Hurst - Robin Crumby (bookreader TXT) 📗
- Author: Robin Crumby
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When it came to Copper’s interactions with his boss, Will was under no illusions that the passive-aggressive behaviour betrayed a growing sense of frustration with his leader. Beyond the adopted mask of ruthlessness was the man in black simply a weak bully playing a part, living up to his men’s expectations?
Will turned his attention to the rest of Copper’s squad. Their stab-proof vests exaggerated their size and bulk, but underneath they were fit and lean. In their adjusted roles, he smiled inwardly, there were undoubtedly fewer opportunities for sitting on their backsides eating donuts. His second in command, the man they called Sarge, like Copper had served in the local constabulary so he was familiar with police tactics and had some basic training with handling weapons. They were barely recognisable as enforcers of the law. All police insignia had been removed. The laws they followed were mostly of their own making. They seemed to live by a code, a mutual respect of each other, of hard work, discipline and determination. That didn’t mean that they had suddenly become bad men, but their frame of reference was somewhat altered. Their filters had been removed and the justice they dispensed was a little more direct and violent. Their loyalty was now to Copper, pure and simple.
****
Will managed to get some rest, finding a comfortable position on his right side, lying on one of the padded bench seats under the blacked-out window of the pub. He woke after a couple of hours with his right arm numb and tingling. He stood and stretched his legs, walking around the slumbering figures laid out on the floor. The dim light from a lone candle cast flickering shadows round the room. Voices from the other room suggested several of the men were still awake, keeping watch.
Behind the bar Will spotted the landlord’s daughter. She made as if to leave but he stretched out and grabbed her wrist before she could turn away. She didn’t cry out but made it very clear that she didn’t want anything to do with him or what he had to say to her. He released her hand, and she remained standing there, rubbing her wrist. She made no attempt to leave.
“If anyone sees us talking, I’m dead. You’ve got two minutes.”
Will nodded and started explaining how in a few hours’ time these men would launch an all-out attack on Hurst Castle. He begged her to help get a message to his friends. Their lives were in danger. He had to warn them some way, somehow, so that they could prepare themselves or get as far away as possible.
She heard him out, listening dispassionately to his story. Her face was hard to read. She seemed empathetic but eager not to take sides in someone else’s fight.
“Listen. You seem like a nice person. But they will kill me and my father if they find out I helped you. I don’t have a choice. It’s too much to ask. If there was another way, then maybe, but short of me going there myself, it can’t be done.”
Will knew she was right, but that didn’t stop him from trying, for the sake of his friends. “Then cut me loose.”
She looked uncertain, playing it out in her head, trying to figure out whether she could help him without compromising everything her father had worked so hard for.
Will persisted. “There must be another way out of here, please.”
She checked no one was listening. Logic and reason were probably screaming at her not to get involved. She struck him as impulsive, someone who liked to trust her instincts. Doing nothing would make her complicit in a crime. If she could find a way to help him and have plausible deniability when questioned, then it became a win-win.
One of Copper’s men stirred on the floor, fidgeting in his sleeping bag, then turned over and went back to sleep. She waited until his snoring resumed and turned back to Will, her mind made up. She leaned her head towards him across the bar, their faces nearly touching. Will became powerfully aware of an intoxicating mix of perfume and lavender soap.
She spoke quickly, pausing only to check no one was watching. When she had finished, he leaned forward and kissed her full on the lips, lingering for a second, enjoying the orange-scented sweetness of the Cointreau fumes. She kissed him back hungrily and mouthed the words: “Good luck.”
Chapter Forty-oneThe following morning the wind direction veered to the south, and its intensity abated sufficiently for Trevor to consider sanctioning the boats’ departure. It remained a risky venture, but an acceptable, calculated one. There would still be a strong sea swell to contend with, but all things considered, the attack should proceed with all urgency. The attack on Hurst was back on.
Storm clouds hurried across the horizon. The bad weather was more distant now, giving way to a milder spring evening in Lymington, overcast and dry. In a couple of hours it would be sunset. The sun was sinking rapidly behind the mainly Georgian houses and cottages that lined the high street and surrounding roads leading down to the cobbled alleys and quayside of the harbour. It would be dark by seven thirty. A half-moon meant there would be just enough light, giving the attackers a further advantage.
High tide was set for around midnight. Their plan was to cast off in the failing light and head down the river estuary. Trevor had sailed these waters all his life. He was well aware of the shallower waters and treacherous mudflats weaving their way down river towards the main channel, heading west towards Hurst. Their arrival was timed to coincide with when they expected most of Hurst’s occupants to be fast asleep in their beds. A nominal force would be protecting what amounted to a very large site with walls stretching over five hundred metres. They knew from the intelligence they had extracted from Will that Hurst’s leaders mistakenly believed that the site’s remoteness and relative inaccessibility, with ten-metre-high walls, made their base virtually impregnable to an attacking force. Their pride and arrogance, said the man in black, would be their downfall.
Yet history was on their side. Will knew from Scottie’s incessant stories that Hurst’s walls had never been breached in all its near five hundred years. Whatever the man in black had learned from the interrogation, Will hoped beyond hope that he hadn’t revealed Hurst’s security protocols, guard patrols or defensive frailties. In the end, he knew everyone broke; it was only a matter of time. There had been no need for their more experimental interrogation techniques improvised from what they knew of waterboarding. In Will’s case they had simply injected him with a cocktail of drugs and viciously beaten him. It was crude but effective. There was no Geneva Convention to protect the many captives the hospital handled on a weekly basis. They had grown pretty good at extracting information. Which all meant that Copper and the man in black now knew everything Will knew, and that gave them the upper hand.
****
Copper was meticulous about their preparation. He meant to leave nothing to chance. His team spent the day checking and rechecking equipment. Several of them made a trip back to the hospital to get more food and supplies. By mid-afternoon, the weather was still holding fair, with scattered clouds and more moderate winds. They stowed their gear on board the boats, cleaned their weapons, loaded magazines, laid out the rope and grappling hook on the quay and then packed it away. The man in black congratulated Copper and his team. Walking amongst them with his hands on hips, he proudly inspected his foot soldiers. They were as ready as they would ever be. Providing the weather held, it was now or never.
Will blamed his poor luck and bitterly regretted his failure to escape when the previous guard had been on duty. For now, his opportunity was gone. He would need to bide his time and hope a fresh chance for diversion presented itself.
After Will’s midnight rendezvous with the landlord’s daughter, the guard shift at the Ship Inn changed and one of Copper’s most trusted men had been charged with keeping watch over their prisoner. Will pretended to sleep, running through the execution of his plan, step by step, waiting for his guard to lose interest or drop off. Copper’s men were professional and stuck to their task, unlike some of the others from the hospital without military or police training. He had learned through bitter experience, they were mostly nihilists or thugs with a chip on the shoulder. Definitely worth avoiding eye contact. They tended to have a short fuse and a thirst for violence.
By seven, with the light fading and the moon rising behind distant clouds, they started loading up the boats on the quay. Copper would take the lead in the first R.I.B with four of his best men, forming the tip of the spear of the attack. In the larger pleasure craft, a ferryboat with covered main cabin, Sarge would lead the main force of some ten men, including Will and the man in black. The ferryboat had spent a lifetime shuttling tourists to the Needles rocks and back, so was shallow draft but seaworthy, ideal for their purposes. Last but not least was a back-up team of four men in a second fast inflatable. They would be held in reserve until the drawbridge was down and the main force was inside.
Will was running out of time. With the attack certain to go ahead tonight, he somehow had to find a way to escape. Hurst’s future hung in the balance. Everything depended on Will now. He could not let his friends down. He figured it would take at least two and a half hours to walk back to the castle. He could picture the coastal footpath that ran along the estuary and marshlands towards Keyhaven. If he jogged most of the way then he could probably shave an hour off that, but the thought of running in the tired old working boots he was wearing, having not run for months, filled him with dread. Years of unhealthy living, Cornish pasty lunches and a fondness for Ringwood ale, had left him soft around the middle. The last couple of years living from hand to mouth had done remarkably little to shift that flab. He had at least lost some weight, he was sure of that, just not in the places he tended to pay attention to. The chances of finding a bicycle or a boat were slim, but he might get lucky. Lady Luck had a funny way of smiling on him when he least expected it.
With the rest of the men ferrying equipment to the waiting boats, for a few moments, Will and his minder were the only people left in the pub. Will was pretending to sleep, his eyes closed. The guard was distracted, no longer paying attention to Will. The landlord’s daughter was polishing glasses behind the bar. She had changed into figure-hugging jeans and was adjusting her hair in a mirror, applying some lipstick. She dropped her cloth and stretched down to retrieve it. Was she doing it on purpose? She was certainly drawing attention to herself, whether deliberate or not. The guard now had his back to Will. He seized his chance, taking him completely by surprise. His body low like a rugby tackle but with his wrists still tied, he charged at the man, making contact with his shoulder, barging him with all his might. The guard slammed his head hard into the wall, knocking over one of the tables. He lay still, stunned for a few moments. Will glanced back towards the landlord’s daughter. She waved him urgently towards the back door.
He wiggled under the hatchway
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