“He’s seen us,” said Geoffrey. “He’s waggling his wings.”
The engine note rose to its proper whine, the nose tilted up and up until the plane was in a roaring vertical climb. It twisted its path again and whistled southwards. In less than a minute it was a dot over the southern horizon, trailing its streak of vapor.
“He was looking for us” said Sally.
“Yes,” said Geoffrey. “We’d better stay. The litter wasn’t going to work anyway.”
“I hope they come soon,” said Sally. “I'm hungry.”
“I have just remembered,” said Mr. Furbelow, “there might be some tins in the cupboard in the kitchen. I haven't thought about them for five years. It was not the sort of thing he would have cared for.”
There was some stewing steak and the trick with the embers worked, so they supped by a crackling fire in the open, like boy scouts, and slept under the stars.
Five helicopters came next morning, clattering along below a gray sky. A group of very tough-looking men jumped out of each machine and ran to the outer wall, where they trained their automatic weapons on the silent forest. Sally ran to warn them not to shoot the wolfhounds, who, restless with hunger, had gone hunting. One of the men aimed a gun at her as she talked, and she came back. Officers snapped orders, pointed out arcs of fire and doubled on to the next group. Three men stood in the middle of the courtyard in soldierly, commanding attitudes. They watched the activity for a while and then strolled over towards the cottage. The one in the middle was the General.
Geoffrey stood up, forgetting about his ankle. Ambushed by the pain he sprawled sideways, and stayed sitting as the three approached.
“Aha!” barked the General. “You do not obey the orders, young man. I say to you to make a reconnaissance (he pronounced the word the French way) and you defeat the enemy, you alone. That is no path to promotion. But this is the enemy, then?”
He pointed at Mr. Furbelow. He seemed very pleased.
“No,” said Geoffrey. “This is Mr. Furbelow. He broke his leg in the storm, and I tried to set it, but I think he ought to go to hospital as soon as possible.” “But the enemy?” snapped the General. He didn’t seem interested in Mr. Furbelow’s leg.
“You mean the Necromancer,” said Sally. “We only just saw him. He got angry when we came and he went away. Mr. Furbelow can tell you far more about him than we can.”
The General turned again to the old man on the ground, and stared at him in silence.
“How did you find out so quickly?” said Geoffrey. One of the other men answered, an Englishman. “Some bright boy in London came to and got in touch with Paris. He started an emergency generator at the FO and got a transmitter going. He hadn’t a clue what was up, but the fact that he could work
the machine at all encouraged us to send reconnaissance planes over. One of them spotted this place — we knew where you were heading for, of course — and here we are.”
“Your Necromancer,” said the General, “what is he?”
“Honestly we don’t know. He just sat and thought, Mr. Furbelow says. He’s been living with him for five years, but he’s really much too tired to tell you anything now. Why don’t you send him off to hospital, let him have a good rest, and then I’m sure he’ll tell you all he knows?”
The Englishman spoke to the General in French, and the General grunted. The third man yelled an order, and two soldiers doubled over from one of the gun positions. They ran to the helicopters and ran back with a stretcher, on to which they quickly and tenderly eased Mr. Furbelow. They must have practiced the job a hundred times in their training. “Where will you take him to?” said Sally.
“Paris,” said the Englishman. “I expect you will be coming too, young lady.”
“No thank you,” said Sally. “I want to take Maddox to Weymouth as soon as Geoffrey’s foot is better. If you could find us another horse we could ride down. And we’ll need some money. The weatherman stole all ours.”
The General grunted and sucked his lower lip over the little moustache.
“We had expected Mr. Tinker to come to Paris to make a report,” said the Englishman.
“Can you make me?” said Geoffrey. “I’ll come if I have to, but I’d much rather not. We don’t know anything, Sally and I. He went when we came. I’ll write to Lord Montagu and explain about the Rolls. It was struck by lightning.”
“You have already one horse?” barked the General.
Geoffrey pointed. Maddox was coming disconsolately round the courtyard looking for tender fragments of green weed and finding nothing. Some he’d eaten already, and the rest the earthquake had obliterated. He was in a bitter temper, but stumped over towards the steps to see if Sally had any horse bait left. The General was in the way. Maddox plodded towards him, snarling, then stopped. For a moment these two manifestations of absolute willpower gazed at each other; then the General laughed his yapping laugh and stepped aside.
“I am no more astonished that you have succeeded. With a weapon of that caliber.”
The staff officers smiled obediently.
“Thomas,” said the General, “envoyez des hommes chercher un bon cheval. Au dela de ces col-lines j’ai vu des petites fermes. We will talk to Mr. Furbelow in Paris. Good-bye, M’sieu.”
As the stretcher-bearers stooped to the poles Mr. Furbelow turned to the children.
“I trust I shall see you again, my dears,” he said. “I have much to thank you for.”
“You are not alone,” barked the General. “I too, England too, all have much to thank them for.”
“The General will send you to Weymouth to stay with us,” said Sally, “when your leg's better.”
“I should appreciate that,” said Mr. Furbelow.
He was lifted into a helicopter which heaved itself rowdily off the ground, tilted its tail up and headed south. Five soldiers left to look for a second horse, but before they’d been gone ten minutes there was a noise of baying, followed by shots.
“Oh Lord,” said Geoffrey, “I forgot about the wolves. I hope your men are all right.”
The Englishman grinned. “Excellent practice,” he said.
“This Mr. Furbelow,” snapped the General, “he will tell me the truth.”
“Yes,” said Geoffrey, “as much as he knows.”
The General looked at him, sucking his moustache, for ages.
“Could somebody please look at my ankle?” said Geoffrey.
The third man shouted again, and one of the stretchermen ran over. He had very strong, efficient hands, like tools designed to do a particular job, and he dressed Geoffrey’s leg with ointments and a tight bandage. He spoke friendlily to Geoffrey in French, which the Englishman translated. Apparently there was only a mild strain, but the pain was caused by bruising. The General strutted off to listen to a radio in one of the helicopters. Watching him, Geoffrey realized why he had been so helpful about sending them back to Weymouth: it wouldn’t do to have two heroes returning to France.
The soldiers began to lounge at their posts, but still kept a sharp watch on the forest, a ring of modern weapons directed outwards against an enemy who all the time lay in their midst, deep under the ridged rock, sleeping away the centuries.
They rode south three days later. The General had left six men to guard them, and together they went up the higher track. Half the oaks had fallen in the earthquake, and the ride was blocked every few yards. They saw no wolves. On the shoulder of the hill they said good-bye to their escort and went on alone.
The countryside was in a strange state. At almost every cottage gate there would be a woman standing to ask for news. On the first day, as they passed a group of farm buildings, they heard a wild burst of cheering and a rusty tractor chugged out into the open followed by a gang of excited men. Later they passed a car which had been pushed out into the road. Tools lay all round it and a man was sitting on the bank with his head between oily hands. The sky was busy with airplanes. They bought lunch at a store which was full of people who hadn’t really come to buy anything, but only to swap stories and rumors. One woman told how she’d found herself suddenly wide awake in the middle of the night and had stretched out, for the first time in six years, to switch on the bedside light. Other people nodded. They’d done the same. Another woman came in brandishing a tin-opener, and was immediately besieged with requests to borrow it. There was an old man who blamed the whole thing on the atom bomb, and got into an angry argument with another old man who thought it had all been done by Communists.