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shallow-rooted rushes cunningly disguising it so that an unwary traveller
might stumble into it. Nature's own death-trap.
The mist had eddied and for a few brief moments PC Jock Houliston saw his
attackers again, ringed around the edge of the bog, their hideous faces masked
by the shadows cast by their wide headgear. He could not see their expressions
yet he felt their malevolence, a blast of sheer cold hate.
Why, oh Jesus Christ, why are you doing this to me?
He sank in another few inches; it was too late to try and extricate himself by
lying full length, he had gone in too deep. The mud stirred noisily, greedily,
devouring him by the second, pulling him down avidly.
'Just bloody well tell me why.'
No answer. These creatures who roamed the mists of Droy Wood and its marshes
answered to nobody for their actions. The laws were of their own making, since
the days when they had been commanded to apprehend those who came ashore
secretly, and they saw no reason to change anything.
The policeman had resigned himself to death, did not even attempt to prolong
his life when his chin slipped below the shifting mud. It was dark, night
already, he had been in this bog for hours; it had seemed only minutes.
And somewhere, not too far away, he could hear men shouting, dogs barking
excitedly as they picked up a scent. One last flicker of hope had him opening
his mouth, mustering his breath for a final scream that would bring the search
party in this direction.
He almost made it, but his cry for help was drowned by a rush of foul liquid
mud pouring into his open mouth.
THIRTEEN
Andy Dark hauled himself up into the lower branches of the towering oak tree,
pulled Carol up behind him. Climbing, helping her from one bough up on to the
next, and all the time Bertie Hass was still shooting. The shots vibrated the
damp night air, then died away to a frantic metallic clicking.
A snarling and growling, an animal yelping with pain somewhere.
They're wolves, all right,' Andy muttered. 'They can't be anything else.'
'It's impossible.' Carol closed her eyes, tried to convince herself that at
any second she would wake up. Please God let it all be a nightmare, a fever
brought on by stubbornly walking home in the pouring rain the other night. She
hadn't been picked up and raped by a stranger, not imprisoned in those
terrible dungeons. The German didn't exist, she wasn't clinging to a branch of
a tree, scared she might fall, with ravenous wolves down below. Because wolves
were long gone from Britain.
The wolves were baying more persistently now, If you peered into the gloom you
could just make out flitting shadowy shapes that might have been Alsatian
dogs. Only you knew they weren't.
'Something's gone terribly wrong,' Andy said.
'What do you mean?'
'It's like the whole wood has come to life. Not just a crackpot German who's
still fighting World War II. Time hasn't just slipped back forty years, it's
reverted centuries, maybe even further, got sort of all mixed up. Like it's
been waiting for thousands of years for something to happen and now it's all
happening at once. A kind of spoof film only you're bang hi the middle of it
and it's' all for real.'
'What are we going to do?'
'For the moment we can't do anything except stop right here.'
Waiting and listening, knowing that it wasn't a fevered dream, praying for it
to get light. For the mist to clear; for a party of searchers to appear armed
with guns. Clutching at vain hopes, knowing in their hearts that they were all
going to come to nothing.
'I can't understand why somebody hasn't come looking for us,' Carol said.
'Surely they've found the Mini and your Land Rover. They must know we're in
here so why don't they come?'
They probably have,' he replied. 'But I guess ... the wood isn't the same for
everybody. Maybe all they see is fog and a dense wood that they have to rely
on the dogs to search. I don't know, it defies explanation. I'm only guessing
anyway.'
Seconds later they heard the German screaming, hoarse cries of fear, a renewed
snarling; it sounded like the wolves were fighting among themselves. It lasted
perhaps a minute, no longer, and then the silence roiled back.
'How horrible.' Carol Embleton was trying not to conjure up a picture in her
mind of a strange uniformed man being torn apart by savage beasts that should
have been extinct for centuries.
'He didn't make it up into the trees,' Andy said quietly, slipping a
reassuring arm around Carol. Time had run out for him. I reckon that
parachutist coming down out of the sky tonight was his death sign. Poor sod,
but he wasn't . . . real, to explain it simply. I guess he didn't feel
anything. I can't explain it any other way.'
They lapsed into silence, reluctant to put their thoughts into words. It would
have to get light eventually; at least they hoped it would. There was no
guarantee. Droy Wood defied not just the laws of Nature but those of the
universe as well.
'What's that?' Carol must have dozed, awoke with a start, aware of a numbness
in her legs, cramped so that she might have fallen if Andy had not been
supporting her. She heard a distant rushing sound like a series of waterfalls
in full spate, recalled a childhood visit to the Elan Valley where she had
stared in awe at the mighty foaming dams.
'It's the sea,' Andy Dark replied, 'I know for a fact that this week there are
the highest tides of the year. Sometimes, according to the locals, the wood
has been flooded right up to the road.' The road, oh what wouldn't we give
just to set foot on that hard flat tarmac. 'I've never witnessed the autumn
tides myself and you can't always believe what the villagers tell you, but
that sea sounds bloody angry to me. I'd've thought there would have been a
raging gale in that case, one to blow this damned fog away. Hey, it's starting
to get light!'
The fog was turning a lighter shade of grey, they could make out the shapes of
the trees around them, boles that became faces again. Expressions. If you
stared at them long enough you read something that transcended malevolence.
Fear! It was as though Droy Wood itself was afraid, engendering an atmosphere
of impending doom, hell awaiting its own collapse.
The light was coming fast, the vapour now taking on a faint rosy hue as though
the sun was trying to break through, a battle of the elements with a raging
sea providing eerie background music. But still there was no wind, just a
deadly unnatural calm.
Andy tensed, thought he heard a scream somewhere but he could not be sure. A
single yell of pain and terror like Bertie Hass had made when the wolves
bunched and rushed him.
'Well, we can't stay here.' The conservation officer finally put into words
his thoughts of the past half-hour.
'We're not . . . going down there? Carol gripped his arm. 'We can't, Andy. The
wolves . . . !'
The wolves have gone.' At least I bloody well hope so. 'I don't think we'll
have any more trouble from them but if we hear them we'll just have to shin up
the nearest tree. If we stay up here much longer we'll get so cramped we'll
fall anyway.'
'I suppose you're right.' She was staring into the mist, making out shapes
that could have been wolves but probably were not. In this wood anything might
be just anything, or, on the other hand, nothing at all. You never found out
until it was too late.
'I've been thinking,' she wasn't going to like this very much, 'if we just go
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