“Until the walrus mustache attached to a police constable makes its appearance. We’ll cross the border soon and head toward Dumfries.”
Caitrin pulled out the map. “Dumfries. Got it.”
“Then it’s the A76 to Kilmarnock, Ardrossan, and up the River Clyde to Greenock. We’re almost home.”
Caitrin scanned the list of stately homes. “North of the border we seem to be lacking a choice of accommodation.”
“There is one. We’ll stop at Mauchline House. My friend James Gordon lives there. We were in the same class at St. Paul’s. We went skiing and played rackets together.”
“You wicked little Al Capone you.”
“Not the rackets. Rackets. It’s an indoor game played with rackets. Began at the Fleet Debtors’ Prison, and the public schools picked it up. It’s where lawn tennis came from. Did you play sports?”
“Where I come from, little girls only get to play house, and then mother.”
“But not you.”
“Not me.”
“I have a question. If, as you surmised earlier, I might be a member of SOE, what might you belong to?”
“Five twelve.”
“That’s it? Not Section 512, Department 512, or Regiment 512?”
“Five twelve.”
“I have never heard of it.”
“You’re not supposed to,” Caitrin said and spread out the map. “This country has some strange places. Listen: Cargen, Duncow, Auldgirth, and let’s not forget Enterkinfoot.”
“Good job at changing the subject. At least, unlike Welsh, they have vowels. What’s that outrageously long place?”
“It’s Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysilio-gogogoch.”
“Amazing.”
“You wouldn’t know if I just made it up.”
“Or care that much, actually.” Hector swung the car off the road and up a country lane.
“Where are we going?”
Hector jabbed at the map. “There. A disused quarry.”
The lane dropped into a shallow valley and Hector turned onto an even narrower track that led to the quarry. He stopped the car, got out, went to the boot, and retrieved two tins. He held them up as he passed her window. “Come on, and bring that antique howitzer of yours.”
“Why?”
“If the chaps who are following us catch up, I want to know how good a shot you are.”
Caitrin got out with her revolver and followed him. “Baked beans? That’s good food, and I could get a shilling apiece for those tins.”
He lodged the tins horizontally into a stone wall with the tops facing them. “What distance? Five, ten yards?”
“Twenty.”
“You jest. We can’t even see the tins at that range. Be lucky to hit the wall.”
“Then use an effigy of Oliver Cromwell instead. Twenty yards.”
“All right.” Hector paced off twenty yards, raised his Browning Hi-Power, aimed, and fired.
“Six inches left and low,” Caitrin said.
He fired three more shots and hit with the last one. “Your turn.”
Caitrin aimed and fired. And fired and fired, eight times until the revolver was empty. “I just ruined supper.”
Hector stared at her in disbelief. ”You hit your target four times and then mine four times. Eight shots.”
Caitrin held up her revolver. “This is a Webley-Fosbery .38, not, as you thought, a .455, and holds eight rounds, not six. May I?”
She gave him her revolver and put out her hand for his automatic, and he watched himself give it to her. She seemed to raise, aim, and fire in one sweeping movement. The first two shots missed—they were sighting shots—but the rest struck home. She handed it back and reloaded her revolver. “Verily you have a fine and manly weapon, Sire, but I prefer mine.”
16
Caitrin leaned forward, peered up through the windscreen, wrinkled her nose, and said, “I don’t care who he is, I am not going in there. We go in, we’ll never come out.”
