'Well, no, we'd have to do it after dark.'
Glodstone gnawed on the stem of his pipe and tried to control himself. 'Listen,' he said finally, 'if you're seriously suggesting that we try to climb what amounts to the north face of the Eiger, on a miniature scale, in pitch darkness, you must have less between the ears than I thought you had. We've come here to save the Countess, not to commit bloody suicide. Why do you think the Château is walled on three sides but there's only a balustrade above the river?'
Peregrine considered the question thoughtfully, 'I don't suppose it's very safe to build a high wall on top of a cliff,' he said, 'I mean you never know with cliffs, do you? I've an auntie in Dorset and she's got a bungalow near some cliffs and she can't sell it because some of the other bungalows are slipping over and '
'To hell with your blasted aunt,' said Glodstone, savaging a can of corned beef with a tin-opener. 'The reason there's no wall on this side is because they don't have to protect it. Only a blithering idiot would try to scale that precipice.'
'Clive did,' said Peregrine unabashed.
'Clive? What on earth are you talking about now?'
'When he captured Quebec. He sailed his '
'Wolfe, for God's sake. Can't you get anything right?'
'All right, Wolfe then. I never was much good at history.'
'So I've noticed,' said Glodstone, skewering bits of corned beef into the billycan. But Peregrine hadn't finished.
'Anyway, it's not really a cliff. And we wouldn't have to start at the bottom. There's a ledge near the top and we could get onto it from the drive.'
'Which they've left unguarded just to make things easier for us, I suppose,' said Glodstone.
'We could always make our way round to the south and climb up there,' Peregrine continued. 'That way we'd be coming down the drive from the top instead of the other way round. They'd never expect us to do that.'
'I'll grant you that,' said Glodstone, absentmindedly putting the billycan on the Calor-gas stove and lighting it, 'and if I were in their shoes I wouldn't expect anyone to do such an asinine thing either.'
'Then once we're on that ledge ' He stopped and stared at the smoking billycan. 'I say, I've never seen corned beef cooked like that before. Shouldn't you stir it round a bit?'
Glodstone wrenched the pan off the stove and burnt his hand in the process. 'Now look what you've made me do,' he said lividly.
'I didn't make you do it,' said Peregrine, 'all I said was '
'Once we were on that bloody ledge. That's what you said. Well, let's get something straight. We're not going anywhere near that ledge. That cliff is unclimbable and there's an end to the matter.'
'What I meant was I didn't tell you to fry that corned beef like that. Major Fetherington always taught us to put cans in hot water and heat them that way. You open them first, of course, otherwise they might explode.'
'And doubtless he also taught you to climb cliffs in the middle of the fucking night too,' said Glodstone, resorting to foul language as a safety value against exploding himself.
'Well, actually, yes,' said Peregrine. 'Mind you, we used tampons.'
'You used what?' demanded Glodstone, momentarily diverted from his burnt hand by the extraordinary vision this conjured up.
'Steel things you hammer into the rock,' said Peregrine.
'For your information they're called crampons. Otherwise known as climbing-irons.'
'That's not what the Major calls them. He said always to call them tampons because if you didn't ram them into some bleeding crack really tight you'd end up looking like a jam-rag yourself. I don't know what he meant by that.'
'I do,' said Glodstone miserably.
These revelations of the Major's revolting teaching methods were having an adverse effect on his morale. He had come on an adventure to rescue a noble lady and already the idyll was turning into an unnerving and sordid experience. To get some temporary relief he told Peregrine to shut up, crawled back to the lookout and went through the notes he'd made on the occupants of the Château as he had observed them during the day in an attempt to discern some sinister pattern to their movements.
The van he had seen drive up at 7 a.m. had left twenty minutes later; at 8 a young man in a track suit had come out onto the terrace, had run round it thirty-eight times and had then touched his toes fifty times, done twenty-two press-ups, had lain on his back and raised his feet in the air too erratically for Glodstone to keep count, and had finally wandered exhaustedly back to the door in the round tower on the right under the watchful eye of a portly woman in a floral dressing-gown who had appeared on the balcony above. Glodstone had switched his own observations to her but she had disappeared before he could deduce anything very sinister from her appearance except that she seemed to be wearing haircurlers. At 8.30 an old man with a watering-can had ambled from the gate tower and had made some pretence of watering several flower-beds, which considering the rain there had been through the night, Glodstone found distinctly suspicious.
But it was only at 10 that Glodstone's interest was genuinely aroused. A group of men came out onto the terrace engaged in heated argument. They were joined presently by the woman he had seen on the balcony. Training the binoculars on her, he hoped she wasn't the Countess. His image of her had been more petite and vulnerable. On the other hand, the men lived up to his expectations.
'That's as unpleasant a bunch as I've seen in a long while,' he told Peregrine, handing him the binoculars. 'Take a good look at the bald-headed bastard with the moustache and the co-respondent shoes.'
'The what?'
'The...the two-tone shoes. It's my guess he's the leader of the gang '
'He seems to be having a row with a swine in a grey suit.'
'Probably because they lost us on the road. I wouldn't like to cross his path.'
Peregrine thought this over. 'But we're bound to,' he said at last. 'That's what we've come for, isn't it?'
'Yes,' said Glodstone, 'Yes, it is. I just meant...Never mind. I'm just pointing him out as a particularly nasty piece of goods.'
'It's a pity we didn't bring a rifle,' said Peregrine a few minutes later. 'I could have picked a couple of them off from here with no trouble.'
'Doubtless. And given our position away into the bargain. For goodness' sake, try to understand we mustn't do anything to put the Countess's life in danger. When we strike we're only going to get the one chance. Miss it and she's done for.'
'I'd have done for some of them too. Anyway, I don't miss.'
'Thank God we didn't bring a rifle,' said Glodstone. 'And now let's go and have some lunch. They're going in and I'm feeling peckish myself.'
They crawled back to the dell and settled down to a meal of stale French bread and over-ripe Camembert washed down with vin très ordinaire. 'You'd think they'd have some sentries posted,' said Peregrine as Glodstone lit his pipe.
'No doubt they have. But not here. They'll be on the roads or on the far side of the Château. It's nice and flat over there and it's the direction they'd expect an attack to come from.'
'I wouldn't. I'd '
'I don't want to know,' said Glodstone, 'I'm going to take a kip and I'd advise you to do the same. We've got a long night ahead of us.'
He climbed into the sunlight and lay looking up at the cloudless sky. If it hadn't been for Peregrine's lust for action and preferably for killing people at the drop of a hat, he'd have been perfectly happy. He'd have to keep him under control. With this thought in mind he drifted off to sleep. But when he awoke it was to find Peregrine squinting up the barrel of a revolver.
'It's nice and clean and I've oiled them both.'
Glodstone asserted his authority. 'Look,' he said, 'tonight's expedition is simply a recce. It's highly unlikely we're going to find an easy way in. We're going to check every avenue...Yes, I know there's only one fucking avenue of walnut trees. Just keep your trap shut and listen. We're going to see how many ways there are of getting into the place. And only when we've worked out a definite and foolproof plan will we act. Get that clear in your head.'