'Which suggests,' said Glodstone, 'that not even the locals come here.'
Best of all was the large shed behind the ancient lorry. Its corrugated iron doors were rusted on their hinges but by prising them apart it was possible to berth the Bentley under cover and when the doors had been shut there was nothing to show that the place was inhabited again.
'All the same, one of us had better sleep beside the car,' said Glodstone, 'and from now on, we'll carry arms. I doubt if we'll be disturbed but we're in the enemy's country and it's foolish to be unprepared.'
On that sober note he took his sleeping bag through to the office while Peregrine settled down beside the Bentley with his revolver gleaming comfortingly in a shaft of sunlight that came through a slit in the door.
Chapter 12
It was mid-afternoon before Glodstone was prepared to leave for the Château.
'We've got to be ready for every eventuality and that means leaving nothing to chance,' he said, 'and if for any reason we're forced to separate, we must each carry enough iron rations to last us a week.'
'I can see why they're called iron rations,' said Peregrine as Glodstone stuffed another five cans of corned beef into his rucksack. Glodstone ignored the remark. It was only when he had finished and was trying to lift his own rucksack that its relevance struck him at all forcefully. By then each sack contained ten cans of assorted food, a flashlight with two sets of spare batteries, extra socks and shirts, a Calor-gas stove, ammunition for the revolvers, a Swiss army knife with gadgets for getting stones out of horses' hooves and, more usefully, opening bottles. On the outside was a sleeping bag and groundsheet beneath which hung a billycan, a water bottle, a compass and a map of the area in a plastic cover. Even the pockets were jammed with emergency supplies: in Peregrine's case four bars of chocolate, while Glodstone had a bottle of brandy and several tins of pipe tobacco.
'I think that's everything,' he said before remembering the Bentley. He disappeared into the garage and came out ten minutes later with the sparking plugs.
'That should ensure nobody steals her. Not that she's likely to be found but we can't take risks.'
'I'm not sure we can take all this lot,' said Peregrine who had only just managed to get his rucksack onto his back and was further burdened by a long coil of nylon rope round his waist.
'Nonsense. We may be in the field for some time and there's no use shirking,' said Glodstone and immediately regretted it. His rucksack was incredibly heavy and it was only by heaving it onto a rusting oil drum that he was able to hoist the damned thing onto his back. Even then he could hardly walk, but tottered forward involuntarily propelled by its weight and by the knowledge that he mustn't be the first to shirk. Half an hour later he was thinking differently and had twice stopped, ostensibly to take a compass bearing and consult the map. 'I'd say we are about fifteen miles to the south-east,' he said miserably. 'At this rate we'll be lucky to be there before dark.'
But Peregrine took a more optimistic line. 'I can always scout ahead for an easier route. I mean fifteen miles isn't really far.'
Glodstone kept his thoughts to himself. In his opinion fifteen miles carrying over half a hundredweight of assorted necessities across this diabolically wooded and hilly country was the equivalent of fifty on the flat, and their failure to find any sort of path, while reassuring in one way, was damnably awkward in another. And Peregrine's evident fitness and the ease with which he climbed steep banks and threaded his way through the forest did nothing to help. Glodstone struggled on, puffing and panting, was scratched and buffeted by branches of trees and several times had to be helped to his feet. To make matters worse, as the leader of the expedition he felt unable to complain, and only by staying in front could he at least ensure that Peregrine didn't set the pace. Even that advantage had its drawbacks in the shape of Peregrine's revolver.
'Put that bloody thing away,' Glodstone snapped when he fell for the second time. 'All I need now is to be shot in the back.'
'But I'm only holding it in case we're ambushed. I mean, you said we've got to be prepared for anything.
'I daresay I did but since no one knows we're here and there isn't a semblance of a path, I think we can safely assume that we aren't going to be waylaid,' said Glodstone and struggled to his feet. Twenty minutes and four hundred yards of wooded hillside later, they had reached the top of a ridge and were confronted by a dry and rocky plateau.
'The Causse de Boosat,' said Glodstone again taking the opportunity to consult the map and sit on a boulder. 'Now if anyone does see us we've got to pretend we're hikers on a walking tour and we're heading for Frisson.'
'But Frisson is over there,' said Peregrine, pointing to the south.
'I know it is but we'll make out we've lost the way.'
'Bit odd, considering we've got maps and compasses,' said Peregrine. 'Still if you say so.'
'I do,' said Glodstone grimly and heaved himself to his feet. For the next hour they trudged across the stony plateau and Glodstone became increasingly irritable. It was extremely hot and his feet were beginning to hurt. All the same, he forced himself to keep going and it was only when they came to a dry gully with steep sides that he decided to revise his tactics.
'No good trying to reach the Château tonight,' he said, 'and in any case this looks like a suitable site for a cache of foodstuffs. We'll leave half the tins here. We can always comes back for them later on if we need them.' And unhitching his rucksack he slumped it to the ground and began to undo his bootlaces.
'I shouldn't do that,' said Peregrine.
'Why not?'
'Major Fetherington says you only make your feet swell if you take your boots off on a route march.'
'Does he?' said Glodstone, who was beginning to resent Major Fetherington's constant intrusion even by proxy. 'Well, it so happens all I'm doing is pulling my socks up. They've wrinkled inside the boots and the last thing I want is to get blisters.' For all that, he didn't take his boots off. Instead he unstrapped the sleeping-bag, undid his rucksack and took out six tins. 'Right, now we'll dig a hole and bury the emergency supplies here.'
While Peregrine quarried a cache in the side of the gully, Glodstone lit his, pipe and checked the map again. By his reckoning they had covered only six miles and had another nine to go. And nine more miles across this confoundedly stony ground in one day would leave him a cripple.
'We'll go on for another hour or two,' he said when Peregrine had finished stowing the tins in the hole and covered them with soil. 'Tomorrow morning we'll make an early start and be in a good position to spy out the land round the Château before anyone's up and about.'
For two hours they tramped on across the causse, encountering nothing more threatening than a few scrawny sheep, one of which Peregrine offered to shoot.
'It would save using any of the tins and I don't suppose anyone would miss just one sheep,' he said. 'The Major's always telling us to live off the land.'
'He wouldn't tell you to go around blasting away at sheep if he were with us now,' said Glodstone. 'The shot would be heard miles away.'
'I could always slit its throat,' said Peregrine, 'nobody would hear anything then.'
'Except a screaming bloody sheep,' said Glodstone, 'and anyway it's out of the question. We'd still have to cook it and the smoke would be spotted.'