds though.”
Roger said: “There are some funny rumours about.”
“I reckon there are, too,” said the sergeant.
“We saw planes flying up this way a couple of hours back,” Roger added. “Bombing planes.”
“Yes,” the sergeant said. “They went right over. I always feel ’appier being out in the country when things like that are up aloft. Funny, isn’t it—being uneasy when your own planes go over? That lot went right over, but I should stay clear of Leeds, anyway.”
“Thanks,” Roger said, “we will.”
The convoy reversed itself and headed back. The road by which they had come would have taken them south; instead they turned north-east and found themselves, with the military vehicles left behind, travelling deserted lanes.
Ann said: “Our minds can’t grasp it properly, can they? The news bulletins, the military check-points—they’re one kind of thing. This is another. A summer evening in the country—the same country that’s always been here.”
“A bit bare,” John said. He pointed to the grassless hedgerows.
“It doesn’t seem enough,” Ann said, “to account for famine, flight, murder, atom bombs…’ she hesitated; he glanced at her, “… or refusing to take a boy with us to safety.”
John said: “Motives are naked now. We shall have to learn to live with them.”
Ann said passionately: “I wish we were there! I wish we could get into the valley and shut David’s gate behind us.”
“Tomorrow, I hope.”
The lane they were in wound awkwardly through high-hedge country. They dropped back behind the others’ cars—Pirrie’s Ford, with a surprising degree of manoeuvrability, hung right on to the Citroen’s heels. As the Vauxhall approached a gatehouse{89}, standing back from the road, the crossing gates slowly began to close.
Braking, John said: “Damn! And a ten-minute wait before the train even comes in sight, if I know country crossings. I wonder if they might be persuaded to let us through for five bob.”
He slipped out of the car, and walked round it. To the right, a gap in the hedge showed the barren symmetrical range of hills which were the tip for a nearby colliery. He put his head over the gate and looked along the line. There was no sign of smoke, and the line ran straight for miles in either direction. He walked up to the gate-house, and called:
“Hello, there!”
There was no immediate reply. He called again, and this time he heard something, but too indistinct to be an answer. It was a gasping, sobbing noise, from somewhere inside the house.
The window on to the road showed him nothing. He went round on to the line, to the window that looked across it. It was easy enough to see, as he looked in, where the noise had come from. A woman lay in the middle of the floor. Her clothes were torn and there was blood on her face; one leg was doubled underneath her. About her, the room was in confusion—drawers pulled out, a wall clock splintered.
It was the first time he had seen it in England, but in Italy, during the war, he had observed not dissimilar scenes. The trail of the looter… but here, in rural England. The casual reality of this horror in so remote a spot showed more clearly than the military check-points or the winging bombers that the break-up had come, irrevocably.
He was still looking through the window when memory gripped and tightened on him. The gates… With the woman lying here, perhaps dying, who had closed the gates? And why? From here the road, and the car, were invisible. He turned quickly, and as he did heard Ann cry out.
He ran round the side of the gate-house. The car doors were open and a struggle was taking place inside. He could see Ann fighting with a man in front; there was another man in the back, and he could not see Mary.
He had some hope, he thought, of surprising them. The guns were in the car. He looked quickly for a weapon of some kind, and saw a piece of rough wood lying beside the porch of the gatehouse. He bent down to pick it up. As he did, he heard a man’s laugh from close beside him. He straightened up again, and looked into the eyes of the man who was waiting in the shadow of the porch, just as the length of pit-prop crashed down against the side of his head.
He tried to cry out, but the words caught in his throat, and he stumbled and fell.
Someone was bathing his head. He saw first a handkerchief and saw that it was dark with clotted blood; then he looked up into Olivia’s face.
She said: “Johnny, are you better now?”
“Ann?” he said. “Mary?”
“Lie quiet.” She called: “Roger, he’s come round.”
The crossing gates were open. The Citroen and the Ford stood in the road. The three boys were in the back of the Citroen, looking out, but shocked out of their usual chatter. Roger and the Pirries came out of the gate-house. Roger’s face was grim; Pirrie’s wore its customary blandness.
Roger said: “What happened, Johnny?”
He told them. His head was aching; he had a physical urge to lie down and go to sleep.
Roger said: “You’ve probably been out about half an hour. We were the other side of the Leeds road before we missed you.”
Pirrie said: “Half an hour is, I should estimate, twenty miles for looters in this kind of country. That opens up rather a wide circle. And, of course, a widening circle. These parts are honeycombed with roads.”
Olivia was bandaging the side of his head; the pressure, gentle as it was, made the pain worse.
Roger looked down at him: “Well, Johnny—what’s it to be? It will have to be a rush decision.”
He tried to collect his rambling thoughts.
He said: “Will you take Davey? That’s the important thing. You know the way, don’t you?”
Roger asked: “And you?”
John was silent. The implications of what Pirrie had said were coming home to him. The odds were fantastically high against his finding them. And even when he did find them…
“If you could let me have a gun,” he said, “—they got away with the guns as well.”
Roger said gently: “Look, Johnny, you’re in charge of the expedition. You’re not just planning for yourself; you’re planning for all of us.”
He shook his head. “If you don’t get through into the North Riding, at least tonight, you may not be able to get clear at all. I’ll manage.”
Pirrie had moved a little way off; he was looking at the sky in an abstract fashion.
“Yes,” Roger said, “you’ll manage. What the hell do you think you are—a combination of Napoleon{90} and Superman{91}? What are you going to use for wings?”
John said: “I don’t know whether you could all crowd in the Citroen… if you could spare me the Ford…”