The Ghosts of N-Space - Barry Letts [87]
I knew it! thought Jeremy.
‘But if you’re careful, you have a very good chance of getting away with it.’
Thanks a million!
‘The arch is in bright moonlight, but the cloisters on the other side are in deep shadow. I can’t approach from that side as the remaining wall of the outbuilding would mask him from me. But if you take up position there, ready to shout at the same time as Mario does, then I’m in with a chance.’
He glanced at his watch again. ‘Right now, check your watches. We’ll give ourselves two minutes to get into position, so that means –’
‘No got watch,’ said Mario.
For a moment, even the Brigadier looked nonplussed.
Then his face cleared.
‘Not to worry. Keep an eye on Jeremy. He’ll tip you the wink.’
‘Too far to see wink.’
‘Give you a hand signal, I mean. Like this. Right, Jeremy? In two minutes from – now. Go!’
As Jeremy hurried down the stairs, followed by the pattering feet of his co-decoy, his mood did not improve.
303
Decoys! That’s exactly what they were. Him especially.
As he eased the door open and peeped through the crack, he had a mental picture of the beautifully made decoy Uncle Teddy had the first and last time they’d gone wild-fowling together in Norfolk. When he saw it bobbing about in the marsh pool, he’d thought it was real. He’d have taken a pot-shot at it, if it wasn’t considered an unsporting thing to do to shoot a sitting duck.
Quack quack, he thought, as he slipped out into the shadows of the cloisters. Quack bloody quack!
The Brigadier, having skirted round the perimeter of the overgrown garden, along the back of the house and up the wall to the arch, was in position with about thirty seconds to spare. He peeped cautiously round the comer. Vilmio was still chanting, though faster now.
He wondered whether Jeremy was in position. Best way to cope with a fellow in a bit of a funk, he thought. Give him a job to do. Show him you trust him.
He had a momentary qualm as it crossed his mind to ask whether he could in fact trust the said fellow-in‐a-funk. The boy was fundamentally okay, but hardly one of nature’s soldiers.
Twenty seconds.
304
On the other hand, the old chap was too keen by half.
He’d been lucky once but –
Fifteen seconds.
Concentrate, now. Only one chance and that’s your lot.
The Brigadier felt again the uprush of controlled excitement, the addictive buzz which was the secret reward of his chosen profession.
Ten – nine – eight – seven –
Jeremy hardly looked at the great figure with his arms stretched on high as he scuttled as quietly and quickly as he dared past the empty couches of the Doctor’s OB
Transthingy to his official lurking place behind the wall of the ruined shed. He glanced at his watch. Thirteen seconds to go. So far, so sort of good.
But then he looked up and saw the arch of light forming in space beyond the chanting Max. Worse, he could see through the shimmering glow to the other side. Glimpses, no more, flickering hints only, but unquestionably a legion of fiends coming and going, pushing and shoving, jostling for position as they waited – for what?
Jeremy could see jaws and claws, scales and feathers, glaring eyes and flaring nostrils; but beyond anything, the teeth, the tearing, champing, grinding fangs. He shut his 305
eyes, screwing them up tight to force the sight from his brain.
The memory of why he was there returned with the shock of an ice-cold shower. His eyes snapped open and he looked at his watch. Four seconds. He raised his hand ready to give the signal.
‘Hey there, nit-whisker, look this way!’
Oh God, Mario had taken his raised hand as the signal itself.
As he opened his mouth to add his own feeble shout to Mario’s piping, several things happened.
The Brigadier appeared in the archway, blunderbuss aimed squarely at Max Vilmio, crying, ‘No! This way!’
Vilmio, instead of swinging round in a start ready to attack as might have been expected, finished the phrase he was chanting in a crescendo of triumph. He himself was now glowing with a luminescence brighter than that