“We’ll be pulling in as soon as we sight a good spot,” Greybeard said. “We must get well away from Sparcot, but we don’t want to overtake Gipsy Joan’s crew from Grafton. Keep a good heart. I’ve some provisions stored in the boat, as well as what we’ve brought with us.”
“You’re a deep one,” Towin said. “You ought to have shot Jim Mole and taken over Sparcot, man. The people would have backed you.”
Greybeard did not reply.
The river unfolded itself with a series of bends, a cripple in a rack of sedges making its way eastwards to liberty. When a bridge loomed ahead, they ceased paddling and drifted towards it. It was a good Georgian structure with a high arch and sound parapet; they snuggled in to the bank on the upstream side of it. Greybeard took up his rifle.
“There should be habitation near a bridge,” he said. “Stay here while I go and look around.”
“I’ll come with you,” Charley said. “Isaac can stay in the boat.” He gave the anxious beast’s leash to Martha, who fondled the fox to keep it quiet.
The two men stepped out of the boat. They climbed up the bank and crouched among rotting plants. Behind them, an overripe winter’s sun blinked at them from among trees. Except for the sun, distorted by the bare trunks through which it shone, all else was told in tones of grey. A mist like a snowdrift hung low across the land. Before them, beyond the littered road that crossed the bridge, was a large building. It seemed to stand on top of the mist without touching the ground. Under a muddle of tall chimney-stacks, it lay ancient and wicked and without life; the sun was reflected from an upper window-pane, endowing it with one lustreless eye. When nothing moved but a scatter of rooks winging overhead, the men heaved themselves up on to the road, and crossed to the cover of a hedgerow.
“Looks like an old public house,” Charley said. “No sign of life about it. Deserted, I should say.”
As he spoke, they heard a cough from beyond the hedgerow. They crouched, peering among the haws that hung there, scanning the field beyond. The field ran down to the river. Though it was drenched in mist, its freedom from weed and other growth indicated the presence of some sort of ruminative life. Their breath steamed in the brush as they scanned the place. The cough came again.
Greybeard pointed silently. In the corner of the field closest to the house, a shed stood. Clustered against one side of it were sheep, four or five of them.
“I thought sheep had died out long ago,” Charley muttered.
“It means there’s someone in the house.”
“We don’t want an argument with them. Let’s pull farther upstream. We’ve an hour more daylight yet.”
“No, let’s look over this place. They’re isolated here; they may be glad of company, if we can convince them we’re friendly.”
It was impossible to overcome the feeling that they might be covered by one or more guns from the silent building. Keeping their gaze on the vacant windows, they moved forward. In front of the house, with ample cover near by, stood a car of dejected appearance. It had long since slumped into a posture of defeat as its tyres sagged on to the ground.
They ran to it, crouching behind it to observe the house. Still no sign of movement. They saw that most of the windows were boarded up.
“Is there anyone there?” Greyboard called. No answer came.
As Charley had guessed, it was a public house. The old inn sign lay rotting near by, and a name board had curled away from over the front door and lay across the well-worn steps. On a downstairs window they read the word ALES engraved there. Greybeard took in the details before calling again. Still there was no answer.
“We’ll try round the back,” he said, rising.
“Don’t you think we’d be all right in the boat for one night?”
“It will be cold later. Let’s try the back.”
At the rear of the building, a track led from the back door towards the sheep field. Standing against the damp brickwork, Greybeard with his rifle at the ready, they called again. Nobody replied. Greybeard leant forward and stared quickly into the nearest window. A man was sitting just inside, looking at him.
His heart gave a jerk. He fell back against Charley, his spine suddenly chill. When he had control of his nerves, he thrust his gun forward and rapped on a window-pane.
“We’re friends,” he called.
Silence.
“We’re friends, you bastard!”
This time he shattered the pane. The glass fell, then silence again.
The two men looked at each other, their faces close and drawn.
“He must be sick or dead or something,” Charley said. Ducking past Greybeard and under the window, he reached the back door. With a shoulder against it, he turned the handle and charged in. Greybeard followed.
The face of the seated man was as grey as the daylight at which he stared with such fixity. His lips were ravaged and broken as if by a powerful poison. He sat upright in an old chair facing the sink. In his lap, still not entirely empty, lay a can of pesticide.
Charley crossed himself. “May he rest in peace. There’s provocation enough for anyone taking their own life these days.”
Greybeard took the can of pesticide and hurled it out into the bushes. “Why did he kill himself? It can’t have been for want of food, with his sheep still out there. We’ll have to search the house, Charley. There may be someone else here.”
Upstairs, in a room into which the dying sun still gleamed, they found her. She was wasted to nothing under the blankets. In a receptacle by her bedside was a pool of something that might have been clotted soup. She had died of an illness, that much was obvious; that she had been dead longer than the man downstairs was also apparent, for the room was thick with the odour of death.
“Probably cancer,” Greybeard said. “Her husband had no reason to go on living once she’d gone.” He had to break the silence, though breathing in the room was difficult. Pulling himself together, he said, “Let’s get them both outside and hidden in the bushes. Then we can move in here for the night.”
“We must give them burial, Algy.”
“It takes too much energy. Let’s get settled in and be thankful we found a safe place so easily.”
“We may have been guided here to give these poor souls decent burial.”
Greybeard looked slantingly at the brown object rotting on the pillow. “Why should the Almighty want that back, Charley?”
“You might as well ask why he wants us here.”
“By God, I often do ask it, Charley. Now don’t argue; let’s get the corpses hidden where the women won’t see them, and perhaps in the morning we’ll think about burial.”
With as good a grace as he could muster, Charley helped in the dreary business. The best place of concealment turned out to be the shed in the field. They left the corpses there, with the sheep — there proved to be six of them — looking on. They saw to it that the sheep had water, wrenched open a couple of windows to air the house, and went to get the rest of the party. When the boat was safely moored, they all moved into the house.
Down in the cellars where barrels of beer had once stood, they found a smoked joint of meat hanging on a hook to be out of the reach of rats — of those there was plenty of evidence. They found a lamp that contained sheep fat and smelt villainously, though it burnt well. And Towin found five bottles of gin in a crate hidden in an unused grate.
“Just what I need for my rheumatics, then!” he said, opening a bottle. Placing his sharp nose over the mouth, he inhaled eagerly and then took a swig.
The women piled wood into a range in the kitchen and prepared a meal, disguising the high taste of the mutton with some of the herbs that lay in jars in the larder. Their warmth came back to them. Something like the elderly brother of a party spirit revived between them, and when they had eaten they settled down for sleep in a cheerful frame of mind.